Yoko wrote it, once.
Lennon was off the ground
Reading it.
It's the minimalist's grail.
My pen can dry out.
I've found a tranquility
Like the last seat on the bus home.
It can't be copyrighted.
One word, not one's word,
Isn't plagiarism.
Can it be mine, please,
Just this one time.
It has internal rhyme,
And the end rhyme draws out
To an external rhyme,
The universal poem.
Put it on the curriculum
And school kids will memorize it,
Gladly, gleefully.
My One Word Poem:
            *Yes

Planes and stuff leave all the time.
Don't like all the chemtrails left behind,
But we muster on.
Believing, and we must,
We'll get through.
Most of us do.
This will improve.

Clothes and such are left lying around,
All over house and town;
We can pick them up,
By bending or fetching.
Some never make it back.
Lost, stolen or found.
Replacements are numerous,
Fixable and discardable.
No big loss. Not life changing.

Then I found a hole.
What left was immeasurable.
Irreplaceable.
My heart and soul.

Don't call me Honey,
I'm not that sweet;
Don't call me Sugar,
I'm no beet;
Don't call me Dear,
I'm a ***** Buck;
You say: Let's make love,
I say: *Can't we...

I have a cemetary inside.
No fences.
Bodies are layered
East, west, north, south.
Legs and arms wrap my organs,
Squeezing sideways, lengthways
And diagonally.
Dates are heartstones
Chiselled in my brain.
They arrive unexpectedly,
Some from places I've not visited,
And stay.
It's crowded,
They keep coming.
I've flowers and meditations as well,
And sit quietly amidst the noise
And visit.

To me, this sounded so final and trite,
But his wife, she said, left him,
Cause she couldn't be a wife.

There's a fine epitaph to carve,
On the stone above his life:

My wife, they say, left me,
Cause she couldn't be a wife;
That's all she ever wanted,
To be this dead man's wife.

A couple passing by the script,
Might read an enigmatic drift.

What kind of wife, the woman asked,
I wonder what he meant by that.

One who'd drink and drink some more,
Smoke and eat and grow so fat
On Caesar's Salad and chocolate.

Could she nurse through any sickness;
See it for what it is;
For what it was;
Work with the outcome,
Not the cause.

And yet, it's true, all along,
He wasn't in control.
Not abuse, or waywardness,
But the drink that dries the soul.

What could that wife do
In the fight.

They each promised,
Each meant each life;
Does she get to choose the sickness?
What kind of wife gets to pick it?

I know he didn't give objection,
As many husbands do,
When she raised ablutions
To false gods she eschewed;
They promised on the temple pinnacle
That all is theirs, if she submits,
To the pyramids that promise riches.

Till death do us part.

Now that's a lark,
In a song of lament.
She could have been any wife
She'd deem to choose in her life;
She chose,
For a limited time,
On a definition
He declined.

When I hover
Over your heavenly body,
I'm ******* the constellations
In braille.

What's this?
A set-up?
I never volunteered
To be the patsy.
A whipping boy?
Don't like the story line,
Or being the understudy
Of a flip side;
An expendable.
This is a con
In night gallery.

I'm in the crowd,
In the frame,
And the shot is printed.
Success at shutter speed.

Then you wrote a letter,
Started it endearingly,
Signed it with an old promise
That once was clear to me.

We're hungering for a leader
Who's not a bottom feeder.

Your text read:
My cat died.
Sorry for your troubles.
I was moved,
You couldn't notice.
Mind you,
I don't own a cat, but
I will e-card my condolences.
Had I seen you,
I would have cried too.

The St. Clair flowed
Towards Erie,
As we walked to
The headwaters,
Where Huron emptied
So seemingly endless.

On Sunday drives
I never noticed signposts
Flying by.

On the court, Love,
I crouched, amazed,
At your service game,
Never ready for
The backhand.

Idle times lead
The girls to womanhood.
I'm left with celebrations
On celluloid,
And digital grasps
And loosening fingers.

Begin with my skin,
White, hairy and thin;
But for my brothers,
I'm much like all others.

Dig deeper to bone,
Europe's our home.
Trowel down to my marrow
You'll uncover our Congo.

We travailed
Down our paths,
We share the same cells,
Have the same origins,
Hear the same knells.
The one difference lies in
My white, hairy, thin skin.

Parading past in the emperor's robe,
I looked with wonder at the fool,
Left, right, right left,
Out of step.
I stood too close to the sewer cover,
A stench was in the air.
Behind and above on a balcony,
Leaning on wrought iron,
A woman's voice, drunk on demonstrations,
Called out, bouncing off balloons,
Never look a clenched fist in the mouth.

