The successful
Weight loss program:
Cook, simmer
Then eat
One lean poem
Per day.

Extrinsicly
They fell behind
The minute curve
In the hit/like world.

Intrinsicly,
My curves bell;
My words
Serve me well.

Temptation shies
From revealing sun,
Its subtleties
Shine on everyone.
Don't look for horns,
Fork and tail;
Its method ensnares
The unsuspecting,
Should they dare
Challenge to outwit.

We'll trade our souls,
For a sack;
Barter what we dearly hold;
Trade it in
For selfish goals.

Some advertise
A soul for sale
By self-service.
That ultimately fails.
Cuckold a friend,
Cheat at the end;
The tempter likes it
When we're lost
In the simplicity
Of detail.

So sly
We think
We lose our souls.
Terrified by
Eternal flames
That burn without
Consuming skin.
We don't
Lose that,
We wallow
In our sins.

This temptation needs
To stick us
In the end.

Do you like the sound
Of other voices:
The choir,
The chant,
The litany?
Or is it the sound
Of your own voice:
The blather,
The blither,
The grate,
The groan?
You use volume to make
Yourself known;
To make yourself heard
And join the absurd.
Do you like
The sound of your own voice?
Join in the chorus.

Its commensal, at best,
This house fly of a guest;
Who frequents your home,
Alits on a chair,
Rubbing its hands together.
It shows no regrets,
Feeding, slurping and buzzing,
With a self-made bequest.
I can tolerate a bar fly;
A barn fly, a sty fly;
But,
I've the bottle fly,
That plunders my fridge,
Swarms over my beer
Like a blood-thirsty midge.
He's a house fly,
And ignorant,
So fly paper won't do.
I need a SWAT team to shoo
This house fly adieu.

Byron enjoyed the feedback on his first run at poetry and asked me to extend his appreciation to you. As he said, "Thank 'em for me."
That lead to a discussion on some of the figures of speech he innately used in his pig roast invitation. I seized the moment to explain that a similie was an indirect comparison using words such as "like," or "as."
"Oh, like, you're a *******?"
We moved on to metaphors.
"Oh, you are a *******."
If we should get to it,
Anthropomorphism will pretty much sum up the Byronic universe
A hero.

The perimeter
Has been laid out;
A fine frame
To encase our landscapes.
We choose where to start,
Working from the top, bottom or sides,
And moving towards the middle ground,
Where land meets water,
The mountains are snow-capped,
The autumn skies are resplendent
With patterns of red and blue.
The copse is shadowy,
With dark green pines ******* soft clouds.
The white-capped lake will never quieten;
But we piece our puzzle.

Ungraded roads have many holes,
Gravel, and running ditches.
Before a rain, they seem more wide than narrow.
Long but terminal.
These roads I'm led to roam,
Not straight, but bending to travel.

Signs warn of deer or bumps,
With a bridge dead ahead.
Chances are, it's a single lane,
And timing dictates crossing.

My spinning wheels clear the ruts,
But soon they fill again,
As if I never passed.

Mammy's accidents usually happened
Within a hundred foot radius of her stove.
Except the one time she had to work
Outside the home,
At the Aylmer Tomato Cannery.
     (Daddy was in his wet season,
      Being laid off was his reason)
The tip of her thumb was snipped,
And gone.
The joke never got old.
Someone looked inside
Every can we opened -
From that day on -
Truth is,
We always knew
A good bit of Mammy
Was in her stew.

They believe I did it,
They saw it in my eyes;
But I didn't really do it,
You know the kind of lie.

I simply compromised;
And so, I didn't do it;
But I know I lied I did,
Have you used this disguise?
Caught up in your silly lie?

It started out sincerely,
I really meant to do it;
I had the plan in place,
It took me by surprise.

I honestly didn't do it,
And they believe I did;
But I know I didn't do it,
And I can't ****** answer, *Why?

