Raymond was strapped in grade four.
Reportedly told a kid to *******.
True heresay.
This happened a while ago.
He could'a been stood against the board,
With his nose in a circle for thirty minutes.
(Lines were always a waste of everyone's time)
Could'a stood him at the back for the morning,
Or out in the hall, or suspended,
Later expelled.
He could'a been fired and unemployed,
******* and unsocial,
And, again, later, crooked.
True heresy.
Then we tell him to *******,
Which we should've done first,
And left it at that.

A father is a tree.
He is sappy at times,
And once distilled,
He's sweet.
He radiates limbs
To provide shelter
And shade from harm;
His roots are deep
And nourishing.
He is oak and willow,
Fruitful and sharing.
But most of all,
He hugs like bark.

If I were to write you
A love poem
(this is only hypothetical),
So, let's pretend,
Like poets do.
Would you fit inside
The confines of a sonnet:
No, you're more free,
More like a breeze.
You're not ballad-like;
Though you could be
With those alluring green eyes.
I'd work on an ode
But you don't like heights.
We're not close enough for couplets, yet.
Free verse sounds like a fine fit.
You may end up being a muse someday
If I get the hang of it.
Most certainly when our elegy's written.

That girl doesn't know yet,
But she is going to fall
Madly in love with me.

I'm as sure of that as:
Mary breaking all the school rules;
The fox enjoying the gingerbread man;
The sky not falling on Chicken Little;
The safety of the three little pigs;
The birds eating Gretel's crumbs;
Midnight striking and the slipper dropping;
Cows jumbing moons, cats playing fiddles;
Doctor Foster making it to Gloucester;
Georgie making girls cry;
The little teapot getting steamed up;
The old man snoring;
Mary is contrary;
Old McDonald can spell;
Mother Hubbard's dog going boneless;
Polly making tea;
The wheels on the bus going round... and round;
The kittens finding their mittens, and hence, getting their pie.

Yes, that girl will fall in love with me;
I will read all the rhymes and stories
To her I read to her mother,
And she was once a little girl,
And she loves me.

I'm holding court
In my home,
Not so regal
On my throne.
The peons line-up
As I moan,
Trying to pass
My kidney stones.

We've been cautioned to surrender
Before jack-boots hit our streets;
It was an open warning
With podium bleats like sheep.

They side-stepped all discretion,
They pivoted 'round masked stealth;
They aired their anonymity
On the media's lips of wealth.

And there, behind the curtain skirts,
Lurking in the wings,
In shadows and back street doors,
They listened,
Pulling strings.

A hind leg
Shaped like Antarctica
Will scratch us off
This golden retriever.

A passing UFO
May crop-dust us.

We're nibbling cheese
Near the trap;
Swimming upstream
Towards spears and nets;
Making reservations
In a roach hotel;
We're in the cross-hairs
Of Mother ******;
The place needs sheep-dipping
Before dinosaurs walk
On a new coat.

When writers stop telling us
What we don't know;
When the musicians pack up
And leave the Big Show;
When the actors stop showing us
How to feel;
And all the mixed Players
Leave all playing Fields;
When the clerics and laity
Stop living in Awe;
And the Body Politic
Stops abusing our Laws;
When teachers stop returning
To teach in Homerooms;
And we finally accept
There are no empty tombs;
When the philosophers stop telling us
How we should think;
And our Leaders abdicate
Because of the stink;
When all the Professionals
Stop professing their Trade;
And we ruminate peacefully
Over an Open Grave;
We will ask,
Was anyone saved.

Hailed as the land of opportunity,
The four corners sent humanity
With promises of liberty
For those suffering cruelty
From religion, race and poverty.

Today it's a land of delusion,
Too many in exclusion
Because of religion, race and poverty,
By displaying inhuman duality.

Come visit Canada,
Here you'll see,
What America once aspired to be.

Peep. Peep. Peep.
Wee chicks
I love to keep.

Peep. Peep. Peep.
Chicks cluster
At my feet.

