Tourist
Tall and fair, blue-eyed German man
munching no-name ginger snaps
in the Calgary Youth Hostel
ranting on about how Americans
are destroying the world
in his uber alles brogue,
obviously slightly mad- deluded- obsessed
and right.
I remember Berlin- the sign at Check Point Charlie:
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR
but the truth is that you never can leave,
like No.6 on "The Prisoner"
- a vindicated insanity...
Calgary, AB., Canada
WOG
I've known you pretty near all my life-
when we were children I bullied you because
you were the only one the others disliked
more than me, despite my affections...
You never conformed, still wearing your corduroy pants
and Ernie & Bert stripped shirts;
you still look at the stars only now
you know their names...
children are cruel, adults,
killers and clowns;
but you are not like them,
you are genuine- you know who you are,
geek is their label.
They mean nothing, they are lost in their
cancerous unity, the cool,
you are my oldest friend and one of
the few I'll trust...
don't ever let them change you.
Calgary, AB., Canada
Spell
Our first kiss was magic
now I'm trapped in your spell
you're tattooed on my mind
I'm dying
of ink poisoning
Calgary, AB., Canada
War Zone
When I was four
my mother said she was going to kill herself,
was "going to jump off the bridge"
and that it was all my fault I was driving her to it
and if I "cried at her funeral"
she "would come back and haunt" me;
she was pretty fucked up, still is;
My father fucked her up- beat her, beat me
she was strong enough to leave
but is like one of those Vietnam vets:
out of the war but still lost in the jungle.
The war continued with backhands and wooden spoons;
I was the new enemy in a purposeless,
never-ending war... Now I've left "home",
been gone for some years, but the war wages still heavily in my head.
Now I'm the veteran,
napalm memories, stick to my mind,
I feel the hot lead pierce, shredding me apart,
the gas choking me-
some nights I sit alone in my room
and simply try to cope, sit hating myself
for being who I am
resenting Christmas and happy people...
Every mother's day I still sign a cease-fire,
"The Treaty of Hallmark"-
but their are too many mines buried within the
battlefield of my mind- sooner or later
my thoughts trod over one,
I implode and am back to battle.
Calgary, AB., Canada
Talk
Everyone
Here seems to talk
To me
About everyone else
All assuming I'm on their side
I tell them I don't want to hear
That crap behind
The backs of others
No one seems to understand
Friendship-
So free with their trust
I
Realise you
Can never tell
Who your friends
Are.
Pudsey, W.Yorks., England
Dream No.1
I'm in my Mother's home town of Liverpool, Nova Scotia-
I go into a gym, sparsely populated
with old oxidized weights,
divided into three rooms...
I'm speaking to some lady in lycra and can't stand up;
the manager arrives, I start
giving my relatives names, he nods and oh's
in recognition
Then a man approaches with a lanky
gray cat and throws it into a lake,
he then walks into the reflective clear water
and they both swim away.
Calgary, AB., Canada
Dream No.2
I'm in this classroom, high school
before an exam
I've got my pants down and
am sitting on a rust stained toilet
behind my friend Kevin Ryan,
trying to take a shit without being noticed
I wipe my arse with a
white towel,
trying still to be unnoticed,
I'm a mess, anxiety welling up
as I wish it was over...
things get worse as my skid marked
boxers dip into the bowl-
I pull them up, dirty, cold & wet
while the teacher continues
her lecture
and I sit listening.
Calgary, AB., Canada
Dream No.3
I go up to a car
parked in front of my mother's
house on Faulkner Street;
inside is my friend Bronwyn's father
with a group of girls from the
Anglican Sunday School.
I sit in the front seat
with Bronwyn's dad
and talk about rugby league
(he's originally from Manchester)
while the girls sing.
Halifax, W.Yorks., England
Short
The haze in
my head
from five cities
in six days,
a world pouring past
makes the sandy
glaze gritting in my eyes
see similarities
and common place in these exotic
rarities;
I realise that life
is too damn short.
Holymoorside, Derbys., England
For Nova Scotia
I look at this province that
Buchanan bought and sold
I listen to the stories that
have made their tellers old
I see a place once prosperous
now slipped into decay
In this tiny corner of Canada
that's been cast away
I remember the harbour crafts
coming in with their hauls
But now they're few and pass us by
En route to Montreal
The towns, they gray and fade away
in deaths so sad and slow
While the young depart now every day
for the West and Ontario
The young depart each and every day
for the Alberta and Ontario
What we need's a leader
one committed proud and true
who speaks like Joseph Howe
with the courage of Brian Borru
To be again a prosperous place
buzzing with the affray
In this tiny corner of Canada
that's been cast away
on this Eastern coast of Canada
draped in sweet Atlantic spray
The time will come in Canada
a new judgement day
arranged to the chords G, D, C & E
Calgary, AB., Canada
Cornered
I was walking in broad daylight to the
Drug store, southeast side of the city,
Crossing the street - shining like a
Silver blade in the sun-
Headache cutting deep through my skull:
Early 40's prostitute, black, ragged
From pills, pimps and paydays
Says "hey baby, how bout a really
Nice blow job in the park"
She forces me to play an idiot with
A stupid smirk on my face,
As I awkwardly reply "no thanks"…
That night on the same corner
A guy dialed 911 from the pay phone box
But someone capped him
Before help arrived.
