Poetry Prose Anything goes

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

City Birdie

City Birdie

City birdie you have such fun
Flitting, twitting in the morning sun
You splish you splash all a flutter
Playing in the cobbled gutter

I watch you from my comfy bed
I love to feed you doughy bread
Happily you madly hop about
You bathe under a water spout

I'm happy to see you day in day out
But you are trouble without a doubt
And even though I am bemused
Your antics make me tres confused

City bird you build your home
A bit of string, a dirty comb
A used rubber, a filthy sock
Maybe even a piece of rock

Birdie would I have you as a pet?
Is this something I would regret?
Even though your sweet peep, peep
Would comfort me to deep, deep sleep

Should I share my bed with a city bird?
Should I have a pet way less absurd?
'though it may poop on the floor,
A cuddly doggie I could adore

We'd pack a bag and leave the core
Visit the mountains and the shore
We'd cozy together in a little tent
Not huddle by a noisy in-take vent

And if a robber did b. n. e.
Doggie would protect wee me
Doggie would attack and bite
Not just shit, then take flight

Doggie I can walk to keep us in shape
Birdie needs no mutual escape
Birdie needs to spread its wings
Doggie looks to me for things
Birdie I love you go your indie way
But you use the street as your dinner tray
And though doggie's only words are arf, arf, arf
Doggie does not feed its kids puked up hobo barf.

So as I end my juxtapose
I’m reminded of a pretty rose
Its lovely scent will make you quiver
Its thorn leaves a painful sliver

So you fly away, you who is in control
I give up on your cursed indie soul
Life is much more than squawking from a tree
I need Doggie cuz Doggie needs me

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Nuts

This is one of my favourite stories. My Uncle Hugh told it to me when I was about seven. In our family, he was the one you called upon to be the MC at weddings, that sort of fun loving, hard drinking, chain smoking, kind of guy. He lied about his age to get into World II. He ended up in the RAF as a navigator and flew on missions during the Battle of Britain.
After the war he earned a degree in engineering from University of Toronto, graduated in the top ten of his class. He could remember millions of stories, lymerics, and jokes. Much to the chagrin of my mother, he would entertain my two brothers and me at family get-togethers with stories such as this one. This is one of my favourite stories, his too. If you've heard it before, to quote my clever Uncle in prefacing a story, "If you've heard it before, I don't care, I like this story and I want to hear it again."

One dark and stormy night ..... a salesman from the city traveling through the countryside gets a flat tire ...... As chance would have it, he happens to stop outside the gates of an Asylum for the Criminally Insane. It is raining very hard and this, coupled with being late for a meeting, causes him to rush changing the tire. The work is tough going in the slippery mud. The thunder is startling, but even more jolting is that a flash lightning reveals just inside the high fence of the institute an inmate is standing under a tree smoking a pipe. Anxious to get away from the inmate's intense stare, the salesman frantically changes the tire. He is almost done when he slips in the mud and accidentally kicks the lug nuts down a storm drain.
The situation being hopeless, the frustrated salesman walks up to the fence to ask the inmate if he could use a phone.
The inmate calmly asks, "Why do you want to use the phone."
Humouring the pipe-puffing lunatic, the salesman replies, "Well, I would like to use the phone to call a tow truck."
"Why do you want to call a tow truck?" invokes the inmate.
It is pouring rain; the salesman is soaked through. He is infuriated by the inmate's lack of cooperation.
"Listen, you stupid nut-bar, I haven't time to stand here playing twenty questions with you. Get them to let me in so I can call a tow truck"
The inmate gives a quick puff on his pipe and with a concerned look answers, "It seems like calling a tow truck this time of night might be a waste of time. Besides I think I can help you."
The inmate taps his pipe out on his boot-heel and coolly packs it with fresh tobacco.
"You can help, how so?"
Through the iron bars the inmate explains, "Well, the problem is you can't get the tire changed because you lost the lugs nuts that hold the tire on the car.
"Yes", the salesman interjects impatiently.
"Mine is a simple solution that will save you the time it takes to wait for a tow truck and this solution will also save you the cost of a tow truck."
"O.K. I'm all ears," the salesman responds skeptically.
"The problem is you're short the lug nuts to keep the tire on the car. So here's what you do. Go around the car and take one lug nut off each of the other three tires and then the four tires tire would then end up having three lug nuts each. That should be enough to hold you to drive to the service station to get your flat fixed."
The salesman is stunned and humiliated by the inmate's solution. In surrender he offers, "That's amazing, how did you figure that out?"
"Well, my good friend," replied the inmate as he light up his pipe, "In here we may be crazy, but we're definitely not stupid."
The salesman smiles sheepishly.
"Have a nice day." And the inmate turns and walks away leaving the salesman in the soaking rain. Suddenly, a crack of thunder, and in the flash of lightning the bewildered salesman witnesses the inmate cackle manically as he heads back to the institution on the hill.

