I wonder if I'm losing my mind.
Who, in their right mind, would think:
                     Our world is losing gravity,
                      And no one can escape...
I've a sensibility that sees the world:
                      There's a smell of beach on you...
Perhaps I'm too sensitive.
Perhaps I'll end up sitting in a corner,
Drooling verse:
                       Poets die, it's sad but true,
                       And it matters not what their bodies do...
A million years ago I was one to jeer
At the elderly,
Laugh at jokes in poor taste,
Avoid or ignor the extended empty coffee cup;
I wasn't thinking:
                        Charity is never wasted,
                         Even when refused;
                         A simple act of selflessness
                         Cannot be reduced.
What's to become of me?
Is it infectious?
What would happen if I sneezed at the world?
A pandemic of sensitivity?
Then where would we be!
I just might be doomed, and left drooling.

We’ll age like a well-worn porch
In a thunder storm;
Telling tales, sipping drinks,
Beneath a canopy of stars-
In a house that we call home.

Our basement’s stoked with love,
That melts away the cold;
The rafters hang with laughter,
To warm us when we’re old.

Our shelves are stocked
With hugs and kisses;
And jars of smiles and hopes;
The food of family ties,
That nourish hearts and souls.

I was trying to put the cutlery
In their respective slots,
Then the flash of a thought struck me:

     I could train a monkey to do this.

Don't call them noble,
Nobles aren't even so.
They're pretty good though,
The monkeys.

Hey, when I whack
A really good one,
When I'm in the Zen
Of perfect flight,
My buddy will remark:

     Give a monkey a typewriter
     and sooner or later he'll spell
     a word.

So, I have the greatest respect for our Simian brethern
But those other Nobles... Meh!

You remember Byron from other poems
I told you about. You can look them up
Later. Most of what I said was true
(Same as Twain -  Mark, not Shania).
When I arrived for my visit, Byron's good friend,
Clive, was there, holding a cold one in his country hands,
Before the wood stove in Byron's man-cave.
They were talking about welding joints,
Or the pitch of a roof frame, or something
I know ******* squat about.
Both men, uneducated, but clever as hell.
Without writing down a measurement,
Or drawing a sketch,
Could reproduce the Taj Mahal.
Like Plato's cave dwellers, they just see it, make it, nail it.
I brought up the problems my daughter is having
With her toy poodle,
And Clive joined in about his disobedient
Great Dane. I'll call him Laertes,
Though his real name is Butch.
Clive says Laertes never stops barking,
Shock collars don't work.
Treats were to no avail.
Obedience School only worked at school.
I could see Byron's hand on his chin,
Looking off and up to his left,
Out the window over the wood stove:
Have you tried speaking Danish to him, asked Byron.
Enough said.

The majority consensus is,
We are average.
Eyes behold beauty in tabloids,
But the Elephant Man was on the screen,
The exception.
We are not ugly or stunning,
Spending paper dreams on blemishes
That are all too human.
We are the common denominator
With assets and detractions,
Additions and subtractions,
Sharing invisible property lines,
Crossing borders, unnoticed.
On the scale, Einstein was above average,
With a handful of others.
We can read, that's what the average needs.
If Darwin is correct,
We'll all end up on the cover of The Enquirer.
In the meantime,
I'm comfortable with average.

Average health is above average,
Anything less is unacceptable,
Like living without an epiglottis,
Yet doable.
We spend less than we earn,
Yet the average person wins the lottery,
Then blows it all.
Isn't that true, Joe? Jane?
We're in the middle class.

I am not a King, like Henry,
But I've princes and princesses.

I am not a Neruda,
But I'm read.

I am not a Lewis,
Yet others laugh with me.

I am not a Palmer,
Though I've aced a few.

I am no Lennon,
However, I'm asked to sing.

I am far from being a Casanova,
And yet, I'm not alone.

I am no Graham,
Though the spirit moves me.

I am no Saarinen,
But my children sleep in beds I made.

Don't call me an Einstein
Because I've understood.

I am not a Child,
But you are welcome at my table.

I am none but myself.
If they spoke,
They'd envy me.

I'm up to my
Funny bone
In winter.
If I don't laugh
Insanely,
I will avalanche
Into madness;
Go whirl crazy
In the vortex.

When I close my eyes
I've an IMAX silver screen;
My projection room is stacked
With reels of a re-run dream.

I'm typecast as leading man,
You're the starlet, so it seems.
Today I'm screening tragedy,
That I played like comedy.

Two reels have played,
I'll need three,
To disuade me playing a parody.

I'll need to re-write,
And a location set;
I haven't run
The credits yet.

