23 June 2022

Travel Unstressed
23 June 2022

Waiting, the airport is crowded and full,
Announcements taking their noisiest toll.
Security playing it's cluster f*cked roll.
One passenger, weeping bag overflow.
Mamma 4 kids, all squawking in tow.
Baggage lost, no place to stay.
Travel past, was never this way,
Horse only needed, one bale of hay.
Price is inflated, oil price today.
Never the less.  we're ready to pay,
Adventure pending, awaiting life weighed.
Cabins out on that  rocky lake  shore.
Fish jumping, hooks already gore.
Canoe drifting, fir green on trees,
Oak logs in fireplace,  burning my knees.
Going to open that lost deck of cards,
Two weeks not mowing  backyard.
Look forward, each summer season,
Straying hot summer, no stress or reason.
Chores left at airport. the master plan.
Mountain country, awesome, so grand.
Passport quaking in shivering hand.
Cameras hanging, old dust and sand.
Can't leave my bag, here at my seat.
Take it with you, if needing a leak.
Safety warnings,  hang every aisle.
Terrorists coming with all their wiles.
No one really daring to smile.
Hearing now that loud roaring sound,
Meaning my flight has been final found.
Finally time to get out of town.
Next year. again, will travel bound.
Friends all gather, end of my journey.
I tell them I never hurried.
Vacation was best ever scurried.
Bank account empty, now my big worry.

20 June 2022

Strange Friends

20 June 2022

They call early,
Insistent.
Get up, each new day,
A priority.
Good morning friends,
You never end.
Each bend in the road,
We meet.
Strange friends these aches.
My day awaits.
I am awake.

Age (Haiku)
8 May 2022

I pick you up,
Kiss your little lips,
To soon goodbye.

When you are lost
4 June 2022

When you are lost,
Far from home,
No one there you’ve ever
known,
Nothing left to call your own,  
Angel comes to fill your horn

Years have gone since things were right,
Days filled,  fear, nightmare frights.  
All your life  played it tight,
Shared your dreams, lost your might.  

Hungered wolves now pound your door,
Meat and bones their meaner score.
Old and worn, you ‘ope the door,
Give them what they’ve waited for.

Comfort smile on your chin,
Hold that paper wrinkled thin,
Your name scribbled ink and pen,
Never will, be writ agin.

Lessons left in poem and rhyme,
Lost with you in never time.
Partner came from nowhere known,
“You’re not lost, you’re going home”.  

“Peace you sought,  never found,
In past years, local town,
Stark  and bare, sing love and grace,
Leave your goods, find your place”.  

“Other dress up in your clothes,
Play your music, hold your pose.
Now they’ll wander, on their own.
Wonder how, you stood alone.”

“Your strength came not wealth and gold,
Not from simply growing old.
Gifts from others, wise and free,
Lift you up, for truth to see.”

15 May 2022-

Silk sheets. Sweat air conditioned, owl-echo growls.
Not yet summer, war, pain, dissolution, summer on prowl.
All winter waits, snow-broken melt on pavement,
Pressing my head, your shoulder shakes, well-spent,
Winds raise the shingles, we twist again passioned.
Cool fall sun lies best on me like you, unrationed.
Whispering, snarling,  orange-layered ******,
Shake in summer heat's thousand spasms.
Hold back the drear of fallen leaf and dove torn.
Peace, comfort-thunder, insist again, warn,
I open your door unbarred.

Lighting, dark enlightenment, ash, strength spared,
Like ice in cold water , spoil the taste of spice and hair.
Lying touched, challenged, used, we stay bare.
Summer heat holds us here. Night, we become one.
Summer heat. It's not done.

8 May 2022

"two dollars said I won.
used to buy a bit of fun.
now worth only one"

Not enough to buy a bun.
A loaf of bread? sorry none.
Tried for galloon of gas,
Tossed  me out on my ***.

Taxes seemed came to three,
Took my money "abc".
Now wonder, two dollars free?
Can't buy one dollar's need.

Told it's called inflation's gain.
Least it's got a pretty name.
Pay it now, all day long.
" 'for it's over, dollar's gone' ".

27 April 2022

My night sky anchors me.
Infinity of stars , song of crickets.
Frogs crying in next yard pool

Surrounding me in gentled darkness,  
Promising light of the next day.
Orion showing the righteous way,
Moon glow.

Scented taste of newly mown
A gown of dewed web shimmering passes,
Awaiting realty of our primal existemce.

Another sound, deep and unwavering.
An owl blurring unnoticed,
A human’s cough and shuffle.
I’m grounded in my insignificance.