Peep. Peep. Peep.
In warmth and comfort
Sleep.

Peep. Peep. Peep.
For weeks
You feed and peep.

Oh little Peeps
On grain you're fed;
Wee Peeps,
Wee Peeps,
Now dead.
Now dead.

We are human beings.
(most of the time)
Being means to exist.
(all of the time)
So, how can a human being
Be dead?
Be that, as it may.

I have a cemetary inside.
No fences.
Bodies are layered
East, west, north, south.
Legs and arms wrap my organs,
Squeezing sideways, lengthways
And diagonally.
Dates are heartstones
Chiselled in my brain.
They arrive unexpectedly,
Some from places I've not visited,
And stay.
It's crowded,
They keep coming.
I've flowers and meditations as well,
And sit quietly amidst the noise
And visit.

If we could PVR our lives,
We'd pause at moments
Of delight;
Rewind when memory's
Not quite right;
Fast forward during
Times of strife;
Hit mute if we get too loud,
Reboot when we act too proud.
I've moments like
A satelite stream
Of unseen waves
Directing themes
In 3D pixels,
And onetime dreams.

Years ago,
More like lifetimes,
I was better
Than most anyone
In any sport.
A champion.
I was very good,
Better than most anybody
In my education, with family,
Had two closest pals.
I had cars, motorcycles,
Clothes, girls.
I always had the better part
Of a North American middle class life.
Today, I'm elated
To be one of most anybody.

I'm anxious of leaving,
I know where
It's leading,
To a cave
With no
Rear exit.
It's dark,
So dark,
My fears
Are well-grounded,
There's only room
For me.

The guards
Have fallen asleep;
A crack appears
In the wall.
Sun's golden fingers
Reach my pall:
Attitude shifts,
Blackness lifts,
I'm not
Alone
At all.

The strangest dream
I've ever had,
Is when I dined
With the dead.

My skinless, boneless
Friends and foes,
Enjoyed the spread
Of Deviled Toes,
Deviled Ham,
Grapes of wrath,
Deviled eggs
And sin-namon bread.
The deviled tongue
Sang no siren's song
Marinading in
Devil's Dung.

Devils On Horseback
Washed down
Our gullets,
And ****** Mary's
Flooded the banquet
Capping the feast.
I opened eyes
To end REM sleep.

Since then
My morning meal
Has altered.
Encouraged by
The risen sun,
I butter myself
A Hot Cross Bun.

My girlfriend's girlfriends
Have a friend,
     Whom
They demurely refer to as:
      Bob.
He's ever-ready,
Like the bunny,
Current, never late;
And yet he'll never
Ever date.

He's no fireman,
Or a cop,
More Chippendale -
They say he's hot.
He's not needy,
He's out to please,
From what they say,
He likes to tease.
He's not a boy,
He's not a toy.

Later, when the deed is done,
He's not one to kiss and run.
He's the Alpha
And Omega,
He's the cause
Of their hysteria.

Bob surely has a way.

And should the girls
Play hard to get,
Bob's not one
To sit and fret:
And should the girls
Still want to play,
They replace
Two Double A's.

The terrorists are winning,
The poets are leaving
Their bodies in the sand.
It's an Exodus from captivity,
And they'll wander
Looking for a home.
We need a prophet,
A staff to crack the stones
So words flow untroubled
Onto the desert floor.

I was never an adulterer,
I did **** myself over,
And ****** alone;
But the "A" that keeps sticking
Is as prominent as Hester's.

I was never an abuser,
But I can do a real fine job on myself;
And then the guilt sets in,
Like a hard-packed snowbank,
And I need to get the shovel.

That amber-coloured "A"
Always leads to the stairs of shame
I climb like my cross;
Then lie in state
Until the resurrection.

I'm a young man in the spring,
Looking forward to anything...everything;
Undaunted in the offerings.
Nothing's too demanding,
What's out of reach is possible:
If I lift my arms I can fly,
Open my mouth I sing,
Close my eyes, I paint;
Reach out and envelope
What others too soon reject.
It's the spring of my year,
And summer's coming on.