You protested the direction;
The hero fades out with rejection.
It's a cliff-hanger.
Will the girl return
A fallen damsel?
A chastised angel?
A spiteful devil?
I'm lying waiting
To dream the sequel.

My search
For a higher power
Eluded me;
Thank God
I found our
Poetry.

Those red-hat doffers
Are the blood-thinning vermin.
Stop.

Since we were toddlers
We've had the move;
Something like a siddle,
The sway of balance
On the right/left shift.
But a siddle's for a snake,
A wiggle's for a worm,
And my dog waggles
When I return.

We stop, we wait,
Frozen, and confused;
We're a bit ticked-off
We can't pull this off
In a dance of decisive moves.

We've seen our share
Of waddling sops
Leave sidedoors
On Sunday mornings.
That's not what we do.

I've stopped a tot
From toddling,
Yet now I can't help you.

It's not a reel, a jig or clog,
It's like a line-dance of two frogs.
Then I hear Yeats' fiddler,
And I commence to be a widdler.
When you meet your doppel-widdler,
Don't look,
Don't ask,
Don't take long,
Just widdle past
To the fiddler's song.

I hear myself talk
In parenthetical echos
From your downward eyes
While you text
Someone absent,
Yet closer than I;
I hear myself grow silent
As you smile,
Then look up,
Surprised I'm here.

A friend asked if my mother had a brogue.
She was forty when she landed here,
She probably did. She must have.
What does a child hear?
I was accustomed to it.
I only heard her voice.
Others no doubt did. Liked the lilt.
I  heard the voice,
Not the accent.

My original spring was wound,
Tight as a Swiss watch.
The fore-finger and thumb
Of the nun turned the crown *****,
As only the Sisters could do.
Any subject could be converted
Into a lesson of the life of Jesus.
A plus sign becomes a cross.

     Even Jesus knew the angles
     To be a carpenter and Savior,

Grace and Faith kept time.

The Sacrements were frequent topics.
How many would we receive
Between Baptism and Extreme Unction?
After Confessions, I once asked,
Is it possible to sin between Penance and the curb?

     All things are possible with God.

You didn't want to die with a blemished soul;
Being responsible for more thorns and nails
Pounded into the emaciated, pitiful flesh
Of the one to emulate,
With Grace and Faith.

I was fervent in prayer.
I wanted to carry the Holy Eucharist
To the housebound or hospitalized;
Through the throng of thugs
Ready to defile the wafer.
I was ready to die a martyr,
With a benevolent, sober Jesus,
Guarding from the clouds,
Right hand raised like a Judo chop,
Blessing me, preparing me,
Protecting me with a corporeal force field.
Grace and Faith kept time.

I pined to wear the Altar Boy's Cassock,
Soutane-like, long and black,
Topped with the surplice;
To ring the bell, light the incense,
Hold the Communion Plate
Under Mammy's chin
As she knelt in supplication,
Before the Madonna,
My blessed Mother.

Did she envision me as a Jesuit,
Tending to the lame lepers
In the jungles of Peru and Africa.
Me, who issued forth from her.
Faith kept time.

The dark hour was closing in.
The spring was loosening,
Unwinding as I relaxed.
Marian sat beside me,
Thinking of our orders
At the drive through.
The Nehru-collared clerk
Slid the glass window,
Listening to our wants.
I offered her a napkin
To keep the crumbs
Of her little black dress.

If you've a writer's block,
Keep chiselling.
You'll get relief
When you release the piece.

In that country
They played Red Rover.
We know who
Was called over.

In that country
The played Red Light, Green Light.
That tanked.

In that country
They played Mother May I?
Not yet.

In my country
We play *Blind Man's Bluff.

I've scorned and derided,
Needled and spited,
Those, who are closest to me.

I've cheated and lied,
Vilified and decried,
Those, who are closest to me.

I've toasted many glasses
With strangers in places
Where I shouldn't have been.

I've smoked and laughed,
Admired strange ***
In lands where I cannot be seen.

But mention your name,
And all seems so vain,
Those promises I failed to keep;
The losses that haunt me in sleep.

Despite confessed sins,
My transgressional whims,
I know I've always been true;
And when I bow out,
My whisper will shout,
*Above all, I've always loved you.

That first Christmas,
We cut four branches,
Under the clouds,
From the three pines
On the other side
Of the backyard hedge.
If I went there today,
I'd see the nubs.
The pail full of sand
Came from Daddy's
Circle of cement making.
We firmly planted
The four branches
And wrapped them
With newspaper chains,
Made with the extra edition
From the morning's route.
That night, the moon streamed
Through the bay window,
Spotlighting our tree.
In later years,
We bought trees from the Farmer's Market,
Roping them with twinkling lights
We plugged in.
Daddy never bought a gift or a card
For any special day;
But he annually re-gifted Canada.
This Christmas, the full moon
Will stream again,
And I will tell
His great grand-daughter
The story about the tenacity
Of paper chains,

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.