Whence comes comfort and stirring?
My belonging celebrates itself.

16 April 2022

It's been a long, snowy, cold winter.
Spring has been reluctant, slow.
Peeking in on my life then hiding.
Rainy dark, early morning days.

When is long enough, to satisfy those,
Who prefer, rather than pleasurable shortened times,
Prolonged hours with  friends in garden, park, or mutual consort.

Somehow I find all this focus on weather depressing.
Perhaps I am stretching things too far,
Spending time on the breadth of the tropic.

Be Gentle
11 April 2021

Be gentle, the day has just begun.

Sweet Tea.
29 January 2022

Sweet tea,  fill my awakening.
Silk leaf, hold each wonder high.

Stir silver spoon, glisten emerald blue,
Daylight come, Sleep fade-into shadows.

Dreams, prepare a gift for today.
Heated  kettle, soften each bud, lusting release.

Savour this moment,  my heaven.
Sweet tea of morning in my bed.

Quiet Times.
19 January 2022

Your footsteps whisper song,
Basement stairs too long.
Rustle of your clothes.
Crackle of sore flexions,
Sniffle of your nose.
Colours you so careful chose

Your hand on my pillow,
The rattle of your keys.
Hinges of the door squeak,
Silent morning sun.
Sliding o’er the fallen snow,   
Love the things 'bout you I know.

Shadow of that moonlit tree,
Where you head could be.
Waiting for those quiet sounds,
Set me free.

Lately
28 September 2021

Feeling I've been late lately.
Changes happening too fast.
World not looking greatly.
Wonder if it will last.

Oceans
22 January 2022.  

In the infinity of you,
I find unending joy,
Calm as each wave,
Wash me pure.

Holding me under God’s sky.
Pain and sorrow find no hold.
Your courage true bold..
Your strength purest gold.

You leave not one behind.
Share, love, never blind.
Other find you angel fair.
Precious, gentle, rare.
Growing strong in your care.

10 April 2022

Social, psyche, and marital bonds bind us,
Challenging our demise.
Primary as elder I fuss hoping wise,
To secure your  plan beside.

Resources to fulfill all your dreams.
Priorities lie in rocky-life stream.
Family lies on my knee.
Best plan keep them secure and freed.

Children expect parents hold them heir.
Particular when pass unprepared.
Though our vows lie fresh and new,
Balance quivered, edges dewed  

Much depends other ways and mean.
Not all ready, skill tight and keen.
Future lying in their wake.
Give them all I take?

War
3 April 2022

They watched you go.
Time stopped, they wanted free.
Every dream stayed with me.
Every dream😲agony.
Tomorrow’s pain will show,
Moon and fire only know.

Sleep alone,  little ones.
Strife  is here with his guns.
Over there behind those trees.  
Men die on broken knees.
Loved once, they hold their brave.
Soon they’ll sleep near tags in graves.

War forever holds their eyes.
Tomorrow time for all to cry.
Today I hear sweet good byes.
They stay here so you can fly,
Ignore the pain.
War comes to us again.

The Moment
Moments
27 March 2022

Musing. Where do I find my centre?
The essence of my being?
The accounting of my worth?
My person?
Not in my poetry, my stories, my self.
Rather moments unfettering the illusion of wholeness complete.
Greatest satisfactions of my life, are brief.
Infinity's experience,  distanced, solitary, lost.
No need for more.

2022  
In cold morning. on broken  deck, lies a child. Alone.
Dove near her heart, reminder of family,  peace she once knew.  
It  cries her pain.

Soon all will be lost, to love once again.
Close in deepest sleep, an angel missing.

How can this child lie among all the stars ?
How she sparkled, played, fingers spread!  
Unfulfilled.
Heart still.  

Heaven and earth soaked in her spill.

B. T. W.  2016
In the morning on the deck lies a man. He's alone.
There's a dove near his heart, a gramophone .
Most days more gentle, he senses the pain.
Soon he will be lost to love once again.
Somewhere close in her deep late sweet sleep,
One angel’s, missing this sheep.
How can it be he’s hidden among all the stars.
Where he sparkles, fingers spread, unfulfilled.
Heart full till heaven and earth soaked in it’s spill?
B. Whittaker
(As first writ in 2016 mourning my first wife lost in 2014)

Not your fault
5 March 2022

I saw your courage.
I saw your pain.
My prayers are not enough.