On my bookshelf
There is a stuatue
Of a monkey
With wire-rim glasses
Reading,
Looking
Like Rodin's Thinker.
I don't know who
The sculptor is,
But he's guilty
Of Identity Theft.

We met three times
Over fifteen years.
The disagreement paled
In light of his diagnosis.

He unexpectedly appeared
At my door, then stood in my kitchen.
He had a few serious questions
About brotherly affections,
And after spitting into my sink
(the poor man)
He wondered if I thought less of him
For not sending cards at Christmas and birthdays.
Is that what he came to say?

Next was at our last family wedding.
He was still steady on his feet.
We were five Irish lads.
The sisters said he was the handsome one.
He was.
There are six of us posing in this final shot.
He's wearing a Lucille Ball tie,
Losened around his neck,
Yet covering the gill-like scar
Running from lobe to lobe.
His hands are buried deep
In his pants' pockets.
His smile says Good-bye.

I saw him for the last time
A few weeks later,
Standing, bent and coughing
At the intersedtion of the roadway and Nature Trail.
His rib cage raging from contortions.
He waved off an offered ride.
And then he was gone.
It took us years to get here.

... as I was saying...
I'm sure you're just not listening.

A male child born, ***-wise,
His mind not made-up,
Not by a long shot.
He needs time to grow,
For now he could dress
Like Oscar Wilde,
Anyway's good for this child.
At six he follows
Male role models,
So confused.
Dysphoria soon insists,
Sets in to ambiguity,
Leading him to his feminine side,
Where her gender surely resides.

In my 20's
In the 70's
I was long in hair,
Donned vests and jeans,
From Goodwill Stores.
But I spent hard cash
On calf-high boots,
Raven black platforms.

Now in my 70's
In these 20's,
They threw me a party.

Hello 70's.
You Are Invited
To a 70's Party.
Groovy attire welcome.

Was I obliged.
Soon compelled.
Nearly obsessed.

Then the epiphany.
The Bard,
Reminds this walking shadow
In the long, gray-haired rented wig.

Warning: Explicit*

If you've read
Boys With Toys,
It should come
As no surprise,
Girls talk
Just like Guys.

Having drinks,
And having fun,
The girls
Discard the curls
To think of rhymes
For naughty lines:

You make my ****** rumba;
You make my ***** clammy;
You make my **** taut;
You make my ****** latch;
You make my **** spit;
You make my box rock;
You make my canoe coo;
You make my ****** *** sooner;
You make my **** fluff;
You make my slit submit;
You make my cooch smooch;
You make my **** swim;
You make my flower shower;
You make my toe glow.

And when the last drink
Has been drunk,
The shy girl stands
Raises her glass,
To proclaim proudly:
You make my **** grunt.
And they did.

When my time finally arrives,
Finality holds no surprise;
But please remember
To close my eyes,
Shut my mouth,
End my lies.
Lace polished shoes
On my feet,
Cross my hands
Upon my chest,
Comb my hair,
Let me rest.
And tell the truth
When you speak.

(and if it's not an imposition,
lay me in the right position)

Dispense with the hyperbole,
There's hell to pay,
I assure you.

Just picked up my thirtieth pair of glasses
(perhaps you call them eye glasses).
Progressive, photo-chromatic, temples with wrap around cables.
Same round frames since I was sixteen (first saw them in How I Won the War).
I don’t mess with what works. We fit. No need to look further.
Had my eye on the prize.
They give me perfect sight. And I waited years to get perfect sight.
Always needed glasses. Finally got them when I was eleven.
Big family. Immigrants. No health coverage. So, no glasses.
Couldn’t see the forest or the trees. A genetic thing too.
Several sisters and brothers are as myopic as moles.
Mammy and Daddy never wore glasses (which is not to say they didn’t need them).
All granny glasses are wire rims with a golden finish.
All of mine were. These ones are round black wire rims. I’m being so adventurous.
I remove them (singular is a monocle) to shower and go to bed. I never ask to try on someone’s frames, and I never loan mine for a second (Period)
I also have a face that has grown so accustomed to glasses, that my eyes have surely deepened into my skull. I don’t recognize myself on my driver’s license, health card or passport (Why do they insist on that? I’m never asked to remove my glasses upon surrender of any document for visual verification).

