There is no Santa.
Your school called.
Your nose is big.
The police are here.
You failed your driver's test.
You weren't home.
You left the door open.
You're pregnant.
This won't hurt.
You're mother's gone.
I'm leaving you.
Abstinence is best.
We have to re-schedule your appointment.
Loser
Whatever!
You're grounded.
I have none.
Press one for English.
We have to interrupt regular programming for an important...
She's too young for you.
Good-bye.
They also got the bomb.
There's a call for you. (it's 2 a.m.)
You'll move on.
We're out of that... just now.
It's on back order.
Please hold the line while I switch you to...
There's a priest at the door.
The doctor called.
It's the thermocoupler or the bearings or the bushing or...
This is not a test of the Early Warning System.
You've a letter from the CRA.
The trees are turning colour.
It's over.
There is no God.

So? What's not replaceable.
That's too rhetorical.
Let's be practical.
From this side,
This viewpoint,
There's no change.
Or it's indiscriminate.
I've been replaced
By
Stand-ins and stunt people.
Seems everyone's replaceable,
Except for the original,
You.

What have you sold?
Was it worth its weight in gold?
A votive lit for fifty cents,
A flame announcing you repent;
To beg your saint to intercede
To provide your worldly needs.

Was that your body up for sale;
What would you trade for the Holy Grail?
Sell a kidney or a lung,
Sell your lap top and your phone.
Sell the home, enslave the kids,
Offer all to the highest bid.

Simonize your sale tonight,
In the sun it shines bright;
Let the buyer drive the fraud,
After all, you're a demigod.

Have you sold your secret soul,
Your joie de vivre,
The living truth
For make-believe?

Sell it all in a sidewalk sale,
Sell your house, sell every nail;
Every brick and piece of wood,
The price you get is understood,
To get as much as one could.

We make the deal for personal gain,
Trangress against the light;
Stand in the shadow of the shadow
Of the master of the mill.

Add to coffers, sell off principles,
Buy a judge, sell a nation,
It's a photo-op donation.

Betray an ally, sell a friend,
Exploit the lonely til their end.
Abuse your office, hire a niece,
Family fortunes will increase.
Pander to hypocrisy - here it's called democracy.

These are not our personal sins,
But crimes against society,
Crimes against life.

Look upon our deadly works,
Ozymandias warned we should.

John and Tuesday slipped away,
I remember well the day.
Working in the garden,
Just a few corners away,
That Tuesday.
I was planting, turning spades,
Adding compost to gaunt soil.
John wasn't in my thoughts Tuesday.
Not like today.

The garden thrives.
The splash of water
Transports memory's eye.
We sit outside The Trout,
He reads to Paul and I,
Below an Oxford sky,
Under cap and pint:
*Think where man's glory
Most begins and ends,
And say my glory was
I had such friends.

The  smile on the moon
Seems a frown,
Since our world
Flipped
Up-side-down.

The one-legged runner
In a three-legged race
Smiled,
Cause his bi-pedded
Partner
Can't keep
Up the pace.

The one-eyed
Astronomer
Studied starry skies;
Discovered all the
Black holes
When he closed
His only eye.

It's only one's perspective
Making one selective;
I'll be more receptive
To those so soon rejected.

When down and lonely,
We have an upper.
When unhappy,
We leave a smiley.
When isolated and alienated,
We have fraternity.
If you fear, find peace in readership.
If poor, there's free verse.
If under-appreciated,
We click like.
If under-valued,
We've no price.
If destitute, there's richness in language.
If thirsty, drink.
If hungry, devour.
When you're at loose ends,
We have tight compositions.
When conflicted, find resolutions.
And if you're disenfranchised,
We have a home.

We do our best,
Use varying syntax,
Rhythm, rhyme and meter.
Our words are picked
From the garden variety,
But the themes are from
The Prodigal Son.
Is there nothing new
Under the sun?
I'm writing the same poem
Over and over:
Variations on the same themes:
Love, Life, Death, Family,
Power, Wealth, Nature,
Fatted Calves, etc.

I could invent new words,
But the meaning would
Convey the same:
I widdle you.
Your soft sortesches condestort in mine.
It all sounds too familiar
In any language.
We need a new world
Where arms reach from our heads
To bypass the thoughts transferred
To our sortesches holding folences
That pen our work.