The **** on the steeple
Proclaimed and denied to
Four corners, looked down,
And twisted.
Old men in green suits with crow's eyes
And alabaster covered bones push open doors
With wooden feet.
The postman, empty-kneed, rides his Deere
Over green fields with rabbits,
Laughing to himself.
Rentals in drives plan the day's jaunts
To ****** or Kenmare.
Shops carry faded signs:
Donovan, O'Sullivan, Finnegan.

The crow drops on the roof of Holy Cross
Which doubles as a retirement home;
Its clients plaint palms skyward with the wind.

Five hundred leave each week:
          "Ireland's best... so fresh it's famous."

The laggers serve tea and scones,
Or ply in shops they may someday own.
There are no slow boats here.
The green suits leave naturally,
Others by air.
This is no country for the young
With their hillside tilting windmills of power.

Below, a young woman eats, holding
Her knife like her father, eating,
Silent, staring.
Crow and rabbit inhabit,
Stones tumble and lay for a hundred years.

Each day a new apocalypse offering
One opening. No wrappings,
No ointments, no fresh water.
No throne to approach, no voice calling
Them home.
No seventh son to dip his finger in the well
And soothe.

She's raised high
On the podium;
Pool water drips
With sodium;
She clearly sees
From lofty height,
Her training
And her sacrifice.
Our shining Penny
We behold,
Won Bronze, then Silver,
And now struck Gold.

Lovlee ladeebug, ye'll nae be flien hame,
Ye're a fine wee red beedel
Tha nipp'd me fleshee arm.
Ye've nae hame afire,
Ye've nae wee ones alane;
Ye bit me lovelee ladeebug,
'nd ye'll nae be flien hame.

Ever hold a razor blade
That you couldn't use;
Find a six foot piece of rope
That couldn't be abused?
Ever buy a vial of pills
That couldn't do the ****?
Ever enter office buildings
Looking for a ledge;
Or walk across a span of water
Without stopping on the bridge?
Ever wade into a pond
Breathing like the fishes?
Anyway you think on
It,
You've delusional
Death wishes.

The cancer is told to no one.
We latently recognize noble reticence;
Are inspired by the selflessness:
He hid the pain and loss so well.
The addict,
The same lie,
And we say,
Loser!
One inspires;
The other,
Despised.
Two suffer too.

They said Frank was lying in his field,
While the milk cows lowed,
The hungry sows squealed.
The midday sun and absorbent dew
Aroused the bachelor close to noon.

They said Frank was lying in a ditch,
His bike was bent, he'd need a stitch,
But there he lay in the early morning,
The lorries roared by,
Frank moaned and snored..

They said Frank was lying in a bed,
When two p.m. was still too soon.
He has missing teeth and window panes,
Lay on a mattress of mortal stains.
His papered walls like sun-burnt skin,
Peeling away and blistering.
His blankets are like stable covers,
Shared his thunder mug with his mother.
Starlings nest inside his house,
Blow flies light where his mother lies.

Which day brings unique
Unexpectedness,
Momentous  at the outset.
The day that adds a dimension.
With expectations
That fall short, meet or excede
Yesterday's forethoughts.
Start with mother's gift.
The warmth and excitement
Of  home after the first day.
A birth,  a funeral,
Excites different
Sounding bands.
Today was such a one.

A Good-bye Day.

Until her return
My days are numbered
Until  
That Momentous Day.

She went from squating
To standing,
Three million years
Ascending;
And then,
She started dancing.
I had a three second vision
Of time-lapse evolution.

Like dark rain splashing across my skies,
These foaters blur my aging eyes.
And the ears aren't any better, see,
My hearing depends on a battery.
At times my tongue trips on your name;
Or wrong words spill out my brain.
I find hairs where they don't belong,
And crepe skin hanging lose and long.
There's brown spots on my once clear skin,
This aging thing is the real sin.
I creak, I rattle, I leak and prattle,
Cause no one listens when I speak.
But,
Remember this.
I taught you how to use a spoon,
Sang good-night songs in your room.
Tucked you in, made you safe,
Made your home your go to place.
I sat you on your bicycle seat,
And ran behind you down the street.
I walked you to and from your schools,
Shared with you my secret rules.
And when the time comes that I'm gone,
You'll remember I wasn't always wrong.

