Roots On The Rock

Oh…
Newfoundland
Newfoundland
I’m here to see
My roots on
The Rock
Out here
On the sea
I’m Billy
From Boston
And happy
To be
Here in St. John’s
With my Newfie family

Oh…
Newfoundland
Newfoundland
I have to say
Your warmth
And your kindness
Make us want
To stay
We Drink
Of the screech
Then kiss a cod fish
I’m happy to stay
If that’s
All of your wish

Oh…
Newfoundland
Newfoundland
Grandpappy’s
Home
He left
You for Boston
When fish
Went to roam
He met
My grandma
A lass from Kilbride
Then both said "I do”
And became groom & bride

Oh…
Newfoundland
Newfoundland
I’m here to see
My roots on
The Rock
Out here
On the sea
I’m Billy
From Boston
And happy
To be
Here in St.John’s
With my Newfie family

Bill MacEachern March 12, 2023

It’s not marijuana in Newfoundland
In our fair Island we call it Product, b’ys
Son, have you been smokin’ Product again?
This is some **in’ great Producttttttttt, ohhhhh, mannnnnnn

Mr. Speaker, why is there a shortage
Of Product in the province, Mr. Speaker,
Not worried about the stocks of cod if we
Can get stocks of Product, Mr. Speaker

And if the shipment from the mainland stalls
They’ll beam us some Product from Muskrat Falls

She'll brew a *** of bliss and then she'll pour it in your cup
She'll dance around the room until the gloom is all drunk up
She's not your normal angel, boy and of that you should be glad
For she fills a parlour naked more than many girls do clad

She's an angel from Newfoundland and St. Andrews knew her well
She's certainly no Flatrock as Tickle Harbour's boys can tell
And Jackson's and Chapple's Arms they both have been in her's
She's even been to Merasheen don't tell the other girls

Her "H"s have an "H" in them and her voice a lilting sound
But if you want sincerity no better can be found
Her love's as pure as dynamite she'll blow you off the shelf
She'll make your whisker hairs stand up and your little man an elf

She's an angel now in Tor-onto, On-tar-i-ario
She moved there when her parents died and she didn't know where to go
Ah, Mississauga knows her well and so does Hamilton
But Toronto is the place to be when she is having fun

She says she works a fancy bar called the Iron Cross Cha-pel
Where pretty men come in all dressed up and cuss and kiss as well
She cannot find a boyfriend there but she has lots of dates
They give her lots of Ecstasy and tell her it's not ****

She's an angel from Newfoundland and St. Andrews knew her well
She's certainly no Flatrock as Tickle Harbour's boys can tell
And Jackson's and Chapple's Arms they both have been in her's
She's even been to Merasheen don't tell the other girls

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe
And storied urns record who rest below:
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been:
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour’d falls, unnoticed all his worth—
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:
While Man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive Heaven.
Oh Man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on—it honours none you wish to mourn:
To mark a Friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one,—and here he lies.

i've tried to give myself every warning
i've planted signs and grown a lighthouse
but im standing too close to the rocks
(its not that i can't see them,
its just that i don't care)
and i'm going to slip and fall
and im going to break an arm
leg and all my ribs
just to go swimming in my heart
just to let go of my caution-tape mind
so im going to sew my thighs and calves
so i can dive far beyond the crashing waves
where i could find my courage to speak
to whoever this is who has murdered me
to whoever this is who is smiling at me

The Great Newfoundland novel (summation)

A young man brimming with
Townie **** and vinegar or
Bay boy brimming with obnoxious  bravado

Eventually he leaves and discovers
How people  treat fellow man
Seemingly beaten down
Genetic history Of Newfoundland Truck System

Alongside founders population variance,
Upward spike in heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancers

Lurks engrained learned hopelessness
Smouldering in "Newfie" jokes
You'd better hope I let it slide
Unless you wanna find out
What a peat moss bog smells like
Or how it feels to freeze to death
Tied to a crucifix

Nothing to be gained but new land
Seven hours, easily more than I could stand
A journey across
A province that's lost
Its history left on the sand

Awake in a desolate place
With memories left to erase
New ones I am seeking
Without retreating
To a concrete city of mace

Perhaps I have been here before
Maybe in dreams, maybe in lore
A fleeting romance
And a ticket by chance
So my feet will land back on the shore

An American weather boy reports the storm
And all its tracks upon a glowing map
A hurricane by shape and scale and form
Roaring northeast through a low-pressure gap

There is nothing beyond holy New York City
Some unexplored land masses, it may be
Lost in the Atlantic (which is blue and pretty)
Where the hurricane will be harmless, you see

With a flip of his hand, they are dismissed:
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland do not exist

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                Peter­ Pan in Bowring Park

                 For Dan, who knows something of magic

                        “Do you want an adventure now,
                      or would like to have your tea first?”

