#canadaday
Three days ago
it was Canada Day
Wait for the winter under Maple Leaf shade.
I'm alight with night time's
anaesthetized truths
soothe sweaty, shaking aches
until this
Independence Day
frees up my lungs.
Three days ago,
turned 29 years old.
Etched our initials in a park bench, rolled
my smudging thoughts into
photographed truth.
Our silver, halide smiles
on paper
live in drawers,
tie me to 25.
Our hearts aglow,
we rose
through dreams and aching,
chafing hopes.
True. Free. Young.
But the bombs burst that bubble
and red eyes glared
through anger and an aching, sorry chest.
Aug 15, 2014
Aug 15, 2014 at 11:49 AM UTC
God bless Canada
Come Laughing Home at Twilight
Beaumont-Hamel, 1916
And, O! Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,
A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –
As if he owned the very paving stones!
He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,
The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;
A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,
Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.
Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?
Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –
He was my finest, him and his Da,
His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,
They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.
But no, he too was killed on the first of July
Only it took him months to cast away,
And drift away, far away, into the mist.
Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?
I need no Kings nor no Kaisers, no,
Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,
Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:
I only want to see my men come home,
Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,
An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for bein’ late,
Come laughing home at twilight.
Jul 1, 2019
Jul 1, 2019 at 1:57 PM UTC