I'm a thirty-something in summer.
Disappointments and expectations abound
Under a cloud-split sunny sky.
I can flap my arms, looking chicken-like,
I'm asked not to sing so loud,
I close my eyes, one at a time,
To read the chart.
My arms are getting full,
But I have room for more.

Autumn comes on my heels.
It's a time for preparation.
Savings, spendings, give-aways
Fill forty years of duty.
Taxes, mortgages, tuition,
Weddings, christenings,
Hellos and goodbyes to the loved.
Winter is coming in off the lake.

Today coincides with the solstice;
The least amount of light,
I can feel it now.
I close my eyes to nap,
I am grounded, well-grounded,
I accompany the singers with a uke,
And lip sync.
I hear every note.
I'm skating again at the arena,
Sugar Shack is playing.

The message was as legible
As orbits in astrophysics.
The syntax was true as
A mathematical equation,
Not calculated by accident or coincidence.
And precise, announcing,

HAPPY VALLEY NUDIST CAMP

Boldly, on a southern hillside,
In white-painted stones,
On Hywy #22,
On the crossroads between youth and age,
Doubt and confusion.

The stones are gone.
Picked over, or, rolled down the hillside.
And the Hywy is hardly used.
How. By accident or happenstance?
Or a higher intelligence orchestrated
The arrangement of the stone message.


And this happened outside our town.
On the road to London.

Me and mine had our fill of HIS ****** royal Lip,
And racist, sexist philandering entitlement.

I missed you
When I swerved;
Next time
I won't.

Late last night,
A spectral fog
Billowed off the lake,
Clouded down my street.
I thought to grab
My feathered fedora,
Stand, leaning
Under the yellow street light,
Hat pulled down to my brows.
I'd light a plain Phillip Morris,
And with the first pull,
Blow smoke through my nose,
Punctuating each syllable
With blue:
"A cliche is worth a thousand words."

Put down your pens and pencils,

You've been on that swing long enough.

Congratulations. You did the crime, now...

Your five minute egg is ready.

The ebb and flow of tides is discriminate.

Your light turned green.

... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...Blast Off.

... to conclude our meeting...

Just one more contraction...

My worthy opponent considers...

Find the escape door in this room before
Time's Up.

Be reassured. Be content. Good things take time, and don't wait
for them to happen.

But if Time isn't Matter,
Should it.

Where do society's extremists abide?
Rallies and Racists go side by side.
BBQs offer up well-done bigots;
On Jordan's lap dance the zealots.
Dogmatists rant in wild front rows,
True believers don't put on such shows?
Sexists cower in coastal Compounds,
Sects marry often in Salt Lake towns.
Troglodytes tan beneath southern suns.
Sepratists hold their final stand
On this side of The Rio Grande;
Fanatics occupy far Left and Right,
Partisans Op Eds are meant to enlight.
Mysoginists grab till they have blisters,
Huns and louts date brothers and sisters.
Philistines take our private spaces,
And whistle-blowers can't show their faces.

Of all the ists I know and abhor,
The musicist is a bigoted boor;
A connoisseur I abjure,
Who chooses tunes he insists
Are superior than my interests,
And disses tunes I like best.

So now I'll lay my needle down,
I've turned the table that goes round,
And plead musicists won't hesitate
To enjoy the tunes... don't discriminate.

She shakes her ****
When I get home;
Does everything
To get the bone.
She realizes;
I recognize.

The new born eyes
Me so intently;
I return the gaze
Just as gently.
She realizes;
I recognize.

The battered bird
With feathers thinning,
Knows Spring's waxing,
Winter's waning.
It realizes;
I recognize.

So too with art
As pieces languish,
Some we banish
As too outlandish;
Some are lost
At our great cost;
Some are found
Underground,
In a cave
On frescoes walls,
In attic, cellar,
Flea market stalls.