I’ve yet to regret the wealth I’ve spent.
Their cost could pay the rent
For a third world family for years.
It would feed and clothe a village, I’m sure.
I'm not blinded by how good I've got it here.

Forever and ever
Without a choice,
Roofs were raised
In booming voice:
God the Father.
Proclaimed the choir.

In our two millenia,
The communal host blessed pro-choice,
With Omni-this and Omni-that:
Christ the Son.
Christ has won.
The carollers rejoice.

The Spirit transubstantiates
With tongues of creativity;
Is One with femininity.
What greater God!
What Trinity!

A hapless Lit student named Brandon,
Was researching Death of a Salesman;
He Googled then ogled
What Hap Loman called Strudel,
Then choked on his oral exam.

Mammy knew the five second rule
Long ago:
"Don't worry. You'll
Eat a ton of dirt before you die."
Now I wonder on dirt's composite:
I swear I'll die talking *******.

Flying on my Shadow,
Enjoying the ride,
I passed a hillside
With stones, spelling out:
Sarnia Nudist Camp
In bright white letters,
Legible from a distance.

Did the frost push them up
Through the earthly womb
To birth this message
For the reading pleasure of passers-by?

Did the camp director create
This hillside billboard?

I've heard, at nightime, the stones
Gleam under a constant moon
That radiates above a notion of chance.

There's a Route 22 near you.
A licorice asphalt road,
Twisting as opposing currents of time,
With anticipation and apprehension,
From home, to unknowns,
From comfort to expectations.
A rural ribbon of signage,
And milestones.

I traveled mine yesterday,
In an overdue Spring,
From Melrose to Bright's Grove.
I writhe and bend with its winding,
Former times arise like heat waves;
Mirage puddles flood my head,
Always just out of reach.

I recalled hitchhiking through Warwick,
As I backtrack,
And almost stop
For one today on the curve
Where they sell the garden gnomes.
I once looked wryly at them
When waiting across the road.

Sprawling upright over the northern landscape,
Towards the Co-ops of Arkona,
And the beer store in Thedford,
Wind farms thrive like techno giants,
In a mutant Utopian world.

****** Mary's red sign no longer hangs
Outside the white house in Lobo,
Where she could bring you in touch
With your dead.
Poplar Hill's trees no longer snow in the summer,
The water wheels are seized, barns are exposed.
The lofts collapsed.

I had to stop near a culvert, to listen to the sound of run-off,
The melt reflecting the transition under the sun,
Converging at Black Creek, Pulse Creek, or Cow Creek,
Carrying forward to the St. Clair River and Lake Huron,
Then onward and back.

Weathered iron fences enclose pioneer graves;
Settlers who cleared the dense Lambton forests,
And made the first ruts along my way,
With wagonfuls of backache.
I know well how you fared on our Route.

Mirrors recur here frequently
In verse and lyric.
I'm reading obituaries and
Seeing pictures of what will be.

Death recurs here frequently,
And pain, lots of it.
Broken people too.
It's like we're ambulance chasers,
****** reporters running down a story.

I can't recall being born,
The cuddled snug of being warm
Beneath a roof so weathered
On a seasoned flax-mill farm.

I've an inkling of being two,
In a scene played out by me and you;
On a mattress, in the sun -
A new-born cried, and died too soon.

Then memory's blur cleared by three,
We sailed away on the Irish Sea
On a listing boat, across the Blue,
The last link to the last banshee.

By four we'd long since slammed the door,
And I knew cowboys and Celtic lore -
A new-born cried, she died too soon,
The eye peeped through the Judas door.

