IN EULOGIES RECOUNT
Time spent in hammocks
watching the wind
having its way with branches
and light lightly licking the leaves
If not considered in the sum
should at least be added to the total
Category: Uncategorized
ALL AUSTIN’S CHILLIN
ALL AUSTIN’S CHILLIN’
Time gets a little bit bent around here
Barton Springs is as cold and as old
as the edge of the last age of ice
A Loop One four o’clock trip
is as long as a Mobius strip
Sometimes the words fail
but we’ve always got the music
RAIN IN JANUARY
RAIN IN JANUARY
It is raining
like it has never rained before
I mean, it has rained before
but not like this
Us warm in the falling night
holding each other and listening
to the particular pitter patter pattern
on the tin roof, that has never been
and will never be again. Amen
ZEN AGAIN
ZEN AGAIN
Before enlightenment
chop wood haul water
After enlightenment
the body still grows old
More water must be hauled
– hydration is important
More wood will be needed
the cold wants to be your lover
worm its way
into your
ever more porous bones
Write about it
as fast as you can
before your stories fall into the holes
WOOD RIVER WINDINGS
WOOD RIVER WINDINGS
Just south of Courval ran
the crookedest river in the world, or
in Canada, or at least in our province
Crookedest river somewhere we were sure
which for some reason that I don’t recall
was always a source of great pride
Others might make the same claim
although no-one seems to be in a hurry
to claim their river as the straightest
The one with the least curves, switchbacks,
sand bars, and surprises around each bend
The one like the life we sometimes wish
but would never want
SCREENING MY CALLS
SCREENING MY CALLS
If you’re sending love my way
and I’m not receiving love today
It’s just because I’m standing behind
a round-holed screen within my mind
Bullets and BB’s will fit through fine
so take your best shot and I’ll take mine
Call tomorrow when the holes are square
and you’ll find a friendlier person there
All insults and snides the screen will deflect
and whatever you say will have a healing effect
ALAS POOR…
ALAS POOR…
And we in this new old land turning up
with our plow
hammer heads, and arrowheads, and sometimes
a bone or two
and if one would be an uncrushed skull it would
be no Yorick that we knew
This noun, once verb, would mock us
in its grinning
all those with whom we might converse
are laid neath Hamlet’s soil
His redder kin scattered
like his bones
PICKING ON THE BANJO
PICKING ON THE BANJO
When I pick on a banjo
it’s like a bully pickin’ on you
for your lunch money
In high school I tortured a trumpet
hitting the high notes and the low
with many a glancing blow
While Johnny’s boy, damn his hide,
could pick up any instrument
Didn’t have to think or practice
or anything
the music just told him where to put his fingers
THROUGH THE NEEDLE’S EYE
THROUGH THE NEEDLE’S EYE
Sarah N. Cleghorn 1916
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play
Update 2011
Sarah, you’ll be pleased to know
There are no such scenes today
The children laboring in the mills
Are half a world away
THE COURAGE OF MINERS
THE COURAGE OF MINERS
For Tiger and Benny
To go down
each day
into your
grave
And rise
at end of shift
with Lazarus-like joy
– except when
you don’t