Metaverse
4 March 2022

Yesterday, I stepped, fell into yours.
Some chapters were inspiring possibilities, health, happiness, no pain.
But it seems you haven’t realized any of them!
I didn’t stay long.. Too many other better offers.
Rather you, like me, had abandoned your ideal.
Misled by the thought of a tangible reality?
Overwhelmed by the book of others?
Acting on the fear of demons?
Welcome to mine!

28 February 2022

How did we  let them make us old?
Tiger leaders have us cold.
Years gone by their tales we told.
Now the future, they sold.

Follow us they dare to say.
Watch us spoil the lights of day.
**** the children while they play..
Tigers like the world that way.

Most of us hear that song.
Let go on, right or wrong.
Suddenly the are too strong.
Tigers write our death song.

Courage now will be our cost.
Being faithful to our cause.
Freedoms we have lost.
Bold to be, blood be tossed.

Toilet Seat
23 Feb 2022

Broken-day, torii brick shard, lying grey furred furrow.
Dust scarlet covered berm, breaking morn of plain plaid kids, unearned plastic, horror films.
Bones were home, no  longer borrowed.. They never lived.

White marbled Torso held court in  dark brown sack, dreaming bloodied, past ivory beige scars.
Soil green-lined paper reel, only new light, burning orange in midnight star wars.
Seal pink toilet seat stays, winds farrow, foul blast exaggerated by cracked silvered mirror candle, weeping.
Broken azul sky, cloud black bar. A red bacardi label, torn, 3 rusted cars..

Ash, twisted ***** sculpted tan oak, on a blue T shirt.
Somehow resting, orange flat steeple *****.
Reminds past heroes were longer, discarded, purple neutered..

A nose and an ear. Vulvae. A smashed CFM TV.

Somehow these pieces form the picture of tall thunder.
Holding me here.
Chaos grows on my living room floor, wait!
I  lower the toilet seat, crying over a dead cow, last night's beer.


Today I will hold my own.

There you were (Hauku)
31 January 2022

I am my body.
You are my soul and life.
I will never die.

Sweet Tea.
29 January 2032

Sweet tea,  fill my awakening.
Silk leaf, hold wonder high.

Stir silver spoon, glisten emerald.
Daylight come, fade from shadow.

Dream, prepare gifts  for this day,
Heated, soften each bud lusting release.

Savour this moment,  heaven.
Sweet tea of morning, lie in my bed.

Twilihht
26 January 2022

In the dimming light,
My vision clears.
I see the gifts that I have.
I feel the love we share.
The embrace of those not here.

You warm me, shelter me.
Twilight in my home.

Oceans
22 January 2022.  

In the infinity of you,
I find unending joy.
Calm as each wave,
Washing me.

Holding me under God’s sky.
Pain and sorrow find no hold.
Your courage has no lie.
Your strength from purest gold.

You leave no one behind.
Share, love not blind.
Other find you there.
Precious, gentle, rare.
Growing in your care.

Absence
20 January 2022

Empty hedge you bear no fruit,

Richest soil, no *****.  

Leave worthless suit,

Stilled endless bloom,

Held short by thoughtless root.

Quiet Times.
19 January 2022

Your footsteps, whispered song,
Basement stairs too long.
Rustle of your clothes.
Crackle of flexions,
Sniffle of your nose.
Colours you chose

Your hand on my pillow,
The rattle of your keys.
Hinges of the door tease.
Silent morning sun,
Sliding o’er the snow.    
Love the things I know.

Shadow of that moonlit tree,
Where you head could be.
Waiting for those quiet sounds,
To set me free.

CFM.  (Adult)
5 January 2022

Hunger-wearing-black-booted-
Midnight-shadow-street-corner-­blue-
Bartender-bassoon-smooth-wailing-horn,
Tonight pull me while I'm burner-raw-torn.
Desiccate-night-thirst wake me. Tease.
Moon CFM drown me, break me.
Roaming-desert-music, seize me.
Viola-tight-throat-hum-love, sting!
Tonight no hope, I need to sing.

Dec 29 2021

Each waking morning I celebrate you.
You are my earthly love, passioned true.
In the cold of winter, the promise of spring,
You are my gift, always giving right living.

In the darkness of forever lasting,
I will dream of your touch, your laughing.
In the pain of loss, the thief of grief,
I have found you, Hallelujah. All relief.

Stay. Keep heart warm and free.
As you travel, cantor our soul alee.
Distance, an illusion of this world.
Beside you, hear my songs dance, twirl.
,
Softly, tenderly, I whisper your ear.
You are safe. I am here.
Hold eternal our bands, our hands.
In this ever strange, hungry, neverland.

Hallelujah.
I celebrate you.

25 December 2021

Restrained.