By five so many had left the home;
By eight a.m. we were left alone
Pushing prams, swings and forward,
No T.V.,  radio or telephone.

At last, by six, I clearned the webs,
A whole new world lay dead ahead -
A new-born cried, he died too soon;
By seven I'd internalized
The dreaded finality
Borne by the dead.
.

We can't ever offfer
That inside sleep
Of solitude and peace.
Yet this promise
We will keep.
Wake or  asleep,
We are with you.
Always.

So, Sleep, Ciaran. Sleep.
Let no one claim your dreams;
Listen to your childhood rhymes;
Worry not of place or time,
For all is still
As it seems.

Oh! Sleep, Angel. Sleep.
Shield your heart
As a secret power
In your waking hours.
Spread your winged smile
With candescence,
To brighten, and alit,
Where Angels sleep.

To begin with,
We have YOU,
And we have Me.
And we also have THEM, THEY, THEIRS THOSE, WE AND US.
As well, we have:
SOGIES
Asexuals
Allies
Intersexes
Bisexuals
Lesbians
Gays
H­omosexuals
Pansexuals
Queers
Straights
Heterosexuals
Gender Binaries
Afabs
Amabs
Agenders
Androgynes
Gender Blenders
Bigenders
Cisgenders
Cross-dressers
Drag Queens
Drag Kings
Enbies
Gender Dysphoria
Gender fluids
Gender Non-conformists
Gender Queers
Gender Variants
Non-Binaries
Questioners
Transgenders
Transitions
Transs­exuals
Two-Sprits... and
LGBTQIA+
(Flora and Fauna?)

Does Genesis have anything right?

I want a flag,
A serious flag is required.
Banners, ribbons and semaphore
Are the poems.
I want the flag
With red for alerting distractions,
With all rainbows,
All.
And though it will flap
With some fearsomeness,
The ******* double cross
Circled with olympian rings.
And a white flag emerges.
Eye white.
Naturally I hoist it,
And surrender.
Under interrogation
I spill my guts.

Cynthia's gone
Across this universe.
And, if there is a heaven,
She'll never have
To deal with Lennon.
He called her Cyn,
A name with
Quite a homonym
For deeds that once
Defined him,
Before he was
A man.

Two of them,
So cute,
And such prodigious nibblers
In their striped coats,
Four inches high
On hind quarters,
Sharing the rich rain pulp
Of a maple-leaf key,
Looking over one another's shoulders
For the neighbor's cat.
We could be
More like that.

Now Mammy dead
All these years,
The salt that mixes
With the tears
Drips on tender wounds.
This son, I'm not
The only one,
Deprived of so much more.
Time implored
By the adored,
Lead you to that room,
Left you
In that room.

Years past,
We strung
String,
Twenty feet long,
Between two
Campbells soup cans,
Like conches,
To get sound waves.
Now,
There are no
Strings attached,
Yet,
I hear you
Loud and clear.

Roses are red,
My carnations are too...

Teach me  about anatomy
And cosmology,
So I can understand
The universe
In your eyes.

Take your Seven Deadly Sins,
And butcher them with punctuation.

Capitalize on floods, famines and fires.

Express sickness, war and homelessness.

Parse politics.

Syllabicate and spell out for all to read
The horror of homelessness and apathy.

There.
Nothing's too real we can't fictionalize... marginalize,
Again, and again, and again.

I want to dance with you again,
Before the light descends;
Dance, the troubadour sang:

     Dance me to the end of love.

Place yours in mine,
We'll wind with time;
Repose your head, close your eyes,
I'll hear you breathe another goodbye.
Can't you dance with me again.

I'm spinning off this elliptic world;
Holding the dark side of my moon,
Orbiting 'round this star lit room.
Waxing on the upbeat,
Waning on the down,
Dancing on a gyroscope,
Through phases round and round.

I awaken, tapping toes,
And humming in the after glow.

Yes, I danced with you!
Did I dance with you?
I didn't dance with you.
And never will again.

