A Bit of Poetry

JUST BECAUSE
[from Ottawalk News, no. 21/22, Summer 1993]
by Chris Bradshaw

Just because I can step over things,
doesn’t mean you should freely drop litter or
fail to fix the sidewalk.
Just because I can easily change my path,
doesn’t mean you should put obstacles in my way.
Just because I can stop quickly,
doesn’t mean you should expect me to yield to those who can’t.
Just because I don’t pollute,
doesn’t mean that my unfettered movement should
not be made more efficient.
Just because I don’t move fast,
doesn’t mean my time isn’t valuable.
Just because I have a soft exterior,
doesn’t mean street “furniture” can be hard and unyielding.
Just because my clothes are washable,
doesn’t mean you can splash me or leave your car or
building dirty.
Just because I don’t need parking,
doesn’t mean I don’t like to sit down periodically.
Just because I pose no threat of injury to others,
doesn’t mean I deserve any less respect.

= = = = = =

Power on the Roads

In every field; the more you wield; the more you yield; lest others shield.

= = = = =

Kids and Trees

If You Want Us Around, Give Us Some Ground

= = = = = =

STREETS (2008)

Car-ful, careful.  Car-free, carefree.

ANAGRAM ART

Cars scar; parks spark; marts smart; paces space; peaks speak.

Lips slip; ends send; kids skid; urges surge; colds scold; tubs stub.

Talks stalk; ticks stick; tamps stamp; nags snag; cuffs scuff; & prizes s’prise.

Five Variations: Inco’s scion coins sonic icons.

= = = = = =

The D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-C-E
a poem by Chris Bradshaw (December 1980)

I perceive movement and change; therefore I am.
I am the pattern caused by the mixing of the waves of all that moves and changes;
My mind is the accumulation of these waves,
My soul is the accumulated effort to understand those patterns.

I have carefully staked out my gazing grounds. Not physical they,
They constitute my envelope, the partition between reality and meta-reality;
This, like my lungs, expands and contracts to match my needs and fears;
The envelope is my mind’ my mind is my envelope.

To bring any meaning to others’ minds is a true unreachable,
It is not an explanation that I offer ut an oblique feedback of hope;
A common consciousness   it resides in no one mind,
But lives as a pattern of minds, indivisible.

Reaching down through the inner envelope, like a membrane sucked into the mouth;
Probing the organs that push; testing the thoughts that define the ‘out there’;
To know that which knows, but without a vocabulary to mediate;
To picture that which is never still, never whole; to see where the soul casts its shadow.

I change, therefore there is something ‘out there’;
But each change4 brings a change in the envelope’s shape, texture, colour.
What was beyond is now within’ what is, was;
To tempt a more static reality is to remove knowing from being.

I glide on a sea of words; to me they are the softest, the smoothest,
Reflecting the silvery shimmerings of haunting fears, frozen into ghosts.
They are not real, but their force pushes me uphill
To a place hope never arrives but is always in the foreground.

To be both inside and outside this envelope which stands between us and the unlimited, the untimid
Means being our own mirror, just to make ourselves while (or hole).
What I am is only what I was; the process of moving to another state is the only constant.
I reverberate with life.  I am the difference.