I'm many coloured
     and a perfect transcriber
     and transmitter.
I only listen,
And do not interject.
Whatever you say or write,
     I record faithfully.
At times, you may think
I read your mind
While it's in the clouds,
That's autocorrect,
But you push send.

I'm the perfect ear,
The ideal partner.
I'll never willingly repeat
Your heard and spoken secrets.
You're the human.

A few years ago
Writers were chained
To typewriters.
Imprisoned by words.
Filling rolled white pages,
Onion-skinned and erasable.
They knew where
Their chains ended.
Today, I'm tethered
To a satelite,
Linked,
With no end
In sight.

Flying on my Shadow,
Enjoying the ride,
I passed a hillside
With stones, spelling out:
Sarnia Nudist Camp
In bright white letters,
Legible from a distance.

Did the frost push them up
Through the earthly womb
To birth this message
For the reading pleasure of passers-by?

Did the camp director create
This hillside billboard?

I've heard, at nightime, the stones
Gleam under a constant moon
That radiates above a notion of chance.

Dark at day,
Light at night,
Chaos mocks us
With villainous smiles.
I have yet to meet
A godsend I could trust,
A fluke of luck,
Or twist of fate
To rely on.

Blessings in disguise
Are mirrors in my eyes;
Health or weal
Has timed repeal.
The dealer insists
It's in the cards,
Like karma now,
And kismet next.

Chaos mocks us
With indifferent results
But just give it time..

A butterfly
***** its wings,
A frog's tongue
Nails it.

Have you a friend,
A really tight chump,
As tight as words on paper,
Or the air of a grunt,
The color in amber,
Or the lines
Of adjoing wall-paper?
His money's still green,
He's cheap to extremes,
If you got one
You know what I mean.
He's a penny-pinching
Miserable miser.

Yet he eats out more,
Does the Florida tour;
But sits bowling my pipe,
Enjoying my wine,
Never to think
To return in kind.
He's a skin-flint
Tight-assed Marner.

I'm immobile
As my dentist blathers
On events and people
That don't matter.
I'd rather he just
Get IT done,
Leave rants and jokes
And silly puns
For one not in
His dental dungeon.
Today was his crowning glory,
When he'd finished needling me,
Before he filled my cavity,
He suggested
I see a cardiologist
To fill the hole
Found in my chest.

You don't bring me
Chocolate,
Stuffed stockings,
Or change
Anymore.

Two of them,
So cute,
And such prodigious nibblers
In their striped coats,
Four inches high
On hind quarters,
Sharing the rich rain pulp
Of a maple-leaf key,
Looking over one another's shoulders
For the neighbor's cat.
We could be
More like that.

There came a rabbit
To inhabit
A space
In my Easter basket.
He wasn't Peter,
Or Velveteen,
But chocolate
And much sweeter.

He wasn't always
Chocolatey,
But furry,
Like the others.
But he was determined
In his drive,
To make my Easter
That much sweeter.

So he wished
Upon a star
To morph into
A rabbit bar
Of nugets,
Caramel and nuts;
And then for added
Greater taste;
He asked for drenching
In choc'late.

Chocolate in,
Chocolate out;
Eating chocolate
Makes me doubt
The lease I have
With Hershey.
But I'm not
In a hurry,
I'll sit here
And not worry.
I'll give a wipe
Then scurry
For another bar.
But my gut's  feeling's
I won't get far.

I'm flippant with
My fictional facts;
Patching words
Like a coverlet,
Designed with loom and needle.
I've stitched the lines,
Woven the words
To make them more credible.
But it's only a poem
To strike at the bone,
A source of strength
Who's vigor's unknown.
A garment to wear
With invisible seams:
Wrap it 'round you
If you choose to dream.

Tip your glass,
Lick your lips,
Use your shirtail
If you get sick.
Use your hands
When you eat,
Pass the gas
When you sleep,
And Have
A Merry Christmas.

I awaken to the lonliest sound
Heard on the Seaway:
The plaintiff fog horn,
One continuous, wayward hooooom.
Again, it sounds travelling
Across water dunes to another
Holy town, lights blinking.

J.W. left a brochure;
They knocked on a locked door.
The rain erupts on my deck boards;
There's dog droppings on my lawn;
Birds are singing in the morn,
And I open my door.