Two wrens, a couple of birds with intent,
Lit on my new magnolia tree;
The blossoms are full,
There's ants on the leafs.
It's mutualistic, and communalistic;
All thrive so well.
I wish the world could bear witness
To this simple tree.

I don't laugh, gawk and point
At one who falls down;
Unless that one's a clown,
And we've plenty to go around.
Crusty's in the Kremlin,
He's got an act with dogs;
Freddie's in the U.N.,
Freeloading from his friends;
Bozo's in a big white house,
And I'm bent with tears laughin'.

Snakes have skinny shins.
Birds have wiry fingers.
Fish have fat necks.
Horses have moustaches.
Monkeys wear shoes.
Cats preen feathers.
Turtles soar on airy drafts.
I get confused about most things,
Except One.

The pain wasn't evident
When you queued;
Nor discernible
When you extended a hand.
Your frayed coat needed attention,
Your legs bowed in the wrong direction
As you moved, frog-like.
I never recognized the shame
Behind ribbons you wore;
An imperceptible guilt
For lack of control.
But your eyes,
Downcast or averted,
Tried hiding the despondency
I once witnessed
In a naked girl,
Running,
On fire.

Forever isn't really long,
We call it Love in a two minute song.
I've witnessed it in my cat's jaws,
Saw a dove impaled on eagle's claws.
It's a moment in grasslands and water,
A flash of colour, then the slaughter.
It's a nanosecond at conception,
It's a blitzgried in insurrection.
It has no width, length or depth,
It continues the second of our last breath.

A great greening is on
Along the St. Clair River.
Across it, like hands in tight grip,
The Bluewater Bridge transcepts
A submersed dotted line.
The Stars and Stripes look sharp
Fluttering and greeting us.
Beside it,
The red Maple Leaf in full regalia
Snaps and spins beneath our Spring sun,
Now casting evening shadows easterward.

Love is
As is is:
In the present tense.
Ergo,
Love is Love.

Be secure with some peace.
There's no cause for your fear;
History assures us,
Bad will fail.

Weeks from now,
Today's terrors are gone,
Predictions confirm
Goodness prevails.

The bad can't escape.

Cold comfort, I hear,
But what of today?
The nows conflict
With our joys, you say.

This too will pass.
Fade like lover's breath;
So seldom brought up,
Soon laid to rest.

Good lives on,
The bad's with past sorrows,
For Goodness sake,
Let's get on with tomorrow.

A wolf stands firmly
Howling singular notes,
Reaching over the night.
The woodland animals
Hear the plaintif cry
As a lonely echo
Through the air.
We don't care,
But others cower nearby.
The abandoned wail ****** ears,
Confirming all their fears:
Something must die.
Scratching, arching
With fierce yellow eyes,
Snout pointing to the darkling sky,
He howls his hollow cry,
Sounding like his cousin's bark,
He lopes to his den,
Veiled in the dark,
Hoping his warnings
Were not in vain,
The wolf next night
Will wail again.

Thanks
For the party
You threw
For me;
Another decade
Was easy.
I wear
An outfit
You like
To see;
One, I believe
That suits me,
And accept
The accolades
Graciously.

In the spotlight
It's easy to shine.
Don't cover
Your eyes,
Some's a disguise.
And I do admit
To some white lies;
So just don't
Cover your eyes.

All you've done
Means much
You see,
But pales
When you
Have tea
With me.

Growing to manhood is a slippery *****
Of razor blades and bones that grow.
****** screen shots of angel wings,
Red carpet slits, eye popping lips,
Miss Pageants and tutus on skates.
Britney shaking, Jennifer quaking,
No Old Spice to take young spice's place.
The X comes before the Y,
Yet Toxicity is the hue and cry.
I'm a man in a mixed-up world,
But girls still like boys,
And boys adore girls

In the dark hour
Of your soul,
When midnight's mad
Memories
Flare, and hold
The storm
Massed on your pillow,
And your eyes
Are deeply sallow,
Rest.
Breathe in.
Our wrongs and rights
Fill the nights
With silhouettes
Of what might be,
What had been.
We know
Life's rack is
Laced with phantoms.
Awakened,
We embrace
The light,
And share the struggles
Of the night.