A sonnet found
In some distant shire,
Or ten words
Of wisdom
We retired;
Banished today,
Tomorrow admired.
We realize;
We recognize
Not all our work
Can inspire,
When buried in
The hit pismire.

Early September smells
Of the familiar.
Pungent socks on hissing rads;
Cuffed wellingtons
Strewn on cloak-room floors.
Mine have my initials
In bold red letters.
Peanut butter and oranges
Douse the old rooms,
And Quick swirls in fruit jars.

Home for lunch,
Mammy serves plates
Of beans and bread
To the middle of the table,
Where she'll sit, mug in hand,
After whisking us
Out the door.

I knew she sat there,
Thinking of her
Lost children,
Buried for eternity.
Never to revisit.
No desire to.
Her kettle clouds
The kitchen;
From the vapors she heard,
Bye, Mammy.

Tomorrow, the bells
Ring again.
I'll sit with the kettle
And school days' thoughts
And life's lessons
On history
And good-byes.

From this hypocrite
To all others,
Let's not pretend
We're all brothers.
Stop the smile,
Stop the shakes,
The vacuous pats,
The thumbs up signals
That we're great.
I know you haven't
Got my back.
Let's assume
We're new strangers;
Start again,
Yet still pretenders:
It still comes out the same.

You don't see real ghosts;
The ones that drink Sprite,
Or sun on the sands of Lake Erie.
Most ghosts have better things to do
Than haunt you.
What you do see
Are spirits, holy or otherwise,
Taunting, egging,
Generally bothersome.
They're in pictures and mirrors,
Songs and places
You'd like to re-live,
Or forget altogether,
Past and present.
No, gimme a ghost anyday
Over a spirit.
When it's my turn,
I won't see you.

Near death stories
Are not death tales.
The widow's daughter,
In Nairn, to whom
Did she speak?
In Bethany,
Near Galilee,
Where Lazarus
Learned to talk,
Who asked him
On his walk,
With his dog on a
Sunday afternoon?
Jarius' daughter
Would like to offer
A quote and goat
At the altar
Of atonement.
She was never asked,
So she never spoke.
The scribes never scribbled
To answer the riddle;
They never went to press
With the Extra Big Scoop
On life after death
From the three
Who knew best.
Never recorded for all time.
Never a word from their minds.
Would they tell of a
Long lit tunnel
Lined with familiars
Slapping their astral *****
As they ran the gamut
Into eternity.
Nearing the Eternal Throne,
They hear:
     It's not your time.
     Go back for more.
     Keep the secrets,
     Believe in Him,
     For he won't
     Live to be thirty-four.

And so it's not written,
Let it be so.

I have sacred relics
Buried in my altar
To sanctify my life.
I don't kneel in supplication;
Still they know
My devotion,
My adoration,
My fealty.
I am blessed.

Yeshua was a young lad too,
Returned to Nazareth
When he was two,
Back from Egypt,
What a trip,
With a sib or two;
Riding on  the family mule.

Back at home he turned three,
So Mom invited family
To celebrate with bread and tea.
Great Auntie Liz
Gave him a teddy,
Larger than life,
He named it Zeydy.
To watch him lug it
Was pure pathos,
You'd think he dragged
A ten foot cross.

Two years later, he turned five,
Just learning guilt and how to shrive.
Brother Andrew gave him a frog,
That croaked aloud in synagogue.
So they cast him out:
A fitting
Prologue.

But the weirdest pet
For him to get
Was given at the age of eight.
Sister Martha gave a snake.
Yeshua named him Lucifer,
A Proper Name,
For an improper adder.
His crawling, slithering creepy looks
Often found him underfoot,
And crushed one day by ardent error,
So they cooked him on an open fire.

His favourite pet,
A ***** named Mary,
Would wag her tail
When he came home
From wondrous miracles
And lengthy sermons.
Mary never left his side,
She licked his feet
Until he died.