Imagine, a new by-law prohibiting
Backyard rinks;
There are no icicles,
No tongues extended palate-like;
No salt lines on my boots;
And I haven't seen a one horse sleigh
Or heard harness bells.
The North Pole and Santa have been exposed.
I have a Christmas wish,
And I'm ready to use it.

Our Holiday Season's fast upon us,
Ribbons and bows are holding sway,
But I recall all the fuss
With Christmas just two weeks away.

Yes, it's been a year already
Since being swept-up in the frenzy;
Singing Silent Night and Silver Bells,
And awake until the last Noel.

But Yules ago, when just a boy,
Not toying in childish play,
Yet wanting more than I could say.
With Christmas still two weeks away.

You'd think that on the twentieth,
I'd get a better sense of it,
Christmas felt two weeks away.

Come December twenty-first,
I felt I was Christmas cursed;
For it didn't matter what who'd say,
Christmas still felt weeks away.

At dawn on the twenty-second,
The smell of pine seduced and beckoned;
Beneath the needles I spied presents;
The outline of a gift-wrapped sleigh.
I cursed, “Is Christmas still two weeks away?”

The day before the twenty-fourth,
I couldn't see the wooden floor,
Gifts sprawled to the front door.
I crossed my fingers,
Wished and prayed,
But Christmas felt two weeks away.

The twenty-fourth languished long and slow...
The light would fade,
The night would glow,
Off to Midnight Mass we'd go.
We'd press palms and pray for snow,
Then genuflect and run for home.

Although it feels two weeks away,
I've much to do
That cannot wait.
Thank God tomorrow's not Christmas Day.
Or is IT just two hours  away?

Between autumn's offerings
And spring's wings,
Our winter lights are everything.
Crisp sky nights string tinsel streams,
And crystal air heils winter's dreams.

Poplar trees that snowed in summer
Are treasures held in winter's slumber;
Their branches hold in silhouette
Crowning stars that brightly sit.

Here dreams of flight and fancy thrill
Shimmering eyes on a gift-wrapped hill.
Shorelines once rubbed with reeds,
Are splashed by our moonlight beads.
Knolls wrapped in wreaths of herring bone,
Like sirens call us out from home.

Stars held in place with poplar fingers
Ring our ponds like carolling singers.
There nestled by framed winter scenes,
Our winter lights glint red and green.

These lights, that through our windows stream,
Bring to mind warm Christmas dreams.

Joe: Peace on Earth,
         Good will towards men.

Don: **** on Earth,
           My will towards women.

I didn't do anything controversial today
Other than hear the news.
I must be an aberration; in the minority.
I didn't shoot my mouth off;
I didn't shoot anyone,
Or invade my neighbour's space.
If I did, I'd be the news.
All I did was write an inconsequential poem
With a pen moving across straight blue lines.
I'll bet Chris Wallace won't read it on the news.

The Coronation is
A
Royal
Pain
In
The
Cosmopolitan
****;
The crowning achievement
of
Royal Navel Gazing.
Chuck it (them) all.

We can't ever offfer
That inside sleep
Of solitude and peace.
Yet this promise
We will keep.
Wake or  asleep,
We are with you.
Always.

So, Sleep, Ciaran. Sleep.
Let no one claim your dreams;
Listen to your childhood rhymes;
Worry not of place or time,
For all is still
As it seems.

Oh! Sleep, Angel. Sleep.
Shield your heart
As a secret power
In your waking hours.
Spread your winged smile
With candescence,
To brighten, and alit,
Where Angels sleep.

Cicadas and crickets
Bring up the chorus,
With bullfrogs and barn owls,
And winds from our forests;
Nature in harmony,
Be part of this song
Join in the choir
Come on, sing along.

Stars in the heavens,
Moon in the dark sky,
Meteors flashing
Like galaxy fireflies.
A roll of thunder
A warm washing rain,
No two Summer nights
Are ever the same.

Then the clouds come
Adding more fun,
A cleansing ensues;
I believe I'll stay
Til the end of this day,
And wade in the morning's dew.

Should tomorrow bring us sorrow,
It can't dampen this night's revelry;
So we'll stay and we'll say
As the night fades away,
*When dawn comes come what may.

To feel good
I must indulge;
To be good
I must abstain.
Like cemetary paths,
Everything is circular
And everlasting.

During dinner talk
I hear her say,
His poems are very clever.
She said it loud, and all could hear;
(she said it out of spite)
And some who heard her say it, thought,
Isn't she so nice.