This ride I'm on
Leads to the dump.
I, refuse that I am,
Refuse to jump.
I ride with
Peels of poor me,
Rinds of regret,
Scraps of resentment,
Empty bottles
Of pain
And emptiness.
I, Drunk.
I drank
For forgetfulness,
In misery and anger.
Refusing questions,
Not giving answers.
I don't need
To hitch a ride
To the human dump,
The soppy landfill.
At any stop
I can jump.
Jump,
And walk.

I live in Chemical Valley.
It sounds horrible:
Better you than me.
Perhaps.
I grew up here,
Where the southern sky burns
Bloodstone red,
Mixing colours with the evening suns.
The St. Clair carries Huron's ghostly horns
Past the flaring refineries,
To Detroit's waters.
We have stop signs
And other amenities
Small cities are proud to maintain.
I heard the housing market
Is sustained on the divorce rate,
And not the petro-chemical industry;
We're closing another high school next year;
And there was a gruesome woodlot-****/******
Last week on the Reserve.
Maniacs living out some sick web-site.
But the soccer pitches are full,
And our Mayor is the longest serving one in Canada.
Just around the corner
(everything is just around the corner),
Our flag flies over the bones of our second Prime Minister,
(he's from Edinburgh, Scotland);
I've walked a good stretch of the fifty miles
Of beach we have running north,
Past cottages, parks, camps, etc.
We've way too many ***-holes;
And for many years,
We were featured on the ten dollar bill.

But the new houses!
Who is buying them as we move eastward,
Away from the lake and river?
Newly minted single moms;
Rejected men.
We lived in one house,
Once,
One house.
We now occupy five.
Two of which
Are too far away
From Chemical Valley.

Good morning, Dear Wife,
The only love of my life.
The sun's not yet up,
I'll go brew us a cup;
So, stay snug in our bed,
And I'll bring it up
With a bite that's enough,
Till you're ready to rise
With those gorgeous green eyes,
And join me this day,
And all days I do pray,
Till we rise up no more.

I got stuck on Skye;
There were many
Reasons why.
The ring of mountains
Walled me in,
The blue above
Was closer then,
The blue around
Was too deep,
And the whiskey
Was smooth and cheap.
The chatter of the lads
Was keen;
The beauty of the lass,
Serene.
Yes, I got stuck on Skye,
Managed to get off
Before I died.

Did you know tans are anti-cultural.
The whiter shades of pale are chic.
Black skirts and dark shoes
Will highlight your commitment
To culture.
White's the new brown.

The Jazz Singer is pitchy.
Oh, Mammy!
The shade's wrong.

Apple peels of burned skin,
Unbroken, curly:
Who can skin the longest
Down to the fresh, unburned dermis.
We didn't know about culture
As we watusied across the sand.

…out of the mouths of Babes...

Everything comes to those who wait.
Even a worm will turn.
If wealth is lost, nothing is lost. If health is lost, something is lost.
     If character is lost, all is lost.
If knowledge is power, how did he become POTUS?
Love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out.
A penny for his thoughts is price fixing.
As you make your bed, so must you lie in it. Don't wash your *****
     sheets in public.
Empty vessels make the most noise.
Every man has his price.
People who live in glass houses should keep their pants up.
Shrouds have no pockets.
The Devil looks after his own.
To err is human, to forgive... Meh!
What goes up must come down.
You are what you eat (hambuglers?)
Let the punishment fit the crime.
It is better to smarter than you appear, than to appear smarter
     than you are.
If you lie down with the dogs, you get up with the fleas.
Money earned by deceit, goes by deceit.
Open confession is good for the soul.
Patience is a virtue.
Behind every great man, there is a woman being paid off.
Ask my companions if I be a thief.
All roads lead to imprisonment.
If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well.
The big apple is rotten to the Corps (a soldier's lament)
A journey of a lifetime begins with a subpoena.
The chain of command is only as strong as its weakest ****.
He who pays the ******, rents the room.
It takes a hundred lies to cover one lie.
It's hard to juggle sand.
**** the chicken to scare the monkey.
Like father, like son.
No man can serve two masters.
One may as well be hanged for sheep as well as lamb.
Nothing is certain but death and Tax Returns.
No rest for the wicked.
Russians make strange bedfellows.
Give a man enough tie and he'll hang himself.
Fences make bad politics.
Little things please little minds.
Fish always stink from the head downwards.
From the sublime to the ridiculous is only two questions:
     What did you know? When did you know it?
The truth will out.
The longest day must have an end.
Pride comes before the fall (so do a lot of other deadly sins)
Put your money where my mouth is (S.D.)

