Here’s a little one
That may help you in your livin
Death can only take from you
That which you have not given
Tag Archives: Death
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
It was a Sunday afternoon about a year ago today
I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand I just knew I couldn’t stay
So I took off for Toronto fifteen hundred miles away
Two days of boring meetings,
couldn’t stand to have one more
didn’t know where I needed to be
but it wasn’t here I knew for sure
So I grabbed a train to Windsor
and Detroit which lies next door
Outside spring was springing and calling more and more
and I’d get to see some country that I’d never seen before
Oh, the sheep were soft upon the land
and there was magic in the day
as I sipped my rum and cola
and rhymed couplets all the way
Checked in on Wednesday, wondering what to do
maybe I could try to call a good old friend or two
There was a man I’d met in Banff
just three weeks before
a man of love and wisdom
that I’d like to see once more
And a lady of my poems
that I’d seen just twice before
thirty minutes in an airport
and two hours on the shore
He was busy in a meeting she answered on first try
she had booked off work without knowing why
And when I told her that I was in her town
she said “I’ve got a story and I’ll be right down”
It seems that her grand dad
who had raised her as a child
had died not long ago
and the grief had drove her wild
The family all were fighting for the pennies on his eyes
and there was no one there to hear her heartfelt cries
So she ran from that hospital not knowing what to do
and stood on the highest hill alone in a sky of blue
And loudly called my name
“Please come, please, I need you”
When I asked had she made this cry
and had I come real soon
“Oh it wasn’t very long ago
just Sunday afternoon”
ICARUS UNBOUND
ICARUS UNBOUND
Within the greater urge
of man to soar and fly
It is not uncommon
that some may try and die
Salmon must return to spawn
birds must south and northward fly
The Buddha and the Christ
give focus to the martyr’s eye
The fault lies not
in these unalterable things
But in the material
with which he built the wings
SACRIFICE
SACRIFICE
The Kubla Khan’s from minds
broken loose by
and all too soon broken by drugs.
The alcohol that so many have found as
the key to their heaven and their hell.
And all the wounds of daily battles with
truths wrestled to a fall
Makes me wonder if writers
like mothers
and forests
sometimes lay down their bodies
that their children
may grow
GARBO PASSES
GARBO PASSES
She didn’t really want to be alone
she just didn’t want to be
with most of the people who wanted
to be with her
She
just didn’t have
anything more to give
to those who only wanted to take
She didn’t really want to be alone
The last thing she really wanted was
to be alone
THE PIETA
THE PIETA
Michelangelo
polished the Pieta, polished the Pieta
polished the Pieta
Tired past all tired
polished the Pieta, polished the Pieta
polished the Pieta
Polishing her breast
he fell into a sleep, fell into a sleep in the
arms of the Pieta
When the polishing was done Michelangelo
stood back
The Mother was alive, the Mother had an
Aura and the Mother was alive
And yet the Son, the Son lay dead, the Son
lay dead there in her arms
In the mind of Michelangelo a thought began
to grow
Unworthy, unworthy, unworthy
yet I know
I must take the red black blood, I must take
the red black blood
From his side of cold white marble
I must take the blood within me, I must take
the blood within me, I must take the blood of
death, I must take the blood of death to the
center of myself
Unworthy, unworthy, yet unworthy
in my prayer
I must change the blood that’s there
In the mind of Michelangelo, in the mind of
Michelangelo, in the midst of Michelangelo
the red black blood was changed to light
unworthy, unworthy, unworthy
Michelangelo
the red black blood was changed to light
Then the mind of Michelangelo
saw the light return to marble through the
marble hole in side
Saw the Aura of the Mother
saw the energy of Mary
Saw the energy of Mary through her arms
into her Son
Saw the Christ no more of death, saw the
Christ to be reborn
When Michelangelo lay dying
When Michelangelo lay dying and his
friends were gathered round
They saw him tired past all tired on a cot
within his home
When Michelangelo lay dying
When Michelangelo lay dying, he saw the
statue and the stone
Saw the polishing was done
And fell into a sleep
In the arms of the Mother, in the arms
of the Mother
Of the Mother of the Son.
GOODNIGHT MARILYN
GOODNIGHT MARILYN
(or dyin ain’t easy but it’s a livin)
All heroes will be expected to die young
to keep their fans from growing old
and will be well rewarded
in unspendable gold
If it’s sex you give then sex it pays
so take along the two young Ks
Though a frozen instant Porsche crash
could be worth a lot of cash
And the Colonel smiles as the money piles
for haunting supermarket aisles
But for biggest gross and longest run
it’s still the cross at thirty one
ODE TO THE FARMER
ODE TO THE FARMER
No one will be surprised by the report
that farming is a very dangerous sport
What flapping empty fingered gloves
point back to momentary lapses
What limbs with what power
have been taken off by
power take offs
What tendons snapped like glass
and bones cut clean as grass
by unthinking mowers
And what of those neighbours dead and true
who for a minute forgetting what they knew
through red machines combined
with their grain
All these have earned his dusty tear
and many a “who’s next” fear
Year after year, after year, after year
And yet deep in the soils of time
the seeds of his goodness are growing
while the world turns in slow seasons
and he will be ready
when at last they declare
a true war on poverty
and are willing to bomb with wheat
MY COUSIN WAYNE
MY COUSIN WAYNE
When Wayne was thirteen
he had the finest blondest hair
the finest features and the finest mind
of all the cousins round
A city boy and cooler about everything than all of us
until we took him hunting
When his first shot hit the rabbit
he ran and cried and held it till it died
At eighteen he quit school with A grades
a month before grad to get a jump on a job
met a girl and bragged of achievement on first date
Over achievement it turned out to be
quick marriage, quick, two children three
Army for security, liquor for the pain
it was twenty years before I saw him again
He was in a downstairs bar
sitting there as coarse and thick as adobe brick
I wanted to roll it all back
reach in for the lost fineness and yank it all inside out
And hold him like the rabbit when he cried
still innocent when it died
OLD WIVES LAKE MASSACRE
OLD WIVES LAKE MASSACRE – THE LEGEND
About a hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, in what is now south west Saskatchewan, a band of Cree camping on the shore of a prairie lake were surrounded by a much larger band of Blackfoot warriors.
In order to save the lives of the young and strong, they slipped out under cover of darkness while the old and infirm stayed behind to keep the fires burning and keep up the appearance of an occupied camp.
When the Blackfoot attacked the next morning they were furious at having been tricked in this way and massacred all of the remaining inhabitants of the camp including all the old wives.
This unusual and powerful occurrence is remembered to this day in the name of the lake
I grew up and ranched along its shores.
OLD WIVES LAKE MASSACRE – THE POEM
I have eaten the beef
that ate the grass
that grew on your unmarked graves
And the sadness I sing, I sing for you
for all sadness is one sadness
all pain one pain
and all treachery one treachery
Many have eaten of the buffalo and the beef
They wake in the night
and do not know why they are sad
The Legend
The Poem