                                          -Peter Pan

Sweet little bunnies browse and squirrels climb
And tiny mice and fairies give delight
To all the little ones of Newfoundland
Who visit Peter Pan in Bowring Park

He plays his pipes for them, and they can hear
The joyful music of his magic world
Where they may celebrate their pixie-dreams
At this bright second star from Kensington

And sing in peace their happy morning hymn
For darling little Betty, who waits for them


...the history behind Bowring Park's Peter Pan statue? — Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland & Labrador

My father was born in an outport community of 2000
On the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland
Around 1950, to a school headmaster and a homemaker
Attended Memorial University of Newfoundland (as did I)
Studied English, and eventually Education

He was a brilliant man, often quiet for long periods of time,
Then viscerally eloquent like Occam's Razor when he spoke
Remember him telling me how "taking their maidenheads"
From Romeo and Juliet act one, was about taking virginity
Always had an answer for my million questions
Rarely lost his temper

Taught me to accept others as they were, and to resist the temptation
To judge

A spiritual man, not religious, always taking care to differentiate the two

Without him I would never have access
To the home library in our den, my muse
Or all the gruesome movies he shouldn't have let me watch

Without my father I wouldn't know that
I like Jack Daniel's on the rocks with afternoon paper or
A Farewell to Arms with Spanish Rioja from earthenware cups,
Like Hemingway drank during the Spanish Civil War

I would not have wallowed with the downtrodden and the vilified
I would not have seen the base human weakness
The fundamental vulnerability that dwells within all of us
Had I not seen it in him first

Some four years ago, my father experienced weakness on one side
While on vacation in Europe
Flew back to Canada, diagnosed quickly with brain cancer
By the time I spoke to him, his mind was already rapidly fading
The spark of brilliance snuffed out like so much wick and wax

Died 6 months later in his sleep
We spread his ashes on his father's grave
And in the Bay St. George

Taught me what and how to believe,
Who to be
For better or for worse
Taught me how to ask the right questions
Showed me the books to read
Let me know it was OK
To be me

Sailors we're not, but here our souls roam
Beneath the cold seas, and the waves and the foam
We inherit the depths of the oceans and sea
Never to know of just what we could be
We are the dead, lying down in the dark
Our stories forgotten, our history stark
We're not in one place, we live where we went down
Not a monument stands for most in our towns
We went down in rought seas, in a storm or a battle
We died taking a trip or transporting our cattle
There's as many of us as there are in the earth
We've been taken at sea, since man first did give birth
Our souls walk the floor of the deepest dark places
No one knows who we are, not our names or our faces
We ended our lives on ships , sloops and on ketches
We are the dead, some rich, some poor wretches
We never will age, never again will see light
We're still waiting for more to join us in the night
The seas give us life and they take just as fast
It's a tomb for us all, it's where our breaths were our last
Unsinkable ships...fifteen hundred or more
Lost their lives to the ice just like many before
The water cares not, your soul's there to take
Whether ocean or sea, or on river or lake
We walk in the depths, beneath the lighthouse and rocks
Our home is the cold, down below all the docks
We lie just off the shore, we died within reach
Some of us drowned just a bit from the beach
The sea's a cruel master, it owns all who sail
It cares not one bit, who you are or your tale
Stories mean nothing to those down below
For when it is time, to the locker you'll go
We died fighting pirates, we gave up our lives
We left our young children, our husbands and wives
From the Cape of Good Hope to the cold northern seas
Where we were still alive as our bodies did freeze
In the Indian Ocean and off the Newfoundland coast
Some nights you might see us, in the fog...just a ghost
We're the ones who inhabit the dark of the seas
When you hear the wind howling, you are hearing our pleas
Don't forget who we were, when we lived and we died
Please remember the families who broke down and did cry
There are fish in the ocean, but we live here too
We're the lost souls of people who died on the  blue
Sailors we're not, but the water's our home
Down in the dark waters beneath the waves and the foam.

(Happy 150th, Canada!)


Canada Day -  Just One?

With love from an ‘umble Yank

But every day is Canada Day!

The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada

The Muskogee never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, complete
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada

Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway

Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest

The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?

To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada

Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”

Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read

The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada

A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada

Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not -
Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!