Now the Pope
Has decreed,
All our pets,
All the breeds,
Are welcome to eternal bliss
With  their master
And mistress.
There's a pet door
In the pearly gates,
For dogs, frogs
And holy cows;
Even Lucifer's
Back there now.

We’ll age like a well-worn porch
In a thunder storm;
Telling tales, sipping drinks,
Beneath a canopy of stars-
In a house that we call home.

Our basement’s stoked with love,
That melts away the cold;
The rafters hang with laughter,
To warm us when we’re old.

Our shelves are stocked
With hugs and kisses;
And jars of smiles and hopes;
The food of family ties,
That nourish hearts and souls.

When yer high on a streak
And no doubt its a freak
Aint nothin can beat yah
Not luck bad ner good
Dont doubt its a bet
A streakers regret
Tho yah aint beaten yet
The times surely set
Not by fate or yer odds
Ner the whim of the gods
But by an incredible drive
To keep going
Then die.

A lame idea's not a knock
At ones who can't stand and walk.

My eight handicap's not a slur
To any falling short of par.

I repeat, Are you deaf or something,
Doesn't insult the hard of hearing;
It only means you're not listening.

If one's blind as a bat,
It's not a slight, it's not a fact,
It's just a phrase we humans use;
I've heard some used against the Jews,
And others we've unlearned to use.

We of habit and long of tooth
Aren't as bad as you may think
When overhearing oldies speak:
I'm just jittery when I'm spooked.

Our excessive sensitivity's daunting.
Nothing said's meant to be hurting.

How does all this sit with Whitey?
Yes, Whitey's what I said.
Should I mind that name?
Isn't it the same?
It's used to ridicule,
Exposing Whiteys as the fools,
By some who think they're far too cool:

     Whitey said so...
     Whitey did so...
     Whitey don't know...

This Whitey do know;
He don't like this ****,
Not one little bit, Brother;
And it makes me cottin-pickin ******
With the hypocrisy, Sister.

Drove to London in a downpour.
My daughter's family lives there.
I had a picnic in the bathroom,
With Aine pouring tea.
She held out a sponge plate,
Offering watermelon soap,
And facecloth chicken salad sandwiches.
Though long lost,
I dialed in her perspective;
Her bubbles never burst.
I'll recall that wet picnic,
On sunny summer days,
As a favored meal.

The serpentine
Hissed wit
Whip keen,
Quick as mean,
Flicked tongue
At open sores.
He fancied himself clever;
Surveyed with
Cold red eyes,
Called no one
His better:
This Master of deception.
Others never
Felt the lash,
The cat-tailed snap
Of lips that cracked
A child's
Self-perception.

The boys ran
After the ball exploded
The bedroom window.
Shattered glass shards
In indiscriminate flight.

The ants re-grouped
To build after
The red-cherry erupted
The hill like Pompei,
Scattering serendipitously.

Grimmacing quarter moon
Pumpkins lay in hodge-podge
Pieces on All Saints Day.

Suitcases, clothes and neckties
Stewn on a runway
Like a kid's bedroom.

We move from order to chaos,
Like the third light
On a match.

I was lead to believe
Displacement Laws,
Science, and regular
Bowels could explain
Explosions,
So we can lift the stones
On Salisbury and Newgrange,
Or re-arrange grains of sand
With projected order.
We only have a beginning
And an end, while living
Through the explosions.

I wonder if I'm losing my mind.
Who, in their right mind, would think:
                     Our world is losing gravity,
                      And no one can escape...
I've a sensibility that sees the world:
                      There's a smell of beach on you...
Perhaps I'm too sensitive.
Perhaps I'll end up sitting in a corner,
Drooling verse:
                       Poets die, it's sad but true,
                       And it matters not what their bodies do...
A million years ago I was one to jeer
At the elderly,
Laugh at jokes in poor taste,
Avoid or ignor the extended empty coffee cup;
I wasn't thinking:
                        Charity is never wasted,
                         Even when refused;
                         A simple act of selflessness
                         Cannot be reduced.
What's to become of me?
Is it infectious?
What would happen if I sneezed at the world?
A pandemic of sensitivity?
Then where would we be!
I just might be doomed, and left drooling.