You know the one,
One who blathers on... and on;
The one we'd rather not.

One prattles like a rattle,
Tattles and gabbles,
Babbles and jabbers,
Chatters til we frazzle,
Twaddles til we drop.
One never seems to stop.

One brags
One talks
Bark off trees,
One argues
With a knot.
One can't stop.

One drops names
Like cloud bursts;
One day
One will
Be caught.

One has diarrhetic run-on.
One's opinion's seldom sought.

Finally, at the end of bray,
One has only nought to say.

From baby
to sitter
in sixty flat;
Ozymandais,
Try speaking to that.
But I am here,
And He?

Her smile,
And drip
On my knee:
And then,
She looks up
At me.

Between brain and skull
Lies the cream of memory,
Distilled love,
Cheese-clothed infatuation.
Between brain and skull
Rises the O-Zone, internal cloud
Of pin-heads with choirs and hosts.
The pulp beneath the skin.
It's not in my heart,
So fragile
You could be passed by,
Where a dead man's loves lived.
You don't keep shop there,
But between brain and skin
In chronological flashbacks
Like real time re-runs
And infitismal longings
For beliefs.
You are infused there.
Squeezed as grapes,
Rightly aging,
But not to be tasted
Again.

It's difficult to tell
When something as big as this started.
He was witnessed holding my little brother
As though he were a fawn drinking milk
From a snub-nosed brown bottle.
He was indifferent with a cuff,
It could've been a hug.
His aquaintances used his talents
For personal gain;
They sat at our table,
Enjoying chops and fried onions.
He was never in the audience,
Never in the stands beaming;
He was as dysfunctional as Claudius
Among melancholy princesses and princes
Who clasped palms to foreheads.
If I'd known Alas and Woe,
That's when I'd voice them.
One night, I considered pouring poison
In his ear.

There's a large white canopy
In the cemetary;
The guests are in their best.
The vows averred
So long ago
Are proved
And laid to rest.

The effigies once
On the cake,
Immortalized,
At the wake.

Inside the gated community,
Dead and wed,
A surety,
Now silent
For eternity.

Giddy-up to Goofey-land,
Saddle up the pachyderms;
Ain't Florida grand.
They click and cluck
Don't give a ****;
They kiss... kiss...kissing
And yet they're missing
The white hat way of life.
They know squat,
And that ain't a lot,
As they ride off
In all directions.

What can happen
At home,
When cleaning up,
When the demons
Turn on the juice;
The OFF switch goes click,
The ON switch goes next,
Suddenly,
They're loose again.
Defend well
Against harpies,
Dark pales and
Light darkies,
Pray
One
Stays off the juice.

When we met
You were yet
A Princess.
Snow melted
On your younge tongue.
Winter seasons
Kept the secrets
Of your cold cacoon.
When you emerged
It was obscene,
You morphed into
The Ice Queen.

The white expanse
Of glacial thighs
Led to an ice-cave.
******* that once
Snared and trapped,
Have melted like
Polar ice-caps.

Your icicle eys
Stay frozen
In summer sun.
And all about
Your condition
Smells stale as
Franklin's Expedition.
Like Midas,
Minus the gold,
All you touch
Turns cold.

I'm not here
To lampoon
How winter's blubber
Made you baloon;
But on a walk
In Arctic noon,
Wear whale grey
And get harpooned.

If love's in the air,
Why do we wear masks?

I'll spin your yarn
With no embellishments
On the twilled roles you've spun;
I won't tink your knitted history.
I'll needle for pearls of wisdom,
And wear you as the fabric of my life.
You fit like a woolen hoodie.

So you like to drink in the bars,
Or swill moonshine from old pickle jars;
You could be far worse off than you are,
You know you coulda been a dork.

A dork's a mammalian who digs in his nose,
His *** passes gas as he goes;
He has greasy hair and picks at his wart,
He plays with his  *****, burbs and snorts.
So if you like to spit, pick and hork,
You're on your way to be a dork.

Or would you rather drink in the bars,
And swill moonshine from old pickle jars;
You could be far worse off than you are,
You know you coulda been a nerd.

Nerds are mammalians in Bermuda shorts,
Sandals with knee-high socks;
He's awkward and clumsy and out of step,
If we turn East, the nerd turns West.
If you don't want treatment like a ****,
Then stop acting like a nerd.

Or would you rather drink in the bars,
Swilling moonshine from old pickle jars;
You could be far worse off than you are,
You don't wanna be a goof.

A goof's a mammalian kiddie diddler,
A rat, a punk, a toothless skinner;
He's in jail to keep us safe,
But in protective custody for his own sake.
So if you don't heed the law and you're a ****,
You'll do well when you're a goof.