Calgary, AB., Canada
Twine
The stars shone bright
through passing cloud
the tender moon's gentle glow,
the ground shone blue in
the heaven's soft hue
reflecting in freshly fallen snow
the night air cold, crisp and dry
the skeletons of trees
I made my way along the icy path,
heavy heart and mind where thought did seize
all my hopes and all I'd wished
here in this desert of snow
misfortune seems to follow me
wherever it is I go
There was a day not so far away
my head was high with hopes
but sometimes the line that can pull you up
can be your hangman's rope
I danced their tunes, I wore their mark,
Sang that which they wanted me to sing,
and ended up no further ahead,
still a puppet on a string
walking lone on this silent night
next to the frozen rivers edge
I think of how it's never the same
the rope and the ledge.
Calgary, AB., Canada
Outside
A waterfall of snow from a magpies tail,
icicles formed on the balcony rail,
people skirt along the roadsides hem
the same faces pass again and again
Calgary, AB., Canada
A Few Miles by Bicycle
Cycled today from Selby to York
Stopped to smell the roses, rode
At a relaxed pace
Normally I would want to conquer
The trail - make the small
Pebbles swirl in the dust
-get from A to B as fast as possible
all scenery seen in a blur
…today I slowed down, stopped to breathe,
trying to take in simple pleasures
thinking again in every hour
of the 24 found in the day of Jenny
wishing she was riding by my side
and hoping time passes as slowly
when we are together as it does
when we are apart.
Pudsey, W.Yorks., England
Bails in the Sunset
The buttery- salt flavour
of lower lip fills my mouth,
sighing in dusty fragrance,
crunching along the earth's
golden stubble freshly cropped
Adjacent field lies west
the seeds sail as sparks
before the thresher under
setting sun, cannon-like
wheat field workers wander,
weary haunches with
shoulders as sails stretched taught,
heads lowered as in
lament for the fallen, friend and foe
What stood tall at dawn
submits itself in browning bails,
massive wheels of fibre now
unyielding to the briskly blowing breeze
The scythes silent,
pitchforks abandoned in the turf
wavering as swords upon vanquished plain
and lofty lark, looping and whooping
on the whirling wind which breathes
across my salty brow,
on to home.
Calgary, AB., Canada
For Jenny
The day you said “I love you”
in your funny kind of way
I felt a weight lift within me
sunlight breaking through the gray
now we weather it together
and we share this common space
we’re building our home, wherever we roam
be it here or any place
Never in all my travels
on either side of the sea
could I have met with anyone
more perfect for me
and when homesickness beckons,
thoughts of home roam my mind through
sentimentally I’ll push pass them
and my arms will reach for you
When the evening settles,
sparkling candles and starlight
and you are in my arms again
and we’re holding each other tight
we’ll reminisce on the universe
or how small this world can be
and amidst these terms of vastness
we will build an eternity
Arranged to chords G,D & C
Calgary, AB., Canada
Princess Diana
Television screen brings the world
like shepherd into my life, fibre optic glow,
August night in Paris, the death of
a Princess I knew of but never knew;
tears well like the volcano in Monserate
which dominated the news in the days before,
made aware of emotions I never knew I held,
fighting back the pressure of liquid emotion
and I wonder if there are any who are to survive
as the epitaph 1961-97 embeds itself with assertive finality
crumbling earth slithers over the edges into a mass grave,
meshed within the Mercedes mangled metal,
lying at rest in questionable peace.
Edmonton, AB., Canada
River
The water splits
as a fighters forehead;
parting and tearing- gouge,
the scalpel like hull
the bone saw engine
the silence broken along
the green towel shoreline
absorbed in silver blades of sun
shining in pools along the shore.
Edmonton, AB. Canada
Peace
Sunset sinks as a capsizing vessel
Where prairie and sky form
A point of 45 degrees to infinity,
The black of night ebbs in like the
Tide of Death's darkness
Over drowning mariner's eyes;
I feel the peace of a drowning man's
Last moment
When the struggle is past,
A meteoric moment of recognizing spirit
Oblivious to the myths of a mortal soul,
Becoming one of the part,
In extinction of the days light
Rises the birth of the moon,
Its brightness develops as a seed,
Germinating with the stars;
Birth of night winters for the sunlight's spring
And shadows animated gardening
Amidst the animation of which we
Find our place.
Edmonton, AB., Canada
On Christmas Night 1997
I contemplate birth,
How first vision swept
The external atmosphere of the womb, through the new world,
As a candle's glow softens through its
Penetration of the abounding darkness
Or vibration carries its way melodically
Through the complex orchestration of silence;
The wonder of purity and blessed naivete
Which our development experiences to extinction
I wish my memory of that time
Was accessible to the moment
And in its faith recognize
The fortune of perfection which, with
Less wizened eyes, delicato,
Diminuendo - grazioso,
Is to be found.
Edmonton, AB., Canada
Ending Words
Some days I feel damned to
Represent my thoughts as a radio
Drama without sound, without image.
The snow falls outside my apartment window;
I sit within my unit at a loss for words to
Describe how it has fallen, how it is falling;
Wanting to paint, yet hands
Are the mirror of ambidextrous -
Equally talentless, incapable of describing
Through sound, to paint feeling as a magpie in it's
Vulgarity or an uilleann piper with sweetness, Melancholic or merry.
My words….
Words easily implemented with ambiguous affect, ineffective
In the age of illiteracy nearing the millenium's close.
Selfish wanting, to play for myself,
To paint for myself through a medium that
Gathers less dust, despite it's liberation
From protective covers
I think of the god which has encircled my life, I feel as weeping does,
To be an accepted part, yet unable to contribute to it's beauty.
I often despise the privacy of words,
To be exposed only when found and investigated,
Limited by language and mother tongue, by literacy,
And by want of reading;
So unlike image and song which makes itself aware
And likewise others - a trapper of sorts,
Inflicting itself and enriching it's captive.
I long for an imperialist medium.
Edmonton, AB., Canada
No comments:
Post a Comment