He held some Romantic notion
His years of love and devotion,
The exposition of emotion
Could overcome the troubles.

He tried to be meta-physical,
Raised his crucible to the celestial,
Prayed to move the unchangeable
To overcome the troubles.

For years he toiled in his realism,
The jobs, debts and persistent requiems,
The slugging burdens of their tediums,
To overcome the troubles.

He was Dada, then Grand-dada.
She was Mama, then Grand-mama.
Once an in-law, now an outlaw,
Yet always there was trouble.

Now he's lost his generation,
Learned the cost of retribution;
Still sourcing out his frustration,
Considering the final solution
For dealing with his troubles.

Byron loves to golf, but in the dead of winter, when he has his wood stove radiating heat, he likes to play darts. The board hangs on a door separating the main garage from his store heap of empty beer cans, crushed and bagged. Thousands of them. He also has a ****** stuck on a wall. The **** just flows out to the ground. He always warns us not to dump in his ******. The very thought irks me. Like golf, Byron threatens to “kick my ***” in darts. He has a predilection for my posterior in the most unthreatening way. In fact, he may be homophobic. He throws a dart like an Amazon pygmy. Fatal to success. However, golf is never far from his mind during the raging snows we get. Although I helped with the spelling and small stuff, Byron penned the following. I came up with the title.

Intimations of Fairway Play

I'd rather hit the links today,
Take an eight on five;
Blame the wind or shift of weight,
Than shovel out my drive.

I'd rather search under trees,
Twigs, leafs and water;
And curse the squirrel that thought my shot
Was food for winter fodder.

I'd rather have a downward lie
On pock-marked naked ground;
Than sit and watch Keegan Bradley
Get it up and down.

I'd rather have a green fringe putt
That lines up with goose droppings;
Or see a fine three footer lip
Than hear the snow plough coming.

I'd rather shoot a ninety-nine,
And pay for rounds of ale;
Than sit in front of my wood stove
During snow and sleet and hail.

I'd rather shank or stub my ****,
Yes, get a double bogie;
Or miss a hole-in-one by inches
And put up with Francie's stogie.

Francie can card seventy-two
And make an eagle putt;
It matters little what he does,
I know I'll kick his but.

Yet still I languish near my fire
And watch the Pros play golf;
At Pebble Beach or someplace warm
I wish they'd all *******.

"Excuse me," she said.
"Pardon me," he said.
"Certainly," so said, El Presidente.

Standing camouflaged
In the shadow,
Back pressed against
The wall
Like a masked
Cat burglar,
Is the coward,
Sneaking,
Never present
Until gone;
Prowling,
Like sleep,
In playgrounds and hospitals,
Airports and backyard pool;
Or by knives, decrees,
Enemies or envy,
Even by longevity
Or in explosive proximity.
Cheeks drain. Eyes pool
At the moment of recognition,
When the sneak thief
Is present,
He's gone.

Our world is screaming,
Cover our ears,
But eyes are open
To the turbulent reds
Swirling the sky.
We pose,
Some in rockers
With wry smiles,
Holding pitchforks,
Looking Gothic,
Harvesting potatoes,
Filling pockets.
We dance across
Impressionistic canvases
Framed by our art.
In the corner
Of my city
Waits an active asylum.
Put a jacket on,
Scream,
Things are
Coming undone.

I am a victim
Of crimes against
Humanity.
Being members thereof,
We are perpetrators
Sharing the accused's glass box
Or standing as a witness.

With arms raised
We surrender with deference
To pulpits, daises, chambers, courts,
Banks and dealers.
In a slight of mind
We conferred,
Then anointed
The con-men
and
The can women.

It's spellbinding.
Almost pointless.
We won't insist one
Indict one's self.

Playing the G-chord
Is playing the me chord;
So one tends to forget
It's not disrespect
It's about accord
Not discord.

Take me to a theme,
Explicating love, when blue.
Hype the hyperbole,
Metaphors aren't boring,
And similes are true.
Take me to the meaning of love,
When love is new.

Letter your signposts,
Your verses aren't lacking,
Figures of speech are attractive.
Dole out the affection,
Infect with injection
Dilating, collapsing veined roads.