When I get there,
Will I remember why I came?
Restrained.

24 December 2021.

Inevitably, comes,
At an unsettling pace.
Time for the beach.

04 January 2019
Workshop

Sip of wine, sparkling eyes, gentle smile.

Chrismas decorations, miles and wiles.

Neighbours shoveling snow, laughing, kicking the edges.

Some have already gone south.

Lights blinking like fading stars, some didn’t.

Another snowflake on my glasses melting, like the years.

Breaking Away

17 December 2021.

Feeling winds of time, change,
Four seasons, each unique,
Growing the previous.
When a mountain is climbed,
Both are lamed.

Old ease offers less solace,
Uncertain new promise.
Worlds broken, earthquake, storm.

Your freedom, your choice.
Breaking away.
Is there a way home?

12 December 2021

Cold early morning.
TV weather warning.
Often a shadow at dark.
No room at the park.

Moon hungry eye,
Lonely enough I sigh.
Most quickly pass by.
We'll do better, July.

Christmas time lies near.
Left only one beer.
Cards still hang from last year.
I hear that old carol song.
Where I somehow went wrong.

Only one smile is my wish.
One dollar in my cold dish.
Here each day is a loan.
Nothing i have is my own.
Crowds packing gifts all go home.

Once I  had a name.

11 December 2021
Tradition

And so I wander the steadying hand of tradition.

An gray homestead, weary wallpaper and waxed wooden floors, frozen pipes.
Green and yellow enameled table bowled with oatmeal and brown sugar.
Window covered in leafy spirals of frost dripping, heat of wood stove crackle.

A bed warmed overnight by feathered covers and heated stone.
A metal pan in the sink holding my father’s soap, brush, and brass razor, awaiting a hot kettle.
Snow in my rubber boots, waxed paper sock lined, crunching as we struggle to class.
Charcoal ash marking paths through snowbanks, ice puddles on the road, horse track.
Milk standing at attention, saluting the rising sun of winter’s doorstep.
Hockey sticks and skates resting in the back porch, worn and ready.

Tomato soup with a pat of yellow butter, salted ******* crumbles.
Burnt bread crust trying to hold onto marmalade from the ice box.
Tea leaves in my cup predicting the upcoming fortune of the day.
A naughty calendar pinned to the garage wall, Dad over oily steamed mechanics.
Call of my best friend to dice, a color squared cardboard game, and an afternoon of challenge.
Hands of the girl next door brushing her unkempt, unruly hair in her front window.
Galvanized tub of warm water for the weekly Saturday bath.

A fir tree with the promise of sweets and a gift, sparkling at midnight, filling home with pine scent, holding lit candles.
Toy filled sock on the bed, half a cookie, and an empty milk glass on the bedside stool, Christmas morning.
The first phone call from family that morning, bacon and eggs, extra time lying in bed.
Butter tarts, turkey in the oven.

Tradition, tradition, where are am I now?

Unconditional
8 December2021

Innocent child has basic need,
Fulfilled parents, to feed that seed.
Marriage contract, every level,
Course not filled, delights a devil.
We live our lives in trade and debt,
On conditions bet or set.
Gift always does some burden bear,
Loads lifted only wear and tear.

Love bears it’s own heavy cost.
Unconditioned, always tossed.
Dream of less forever lost.

Facing a Crisis
1 December 2021

Not always advice a best answer.

Devil princess dances with panthers.
Living outside all man-mapped bound.
Rhythm of nature shapes her soft sound.

Love leaves old pain lost in the wake.
Manage your life for your life's sake.
Road risky will certain ride truth.

A loving soul need bide it's own way.
Soft, hard shoulders edging your day.
Only time travelled, answers love’s call.

Holding to show how fate truly run.
Way ahead clearing, silvered sun.
Traveling truth will crisis be won.

Deja Vue
25 November 2021

I have been here when I was young.
Dead bears, wolves howling, wooden stairs, wooden legs.

Nights alone.

At my heels slavering death.
Gasping, failing breath.
Trembling, remembering their eyes.

Falling into the abyss.
This time will I awake?

20 November 2021

Free of pain.
How do you know you exist?
Arthritic old sits daily twisted,
Grey eyes struggle, tears misted.
Lost a friend or mother?
Money, job, sister, brother?
Respect, youth, your truth?
The great questions of life and death,
Answered in last quivered breath.

Each day I awake for the sun.
Listen,  last song she sung.
Wonder stars filling night sky.
Where will I go when I die?
Cry as wars fill the earth,
Heroes finding their worth.
Feeling that child in my arms.
Loving you, kissing you warm.