     Red tie at night. Donny's delight.
     Red tie at morning. Stormy gives warning.

Seek and ye shall find.
Speak as you find.
Out of sight. Out of mind.

Does it really matter
What color you are;
Where you're born,
That you've come far,
What belief you hold on the afterlife.
Did you live in luxury,
Where you steeled in strife.
Our babies grasp onto our backs,
Stroke their cheeks,
See them react.
Tap my knee,
My leg will kick;
Show your teeth,
I'll snarl back.
That's how I survive.
I like to stay alive.
I have many tribes.
I plan tomorrow,
Should it not arrive,
I'll leave life knowing,
I stayed alive.

It's an asset to  be taciturn,
Reticent, laconic, terse,
And to the point.
I consider myself such,
So listen...
Do I have a story for you.
It was a dark and stormy night;
The wind howled destruction
Coming across...

What do Trump
And Y2K have in common?
Some.
One's a whimper,
The other a bang.
One was simple,
The other, orangutan.
Both, misleading.

It's wonderful to look
With wonder at our winter nights.
I don't know the constellations,
Glistening like my cold, wet eyes,
Deep in the sockets of sky.
I wonder,
Do they blink
As we crawl out our days.
O, stars, cast a shadow for me,
A midnight companion to whisper.
Let me cool
In your piercing,
Firey eyes.

I have declared a detente
After negotiating a truce.
My head is a no-fly zone;
The bombadier chutes stay shut.
I sat at the table
With my privy council,
And we have signed an accord.
Peace in my time.
Peace in my mind.
Forget, to forgive;
Forgive, to forget.
It seeps unmeasurable,
Infectious,
Air borne as a nucleur summer.

Every night is Saturday,
Every Monday's Sunday.
If Tuesday is my lieu day,
Then Wednesday is my luncheon meeting.
Thursdays are long coffee breaks,
And Fridays are my Personal Days.
Saturdays are Saturdays,
And ****,
It might begin again.

I am a cliche poet.
I compare most of your parts
To the cosmos;
I refer to love as immortal,
The soul as ethereal,
The spirit as bird-like,
Death as a cave, surely dark and lonely,
And nature has a magnificient part
With all its pathetic fallacies,
Sunrises, sunsets, tides.
I once compared a man's legs
To an aerial roadmap,
And a ***** to a bull frog
In the Savanah.
O, the crosses I've borne to explain saying
I love you
Without sounding trite.
I may resort to prose
And dress up the poetric mantra.

Not My President.
But he is. Let him live.
He and his minions
Are like the poor;
They will always be with us.
But north of you,
We have a Queen.
#Not My Royal Family.
They're needy and expensive,
Spoiled and enfranchised.
An extended, big family
Who gets free rides at Canada's Wonderland,
Best seats at hockey games... all games
For Lieutenants-Governor,
Governors-General,
And all the wee princesses and princes.
Rideau Hall is the official residence
The White House pales beside,
Sussex Drive fades beside its oppulence.
Celebrities and histories have planted trees there.
Jack, Marilyn, Nelson, Martin and all the heavenly host
Have approached those gilded doors,
Pretending to bow and curtsy to an absent Queen.
Back to #Not My Royal Family.
I didn't get a vote.