Produced by the National Film Board of Canada
(1968)
In the house of maimed desire
he will take your dreams of fire
and melt them into lead;
he will give you dancing girls
and colour nightmares red or
style a snake on your back
so the coiled cylinder moves:
his needle dances with light,
his eyes are heavy and black.
His eyes are smithies of night
forging dreams of fire
in the city's burning groves,
and his house of maimed desire
is the graveyard of your loves.
What is a Canadian
anyway? A mountain, a maple
leaf, a prarie, a Niagara fall,
a trail beside the Atlantic, a
bilingualism, a scarred mosaic,
a yes-no somehow-or-other maybe
might-be should-be could-be
glacial shield, grain elevator,
empire daughter imperial order of
man woman child or what?
poems by Miriam Waddington