Take me to any theme,
With your GPS,
I'll obey all directives,
Noting imagery along your path.
If inferences go astray,
I'll backtrack your way,
To a predetermined destination.

I'm exiting an off ramp
On this cloverleaf;
On a divided highway,
Moving west to east.
Across the ditch
They steer towards
What I did from the east.
If I do a U-Turn now
The predicament's the same;
There's no luck on
This cloverleaf,
It's driving me insane.

It was the cheap Polish coal
Sweeping down from chimney and slate,
Staining windows, levelling off
At doors, settling on walks
Where evidence showed me hurrying
To my bed-sitting room
In prints of snow and soot.
The roses dipped,
Foxgloves closed
Against the odour.

It was the kitchen.
Tomatoes, carrots, onions
Slicing vaporous air hanging
Veil-like on dark windows.

I coughed.
Too many cigarettes?
My nose bled.
I pulled out a hankie
And coughed again.
When I removed my coat
My eyes were red.
You'd notice.

Perhaps it was a combination .
You knew my eyes.

Weeks are still less tolerable.
Smoke, soot, salads,
Which really doesn't matter,
Strangely mix, tossing  off our years.
Cheap Polish coal. **** cheap Polish coal.

Zoom
That was close.
Whoosh
Just past my ears.
I heard it whizz by.
Swoosh
Just about.
Nice try.
Zing*
Ha! You missed!
Just over my head.
Another word flew by.

There's a drastic reduction
In the number of Know-it-alls
Since cellphones have decreased
The mounds of *******
We were subject to.

I enjoy the hot tub
After my treadmill.
Whilst sitting,
Throne-like,
One notices the thousands of bubbles,
Swirling, twirling, spinning, colliding,
Spreading out like spiralling gallaxies.
Naturally, I play with them,
Briefly, temporarily
Re-direct their path;
But it's pointless.
I recall my dark hour;
When God removed his hand.

Am I absurd
To think some words
Can change the outcome
Of a world
Gone beserk
With wars that can't be won.
When the absurd is heard,
What good can come?

I seldom write on love,
Youth's passions cooling:
I use my words
On worldly concerns,
Hoping to be heard.
Truly,
Am I absurd?

I'm taunted by another,
Allured by the attention,
Polishing vanity to a reflective glaze,
Like a winner's cup, held up by the ears,
To display, kiss, and smudge,
Then returned to the rightful owner.
It's an enviable snare,
One may think is sincere,
From here, looking over there.

If you need
To take a dump,
Be sure
To bring a bag.
A queer phrase
To describe relief,
Unless, of course,
You're on a leash.
Me,
I like to leave
My dumps,
And walk away
With swag.

It's cold, **** cold,
I blame the north wind.
It pushes the ice on Huron
Against the shore
Making great dunes of frozen water,
Cooling the wind passing over.
It penetrates my outer layer,
Warming itself between inner clothes.
Dampening my cheek;
Cold whispers in my ears;
A cruel embrace,
Girdling me,
Seductive as the dead.
It wraps my house
Like it knows my address;
An unannounced visitor,
Reluctant to leave.
It's mid-January;
Glad the sun's casting
Longer shadows,
Before the wind retires.

Make a difference?
Be the difference!
There's the difference
For me.

The invasives tell us to
     go pound salt,
     fill a rat's hole with sand,
     play in traffic,
     fly a kite,
and, essentially,
     ****** off.
The Mau Mau didn't hear:
Their ears were stuffed,
Their tears were gritty;
Uniformed marauders
Commanded them:
     go **** yourselves.
It's hard to respond
With your head up-side-down
Near the ground
As rifle barrels pound
Sand up your ****,
With your mouth spitting
Hour glass grains.

There was once a time of quietude.
If I said something;
Showed you something,
Or did something; and,
If it was warm and loving,
Interesting or whimsial,
Controversial or agreeable,
You might nod, shake your head,
Sigh,
Perhaps gesture -
Yes or No or Maybe.

I'm reading.
There's too  much noise.
Some friends, many strangers,
Laughing... loudly...
Out loud;
Smiling, hugging, liking, Wowing, loving, tsking. crying...
So much emotion.
I can hear them.

