Jenny



Her brown eyes they have saddened
O'er the past 14 years
and I fear that I have left her wanton
the cause of her raining tears
though I know it's not been perfect
that it's cramped in our embrace
I hope she knows I love her
beckon back the light of her face

Never was it intended, cruelty,
that we've battled is a fact
it's all in the process of solidity,
putting the strength into our backs
I dream we'll be together now
as the years go by the score
She'll always be my Jenny,
the girl that I adore

We wed for life and eternity
for richer and for poor
I regret how we have found ourselves
in the latter more and more
the ring slipped on her finger,
it's lilywhite, gold stripped band
my dreams are buried with her hopes
and for her I'm a better man

Life is our anthology
and always on the cusp
N'ere have I wanted more,
nor no one more do I trust
I pray she will remain with me
through the ebb of the ocean's tide
for I'd be washed away without you girl
and my soul it would subside

Masochistic Me


Me father beat me mother
he'd beat her black and blue
then he up and left her
with another mot to screw
me mother in her agony
on me her pain did vent
and I grew up an angry lad
bruised and somewhat bent

then one day the world did open
and I walked in through it's door
I left the shite hanging over me
and knew I wanted more
but this world is not a kindly place
to a young man with no means but dreams
frustration and motivation
left me bursting at the seams

Never knew just who I am
a wee bit brash and lazy
bit the bollicks the best I can
drivin' me self crazy

First I crossed the ocean
and lived in Dublin town
after paying respects to my kin
buried in County Down
first night in the city
I drank with Ronnie Drew
amidst bodhran's and fiddle
filling the craic in O'Donahouge's

Upstairs lived a lass named Mora
a lawyer for Sinn Fein
and I dreamed of being a rebel
playing in the patriot game
but of hate and violence I had my fill
wanting no more in that way
you'll never get peace filling a violent land
God rest the I.R.A.

Never knew just who I am
a wee bit brash and lazy
bit the bollicks the best I can
drivin' me self crazy

After many months in Erin
I roved through Europe's cobbled streets
and seemed to make a lifelong mate
with everyone I'd meet
spent some time in Slovakia
and really loved it there
shooting Slivovice
with the lasses o so fair

another six months after
I found me self in Leeds
still searching for that something
to satisfy my endless needs
but I never seemed to get it
there or in my native land
I just seemed to be wanting more,
feeling cursed and damned

Never knew just who I am
a wee bit brash and lazy
bit the bollicks the best I can
drivin' me self crazy

Now I've found me self settled
in such an unlikely place
Forty years are in my bones
but there's still something that I chase
I find it hard to settle down
to be thankful for what I've got
though by Christ I'd never trade away
the things that are my lot

Nothing's ever good enough
no matter what I do
still haunted by my childhood
and still feeling fuckin' screwed
for me mother in her agony
on me her pain did vent
and I grew up a tortured lad
battered and somewhat bent

Never knew just who I am
a wee bit brash and lazy
bit the bollicks the best I can
drivin' me self crazy
Never knew just who I am
a wee bit brash and lazy
bit the bollicks the best I can
drivin' me self crazy

Misanthropic Lament

My thoughts are often afflicted
by starts of misanthropy
when my mind does
dwell to the point
of weary atrophy
at a world so full of beauty
drowned in ignorance and waste
the simple pleasure of
society that some will never taste
we'll chase our riches and obsess
of britches, breasts
and youth's eternity
ignoring suffering, each other's needs,
intoxicated on "all about me"
at the end of the day,
much to our dismay
we reckon something's lost
like a forgotten tune that echoes
through the ruins
scarred and frigid beneath the frost

we realise we never gave a toss,
no we never gave a toss

never more alone now do we die
in our living's unfulfilled
as much is dead and densely lead
behind a thin gold leaf gild
so away I go with the pain I know
and drain it in a jar
I don't give a shite,
but then again, I might
when I sing and play guitar
for I wrote these words,
somewhat absurd
to give a hopeful shake
that you might live and
for your life give
a shock so you're awake
my thoughts are often afflicted
by starts of misanthropy
but by now you know, it's how my mind goes
when I dream of what could be