Some solid guys aren't behind bars,
We play ukes, guitars and cards;
We're on stools in our local bars,
Seeing ourselves as Avatars,
While getting pickled in our jars.

They've gathered at his daughter's house,
I passed cars pulling to the curb;
The patriarch has been replaced,
His chair now sits usurped.

Will someone raise a glass to toast him,
Recount some craic to roast him?
Praise his assets,
Shush his regrets,
Strum his unplayed guitar.

They'll share feasts on his bench,
Conceive on handmade beds,
Take down a book from his many shelves,
And talk as though he's there,
Sleeping, unaware.

     What was it that he said?
     He talked of love a lot.
     Did he get it right?
     He shared what he got.
     Did well for a sot.
     He could turn a *****,
     Write a verse,
     Right a wrong,
     Could dialogue with who knows what,
     And if he couldn't fix it,
     We knew we were *******.

They just might go to sleep tonight,
And dream as though he's there,
Still sitting in his chair.

Our foes,
Some of whom we can surely name,
Pray to the same God.
A rose is a rose is a rose.
The rain and sun
Cover the same game site;
There's no referee calling foul,
Illegal procedure or out of bounds.
This is more like Gaelic Football,
No perceptible rules for finger pointing
From the spectators in a very large stadium.
But, make no mistake,
Every game has a timer,
And his thumb is poised
On the stopwatch.

The training has been a dry run
For three years,
And I'm up for the challenge.
My corner is ready and supportive.
I volunteered to meet my Goliath.

I mirror spar with him.
Shadows,
Boxing me.
His shadow is long.
His reach is longer.
Has a knock-out punch.

We were besties during
My Philistine years.

My camp has removed the bucket and stool;
They mix with the spectators,
Clenching fists, cheering,
Teeth gritting their resolutions,
Heads shaking in surety.

I have accepted my shortcomings
And the power of this giant.

As I enter
Familiars will cheer;
The litter bearers tip their hats
In recognition,
Waiting patiently to get to work.

I belly-up for the bell.
Ding.

One hundred years ago
My Mammy was just three,
The exact same age as me,
When she sailed us across the sea,
All those years ago.

Just lately,  just now,
I said Mammy's Mammy's name out loud.
What was that, I asked.
For sure her name's not been said
For many, many years.
Margaret Duffy
A dog barked.
So I said my mother's:
Mammy
A breeze furled the window sheers.

The dog continued to yelp,
So I said her other names louder:
Brigid...........Nellie

I will keep the wind inside me,
And allow the dogs their day;
Your names will still be called upon,
In stress or tranquility.

Some writers are like comets,
A flash, and soon gone;
Some that burned brightest,
Are rocks that don't burn long.

Some writers are like meteors,
Burning hot through spheres;
As meteorites they stay with us,
Though brighter in younger years.

One writer, Leonard Cohen,
No brighter light revealed;
Still yearning for the fire,
Still burning all these years.

Our shelves are stacked
With novels
Retelling the journey.
Before novels,
There was poetry.

Our textbooks
Bind essays
Explaining and outlining
The thoughts
Of great thinkers.
Before essays,
There was poetry.

Our stage,
Our world,
Are replete
With dramas
Mirroring our plight.
Before drama,
There was poetry.

Before poetry,
There was
The Great Boom,
Expanding into
The vacuum;
Making the universe
Our metaphor.

I slept in a red cot
On the SS Columbia.
In the middle of the cabin,
Brothers and sisters
Bunked vertically
On either side.
Seven in all.
We disembarked at Montreal,
Where my sister
Unclenched my white-knuckled hold
On the mahogany rails.
That moment was synapsed
And impermeable.

My third love
Taught me everything about love.
Miss DeGurse, Grade One.
She was taken by the dimples
And the brogue, but smart me,
I passed, we parted;
She to her farmer fiance,
Me to Grade Two
And Sister Hildegarde.
I learned valuable lessons,
But love was already learned
For a life-time outside family.

The soutane didn't fit anymore,
And the incense left me distracted.
The flickering shadows over the folds
Of Joseph's and Mary's statues
Have fewer outlines
Under the light of less candles.
Books replaced Church,
Then illuminated religion
In gold-leafed pages.
Women went well with books
And still enrich my every day.

Loss is all around.
No eulogies or memorials, please.
But remember me
When you splash in July,
Observe nature prepare for winter,
Blink flakes off your lashes,
Or bloom up and down your street;
Then gather,
Read something I wrote,
And Remember
I used to notice such things.