Pain lies hidden each day,
Holding the answer at bay.
How long can I stay,
Loving you?

Tides
16  November 2021.

Bless our morning sun.
Waves sweeping my shore.
Rhythms of you.

Oct 10 2021

Why take summertime?
Winter I will give to you,
Stormy Weather.

Watch her crying.
Her dream dying.
Life twisting her dry.

Always standing alone,
Strangers filling her home.
Hungry hands fondled her *******,
Taking her owned she had left.

No where to go, only frost.
All treasures long lost.
No one to listen her cost.
Empty, her bucket tossed.

Each day was the same.
No hugs, only pain.
No promise let her live.
Born only to give.

Beyond
8 October 2021

Old memories, images of other times.
Move them in your dreams to a new life.
Reality in a place beyond possible today.

Future, past, combined in spaces of infinite care.
Old transforming to your new.
Living beyond our imagination.

Lost, or finding your way home?

3 October 2021

Time Fall. Hold, recover old memories, primal loves.
Pine needles, maple syrup, red wines, velvet leather gloves.
Noon canoe paddled, sudden ****** splash, spilling your smudged glass.
Damp firewood logs leaning a rusted axe, mushroom patios, dandelion blossom, holding back the last day's tasks.
Twigs and leaves curling smoke, blurring tired eyes, staining last year's denim worn clothes.
Saline thoughts wet, layering corners of times, people past.

A broken cottage window screen will wait another year,
Glass green shatter, under that old deck, held fine malt beer.
Righteous melancholy lays bare, naked, true north centered.
Cold wind bides future flakes, mixed sun, frost, winter's bite.

Gentle hands we held, love sweatered, lain in heaped marker,
Walking that country road, looking for family stone date etched, shiver alone.
Reminded in sepia photo, leather album of hot home-made Friday's bread, **** lemon butter.
Sudden scents we once marked, raise again ancestral homes.

Biding grey-rose tinted sky, last hour of today, we head to our stoop.
Warm cider sits on edge, steam rising into this fading night.
Pause, feet, ankles, in the lake, ice needles loop our toes.
Then, a stalwart bluebird alights the cedar stump cornering the forest edge.
Nostalgia sits beside him, feels right. Morrow's fledge.

2 October 2021

You came from the dark side, stilled alive.
Disorderly, drunk, broken, with child.
This was not who I knew,  you cried.
This was not what I knew, crazy, wild.

You are my guardian, with the magic #'s.
Why would my dreams reshape, plunder?
Wolves, and demons bring their thunger,
Running I tried to help you, you went under.

Bad dreams stay when I am awake.
Good things happen through who you were.
Swim afire through that flaming lake.
Play, bad dreams when I am awake.

30 September 2021

Nothing stirred, nothing shaken.
Skylight held stars in weighted grasp.
On the back of quiet trees eaves,
Stilled in an oasis moon cast.

A black cat lay on board fenced sleeping.
White sound wind longer opened the night.
A neighborhood pond mirrored as glinting,
Empty windows on a dying world.

Perhaps the end had long ago begun.
A banjo lay in the corner hall unstrung.
Two broken Skelton tennis raquets,
Sat statuettes on marble brackets.

All that moved was a mote of dust,
Leaving the trail of century aged rust.
Who would come to page this whole?
Life unwashed, once holding  fervored souls.

Bad is Bad. (Haiku)
28 September 2021.

Bad is Bad.
Wasting too much talk.
Bad is bad.

Are we guilty?
26 September 2021

Walking alone an immigrant boy,
Noticed two apples, wanted a toy.
Poor and hungry , he followed the road.
In the gutter saw one fat old toad.
Behind the farm fence, a mangy horse.
It was not cared for, also hungry of course.
The boy’s  eyes sparkled, chance for good deed.
That poor wasted animal was given a feed.
Next door the colt bolted, fell down, and died.
Choked on the seeds, never could cry.

The Rich Baron started to dance.
Sure no apples fell from his ranch.
Passed the boy in the market by chance.
Thought him strange, bulge in his pants.
Saw he was hungry, walked on his own.
Would never take such a child home.

Judge he said “My poor pony is dead”.
“This young lad stole my apple so red”.
“I lost money, nothing comes free”
“Took that  apple from my tall tree”.
Told the boy quiet “Fell on the road”
“Almost squashed that fat old toad”.
Too young to be held there in jail,
His parents found guilty, no money for bail.
Thought this an interesting tale.

Quality of Life
24 September 2021

Quality of life.
Some like peace, some conflict
I like the choice.