Monday, April 30, 2007

My New Love

My New Love: The Poem - Episode 4 – “A Journey”.

While very young and in church
The whole world I would besmirch,
I would drift away, think any thought
Anything, but hear what the Father taught

While a youth bored in class, to kill the time,
A waft away from the sublime.
Of my first love I would in repose,
Dream of her, recall her beauty, big finger to my nose.

A woman’s love, it smothers
In spite of what they say, alas she washed away, then many others
I drank, and drugged and I lost my way
“He’s no life,” my few friends would say

Jobs and chances, I wasted plenty,
Did a dime in San Clemente
(There I learned all about dope
And never, never drop the soap)

My luck all gone, my misery deepened
I became withdrawn, my depression steepened
At the end, on a dark Sunday night
I ventured towards the greatest light
There the light did shine as though twas day
It wasn’t heaven, but grown men did play
They cared not their youth was done
I could see they were having fun

I joined in, ran hard, my muscles burned
And soon my inner strength returned
It was not the tunnel I went down
I joined a sport that is renown

I went home, full of life, hardly slept,
So full of joy I nearly wept
A simple thing to play a game
The benefits are there to gain

Pride restored, I got some work
I was hired as an office clerk
I treat all as my fine brothers
I work hard, I do good unto others

To confess I’m still bored at a meeting
Now, to ward off appearing fleeting
I keep my eyes glued on the speaker
Smile and nod as though I’m meeker
I sneak my big finger along my lip
Breath in as though to catch a drip
Then I simply conjure up my new love,
From the lingering smell of my lacrosse glove

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Sands of Time

It rains a lot here in Vancouver where I live, but imagine living in the Sudan and looking outside the tent flap and seeing all this sand blowing everywhere, day after day, and saying to your buddys who dropped by and are having a chuff, "I wonder when the sand will stop?"
And because maybe you've all been trapped indoors for too long and everyone's starting to get tent fever, and so little things seem funny, and besides the chuff is primo, one of your buddys says in reply, "Ya, my hour glass has a crack in it and all this sand blowing in sure makes the days longer". And you all chuckle, have a chuff, and go back to staring out the flap at the sand blowing.
"Fuckn sand", says a buddy.
"Good thing we're not using hour glasses anymore," says another buddy, "Somebody by now would have come up with a 'day glass' - 24 hours of sand. A little crack in the glass and soon the room would be full of sand and then you'd have to shovel out today and shovel it out all day long to make room for tomorrow cuz you know for sure tomorrow's comin. And shovelled outside the tent, piles upon piles of yesterdays. And the tomorrows are stored in one of those big cone shaped structures just off the road. And maybe there was a mix up. During a snow storm, the road crews go to the wrong building and all the tomorrows are sprinkled on the highway and where would the future be?"
And you all have a collective deeply contemplative chuff cuz that was a heavy thought. Then, after a gap in time, other buddy says dryly, "I was thinking, I'd hate to be getting a 'tomorrow' in my ass crack."
And you all have a chuckle and a chuff and go back to staring out the flap at the sand blowing and wondering.