Clever. Clever. Clever.
Clapped inside my head,
For earlier she reproached me
For not reaching out instead.
I should ladle bowls of soup,
Drive the elderly wherever,
Volunteer to save the planet,
Comfort those in need of such,
Or visit with the sick.

Clever.  Cleverer.  Cleverest.
So clever when she spoke;
I find it now so obvious,
She'd not read a word I wrote.

Clever is not poetry.
It's readable.
It's admirable.
Sometimes, memorable.
It's clever.
A word game.
Poetry is not a game.
No winners.
No losers.
Not even
A draw.

I've been reading about you.
Every word, though a short piece
I keep in my wallet
To look over now and then.
The page folds across your breast
Where I was wont to be.
It's a good likeness of a girl
With style, and eyes and flowing auburn tresses,
And a smile that makes me smile
Recalling summer.
Could we start again, please.
Perhaps a different ending, please.

There, I wrote it. Above.
I simply believe it needs to be in print... out there, so to speak,
And perhaps a few hundred may read, *******,
And, hysterically, or in solace,
Make use of it;
Openly, lingusly or fingeratively,
As we do *****, ******, and ******* (tsk-tsk).
Whether you agree or not, please yourself.

They were her hands,
Destined for pleasure.
Fingers tied knots
Ringed with gold,
And pointed the way
For growing old.

Palms held petals,
Bows, ribbons
And pages;
Wrists watched
The measured time
Of keys and games;
Wrapped packaged treasures,
Opened doors.

They were small
Determined hands,
Covered in flour
White skin
Powdering her face,
Inviting
Me in.

Hands held in supplication,
Joy and despair;
Hands in need
Of salvation.

Like leaves on
Autumn branches
That branches
Can't hold,
Her hands
Lost their grip,
Then closed
And fell cold.

Don't greet me
When we meet.
Don't look into my eyes.
Don't say, Hi.
Don't tell me how you're doing.
I'll do my best
To do the same.
I'll just close my eyes
When I say your name.

A singular cloud
Floats in the blue,
Cotton candy
I'd like to chew.
Make a stick
With your finger,
Hurry, clouds
Don't usually linger.

Now it's a galleon
In full sail,
Leaving a wake
In a wispy tail.
It sails the sky
Without a crew,
The Flying Dutchman
Sails from view.

Now a cauliflower cloud,
Folding in upon itself,
With dark green leaves
At its base,
Add melted cheese
For added taste.

A lamb, a hand,
A face, a pillow,
This cloud morphs
As lovers do.
One minute
I can see a form,
Then becomes
Part of the storm.

Everytime,
Yes, everytime
I pour out a poem,
I think I've finally
Brought one home.
But then it languishes
In the cloud;
Suddenly,
Yes, suddenly,
I'm not so proud.
No thunderous applause
Makes it rain,
My paltry poem
Is blown away.

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.

Where are our clowns
With baggy waist-coats
Filled with promises;
Clowns wearing
Borrowed crowns.

One plucks a rose
In his white garden,
To pin on his lapel;
He's a squirter
And it shows.

One's in the square
With large red shoes
Putting on a show.
But feet don't fit,
Soon he'll trip
With tongue-in-cheek ego.

One has rhine-red ruffs
Around her neck,
Her GNP
Surpasses debt;
Her audience finds
They too get wet.
A three-ringed circus
We're wise to regret.

One in the Yuan
Has a red nose on,
A harlequin clown
Asleep in red dawn.
But tweak his nose
And the tent comes down
On the Big Top Shows.

I am the collateral damage
Of a riddled, war-torn heart.
Open your borders
That I may find refuge.

You won't like
Your colonoscopy,
I know,
I've not liked mine.
It's invasive,
You're contorted,
And the Prep
Is too unkind.
Yet,
One needs
A **** snoop
In the
Intestine.
It postpones
Eternity,
That makes it
Worth your time.

One brief glimpse of heaven
Before neverending exile
Is Hell.
Left with eternal longing,
After the universe contracts
To a pinhead.
Yet, I experienced perfection
With impenetrable mountains,
Bedless lakes,
Plains of current-ridden grasses,
Bluest skies.
Ethereal realms don't appeal
When I have this world to peek in on;
This Sistine to confound me,
This sentient reality in full.
The angel is coming to drive me out,
With fire and ice,
I lived paradise:
It is blue and green.

Donald has a comb-over.
******, a funny moustache.
Hair Donald?
Heil ******!

Donald has a comb-over,
******, a funny moustache;
Hair Donald?
Heil ******.