Not long ago,
But mostly gone,
Like silent films
It was quiet.
LOL WOW *** :)

Hearts, not heralded in art,
Are broken, mended,
Beating, fragile and still.
We are surrounded;
The unknown to know
The aches and pleasures,
The confusion with love and despair,
Remorse and resentment;
The empty longings,
The burning fulfilment.
Cave walls, train trestles and sidewalks
Are sprayed in verses of universality.
The coupling, birthing and dying
Are the continuous unison that endures
Through the elasticity of love.
Ready to wrap the unravelling.
Our teeth may become straws,
Our ears pinholes,
Our eyes pinwheels,
Our skulls pinheads,
Our bodies pincushions;
But keep heart.

We should contact
Hallmark
And put our rhymes
To work:
Best wishes for occasions
And any celebrations
Involving fireworks.
We  help you cry
At good-bye
As you leave the Church.

Ha!
Just hitched my pants
Above the waistline;
Added a tight notch.
What's to become of me.
Should I consider
Knee-high socks,
With Bermuda shorts
To match
My peppered stubble.
Perhaps man-scaping
And Botox,
A ****** moustache
And comb-over,
Or live life
Like Benjamin Button.

I started with a tree,
Brought the chainsaw
And felled it.

I trimmed off the branches,
Stripped the bark
To the underskin
And let the sap drip.

I used the log-splitter
To make the trunk
Into workable pieces.

I chose a log,
Used my wood-splitting axe
To divide into four.

I whittled down,
Pared away
All the insignificants
Until I sat with a twig,
One word,
You.

The dark spaces of the night sky
Leave gaps of light, yet I see
The darkness reach down
Between us, like a *****,
Leaving a hole
For entrance or escape.

There is this break in continuity,
Not a recess,
A lack of balance, a deficient area,
Like the hole in a hedge,
A military break,
A cavity in the denfense's alibi,
The distance between the lead runner
And the chasing pack.

I would like to believe
The opening is an intermission,
A respite from our intensity,
But the breach is a divide,
A rift of passage
Between two immoveable mountains
Where interludes move on
Between differences of attitude.

In King James we're told history
Bound in ancient mystery.
The collected works of humanity
Printed for our legacy.
One needs read The Prodigal Son
To know the course literature's run.
Here read Romance, greed and crime,
Erotica, adventure, the Divine.
Its cup spills with poetry.
The best anyone could produce.
The exception being *Mother Goose.

Some past details are sketchy now,
There's things I know I've done:
I did a spliff with Neil Young,
Had a pint with Pete's best singer,
Walked on Nelson's ship,
The ship that shook Napoleon.
Stole The Dubliners cigarettes,
And the matches too.
McCartney once played for me,
Cat Stevens served us tea.
Leonard was with Suzanne,
He'll always be your man.
I imagine Lennon at his white grand,
Making love to ivory keys;
Krishna George on a cushion,
With sitar on his knees.
Joni's paradise was paved,
But we saved many trees.
I once floated on a zeppelin,
Beneath the dark side of the moon.
I didn't need an aqualung
To help with songs I sung.
We were changing with the times,
And the times they were a changin.
ELP and Alice Cooper,
Zappa, Jackson Brown,
Brought us high,
But we came down.
There's so much more to be done,
But when this life has been run,
I'll cross my legs and play some chords
Of yesterday and days before.

A blade of grass is inconsequential,
Unless it's above you,
Or found on Mars.

One mosquito is unnoticeable
Until sounding in your ear at night,
Or infecting a nation.

A broken heart isn't uncommon
When it's someone else's.

I was told if I ate worms,
I could fly.
Ever since, I've stepped over sun-baked sidewalk worms.
I recall eating an orchard apple from the ground.
That didn't end well.
Rockwell suggested frying them.
Hamlet punned about worms travelling through a King.
Don't be called a worm.
Don't worm your way in,
You'll likely find a hook.
I'm forever grounded.
The worm hasn't turned.

I'm wearing the old man's housecoat.
His lawn's not blue ribbon now,
And two rails of his fence are down.
It's blue and black checkered
Down to my ankles,
A long tie cord and massive pockets.
You've seen them in nursing homes,
The men shuffling in the wrong direction,
Looking for the familiar,
Two nails.

I'm wearing an old man's slippers,
Black leather with red in-steps
And leather fraying at the heels.
I bought these.