The Badlands

by Robert Tate

The badlands, 
the sad lands, 
the once-had lands.
Shaped by the winds the hoodoos whisper,
“Nobody wins.”
The land grab blessed by Rome, 
then sins confessed and just go home. 

From Parliament to pulpit, Proclamations to Papal Bulls (hit).
Threaten endangered grass for gas (lit).
Legal legislations versus red-skinned Nations. 
“Free” land in Sask. Just ask, 
if you’re white, it’s your birth-right.

The chinook lands, 
the mistook lands, 
the shook-hands lands.
The ripe and the greedy, 
The white and the needy.
The alt-right versus what is right, 
Ndn’s versus white.

The wheat lands,
legislative-seat lands,
the white mans’
best laid plans.
Some take, some create.
Better get yours before it’s too late.
Get it while the getting’s good, 
And dump the trash in some
poor neighborhood. 

The oil sands,
poison Indian bands’
last little lands.
Fricking and fracking
Unleashed like a beast 
The bitumen Kraken, 
tentacles writhing,
beak like lips smacking.

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Robert Tate (He/Him) is of mixed settler and Anishinaabe ancestry and is a member of Couchiching First Nation. Robert recently graduated with a BA in psychology from Concordia University of Edmonton, where he will pursue a doctorate in the fall of 2023. Robert is a Resistance-Poet with two eyes towards social justice.