Song Written after 4 Whiskey's and 4 Bowls of Tobbaca

I draw on me pipe
watching my smoky breath escape against dusky lamp light
Reminiscing of the sweet and soft
caress of your slender neck's nape
but as the peaty embers in my wooden bowl die
I dwell upon our one greeting and one goodbye
the mist of the evening enshrouded us
as we escaped the pub that crowded us
the scent of stout upon your mouth
mine of whiskey and together we both
knew this evening was the only one
we might ever have
for we were young and free
two rovers with our rucksacks, you and me
enjoying an evening's frivolity
makin' warm affections and memories
that keep us comfortable in our descending age
It was not about sex but of poetry
the ambience of an artist's heart
vulnerable in its innocence
in an embrace destined to part
now an ember extinguished
but never gone out
a memory tender
of a long hard lived life
and thankfulness to eternity.

"A Lament for Education and Academic Freedom"


I was the mainstream -
a rich running river of life
once flowing forcibly, natural
determined, etching malleable landscapes,
now drowned in dust.

Animals grazed harmoniously and prospered over my lush leaning banks,
I sparkled pure, crystal, white,
while others flourished beneath my mirrored still
and ferocious foam

I fed streams, tiniest tributaries, bogs
teeming with living, amidst teasing twists, cryptic mists and fogs
what was given was as well too me given back
forging canyons from fragments and finger-like cracks

my silt settled, evolved into stone,
my purpose was my purpose, with all and nothing to be known

I once built wonders that made wonder grow
my currents, respected, their tempo and flow
but the respect now evaporates
in billows of dust,
leaving me dry upon a tegument sedimentary saline crust
for I was the mainstream,
but now am no more
a forgotten scar upon the planet's floor.

Edmonton, AB., Canada

The Light in Grey

Beneath concrete skies,
wary eyes wantingly pass over
decaying facades of huddled homes
once lively with boundless dreams,
where leaves dropped one Autumn,
never to re-bud
like a heart shrivelled by betrayal's
corrosive, bitter exhalation,
feelings forsaken forever,
rheumatic cracks in asphalt
swallow tawny stalks of drying weeds
brittle, like a serpent swallowing something
twice its size.
This is where childhood began all things,
hope constructed, renovated then
abandoned when realising that
this is not the rabbit-eared reality television
proposed verbosely through metallic rods
and grey-white snow
the American dream;
barbed memories of
the true past re-visit,
blinding from future that never came.
Alone, beneath concrete skies,
weary eyes wait, smelling smoky
hints that a
last candle may continue to share
its light if it could only be seen.

Edmonton, AB, Canada

Waiting in a crowded Conference Room for Dr. Neufeld to Speak

Various voices, volume fluctuating, fluttering as a sparrow cloud, one,
sound sounding simulated, unnatural and natural,
as the bubble and pounding
of a small waterfall plunging, tarried,
tumbling as meteors over smoothed stones to waiting waters below
surface breaking, bass and crackling, the dischorded cacophony
of small applauding palms
uncertain as a new spectator at a symphony or opera
into a pool never placid, predominated by water sparks, bubble, clear and foam
with hurried anxiety
forgoing serenity
mixing, but each drop alone, anonymously
staining the stones a darkened shade with their moistness
labouring with lilting silty sediment's carnage;
some evaporating, angelic, to the heavens,
returning,
weeping from darkened swirling mists above
some settle, some fork into tributaries, to tears,
some to make for the ambiguous sea
each drop alone in it's self
in its part of the greater alienated whole;
whole in their solitude only –
content, searching, sad, asleep – pensive on the journey
fate unknowing, rolling uncontrollably in their roundness,
concordant with weathering rocks that
reveal themselves grain by grain;
self-destructing, nothingness,
decomposed - awaiting the speaker
to make his entrance on stage
continuing the beginning encapsulated
in the moment's now, oblivious to
the vague spectrum of all-consuming time.

Edmonton, AB, Canada






Words

the root of a word
has no relevance,
but, rather, it is how we understand it to be.
our perception, subjective,
can never hope to realise objectivity
any more than we can understand our selves.
we are discontented with
simply being and find suffering in
trying to see what we are not,
be what we are not;
there is no meaning in meaning,
all that is, simply is as it is.
definitions define little of
our essence – the simplicity
feeling is all we know of knowing
and all we can ever know.

Edmonton, AB., Canada