While you're romanticizing the setting sun,
And conjugating all the figures of speech
Such a metaphorical red orb produces,
Allow your eyes to wander over
To the duck,
Waddling westward.

Observe his tail feathers.
Notice how preened and coiffed they are,
With a tinge of midas gold.
See how the breeze gently whips
The wispy wafting plumes,
Swaying right to left,
Exposing its avian chute.

Look,
All you who gaze upon the re-minted
El Presidente,
Donaldo, Don Come Mierda,
Who does indeed have the uncanny resemblance of
The East End of a Duck Walking West.

Canada is renaming the Great Lakes.

Lake Superior..........Lake Canada

Lake Ontario............Lake Ontario (stays)

Lake Erie...................Lake John A. Macdonald

Lake Huron..............Lake Jacques Cartier

Lake Michigan........Lake Trudeau (that should **** him off... but we
                                   know we mean Pierre, not his bonehead son)

Lake Champlain....Lake Quebec (although not a Great Lake, the
                                 orange guy wanted to make it a Great Lake back
                                 in 2018).

We have our own cartographers.
Gimme the Sharpie.

I drove under the overpass.
That would be an underpass.
Yesterday, I drove over
The underpass.
That is the overpass,
Above the underpass.

In squash, 99% of the ball
Is In-bounds on the red line,
But still 100% out-of-bounds.

In tennis, the ball
Is 99% out-of-bounds,
On the white line,
But still 100% In-bounds.

And, if I stand on my head long enough,
Our world seems up-side-down,
But really, it's right-side-up.

Life is like that.
Isn't it confusing?

Will be leaving soon for Orlando,
Away from the cold in Ontario.
Will I return?
I really don't know.

A wacko may secretly board my plane;
A radicalized lunatic far from sane.

Or Canada geese, heading south,
Might take our fuelled jet engines out.

Some random lightning shot from the sky
Lights up our cockpit,
And the pilots die.

The landing gear is up and stuck...
“I don't think I drank enough!”

There's mad rage on the road
Between
Orlando and St. Augustine.

There’s snub-nosed guns in too many bags,
And the pubs are teeming with cougars and *****.

The Matanzas flows with gators and sharks,
I'll make note of this as my kyak embarks.

A drunken driver could do the job;
Or I get hospitalized
From being robbed.

An Early Bird bone might make me choke,
Or an errant golf ball holes out in my throat.

Perhaps nothing happens, I’m too suspect
Of the possible perils from my Florida trek.

Is it worth the risks. I’ll let you know,
When I get back to the warmth  of Ontario.

When you’re alone,
Or with others,
Enjoy the poems
Between these covers.

Poems of love and hope,
Praise and pride,
The times we laughed,
The times we cried.

Through the years,
From birth till now,
We grew in number,
And thrived somehow.

Your natural talents
And acquired skills,
Fill my pages
With timely thrills.

You weren’t entitled,
You didn’t squander,
You earned the prizes
For your endeavours.

Read now how it came together.

We'd never call them losers
Because they couldn't stand;
We'd lift them up from off the ground
On worn out knees and hands.

We'd never call them fools
Because they wouldn't talk;
We oohed and ahhed with all their sounds,
And they did it as they walked.

We heard a blend of sounds spew forth,
Like spilled out alphaghetti;
They roared with oral prowess,
Like lions on the Serengeti.

As years passed, and they were graded
(And most certainly not by us);
They might return with D's and E's,
We'd never judge or fuss.

This is how we treated them,
Our children that we raised;
I hope that our puzzling world
Will forgive, forget and praise.

You couldn't love me any more.
I don't love you any less.
More or less?
Which is best.