You remember Byron from other poems
I told you about. You can look them up
Later. Most of what I said was true
(Same as Twain -  Mark, not Shania).
When I arrived for my visit, Byron's good friend,
Clive, was there, holding a cold one in his country hands,
Before the wood stove in Byron's man-cave.
They were talking about welding joints,
Or the pitch of a roof frame, or something
I know ******* squat about.
Both men, uneducated, but clever as hell.
Without writing down a measurement,
Or drawing a sketch,
Could reproduce the Taj Mahal.
Like Plato's cave dwellers, they just see it, make it, nail it.
I brought up the problems my daughter is having
With her toy poodle,
And Clive joined in about his disobedient
Great Dane. I'll call him Laertes,
Though his real name is Butch.
Clive says Laertes never stops barking,
Shock collars don't work.
Treats were to no avail.
Obedience School only worked at school.
I could see Byron's hand on his chin,
Looking off and up to his left,
Out the window over the wood stove:
Have you tried speaking Danish to him, asked Byron.
Enough said.

Heretics.
Bolsheviks.
Lunatics.
Kleptomaniacs.
All fronts.
Pretend fronts as
Friendly
Guises to disguise
Wiley acts of terrorism.

All tics like
Parasites
Stealing and *******
Fleas on festering
Flesh.
Breathing carrion
Breath.

Why inject your
Games with
Ungainly success.
Why such primitive
Unleashing of frustration
And repressiveness.

People are smiling with the back of their teeth;
Hookers are toiling themselves off their feet;
The cops avoid the crooks on their beat;
Scammers are conning cause we all want to cheat;
Fishes are breathing on the banks of the creek;
Government fingers can't stop the slow leaks;
The searchers stopped searching, there's nothing to seek;
Voyeurs are seeing without sneaking a peek;
The strong are loosing to the strength of the weak;
The jocks are surrounded by the number of geeks;
The circus is posting jobs for the freaks;
The Colonel's chicken has twelve secret beaks;
The beds are empty as no one can sleep;
The weeds are filling the cracks in our streets;
The guards are chained in castle keeps;
And all about us grows weary and bleak;
Our tongues are loose,
Still nobody speaks.

I was trying to put the cutlery
In their respective slots,
Then the flash of a thought struck me:

     I could train a monkey to do this.

Don't call them noble,
Nobles aren't even so.
They're pretty good though,
The monkeys.

Hey, when I whack
A really good one,
When I'm in the Zen
Of perfect flight,
My buddy will remark:

     Give a monkey a typewriter
     and sooner or later he'll spell
     a word.

So, I have the greatest respect for our Simian brethern
But those other Nobles... Meh!

A long unopened folder
Fell from a shelf,
Spewing unfinished poems
Across the room
Like shards of colored glass,
Edged as sharp as razor wire.
We know those fragments;
And how deep they can cut.
They speak of life and death,
Love and leaving,
Good, evil, and Roads.
I may arrange them
In a stained glass mosaic;
Not much symmetry,
But piecemealed,
Telling of my Inquisition.

I'm up to my
Funny bone
In winter.
If I don't laugh
Insanely,
I will avalanche
Into madness;
Go whirl crazy
In the vortex.

I am not a King, like Henry,
But I've princes and princesses.

I am not a Neruda,
But I'm read.

I am not a Lewis,
Yet others laugh with me.

I am not a Palmer,
Though I've aced a few.

I am no Lennon,
However, I'm asked to sing.

I am far from being a Casanova,
And yet, I'm not alone.

I am no Graham,
Though the spirit moves me.

I am no Saarinen,
But my children sleep in beds I made.

Don't call me an Einstein
Because I've understood.

I am not a Child,
But you are welcome at my table.

I am none but myself.
If they spoke,
They'd envy me.