"ontario" poems
the earth is curved - sure y’all knew that.
but to get to the Northwest,
Interstate 84
ain’t le route plus directe
nope curve north to Ontario,
wave to Bex as I cross over
London and Toronto, also can’t recall
which poet from Rochester hails,
or did they shuffle off to Buffalo?
Crossing Erie, Huron, and Michigan Great Lakes all,
brings to mind
my mother’s birthplace,
Last of the Mohicans,
and the three years I did in the Cleveland Penitentiary,
where sun was illegal and baseball was a pretend play
of cowboys and Indians
but by god, it made me
the penitent fella I am today
Look skyward to Montreal,
yes, there he is, the Leo Priest,
the baffled king,
blessing this poetic meet ‘n greet trip
with a smiling unsurprising
hallelujah
Apparently some US citizens still can traverse O Canada,
even if one forgot their passports,
and are not PNG’s (Persons Not so GREAT)
over Minneapolis shed a tear for Diane,
a poet- gone-missing, and wonder if you reader come from
St. Cloud, Fargo or Duluth, Bismarck or Aberdeen,
surely they still speak poetic English there
in a twangy metering methodology - well, message me asap
wow there really is a Saskatoon!
the pilot asks us to lean left in our seats
to help turn the plane
so we go to Portland and not to Vancouver...
me thinks he might be a touch Rockie Mountain High,
considering we are at 30 thousand something Imperial,
as he walks the main cabin with an oxygen mask and a
huuuuuge grin
see the distant Cascades
through a crack in the shuttered windows,
must be close to “the coast”
(as if, harrumph, there were but one)
ah, words in the clouds, ripe for the plucking
must be getting close to Oregon,
where poets grow on trees, woody words like ****
and log-float poems down the Columbia to the sea
gonna drink me some poets
under the table cause this
trip I ain’t no driving and I am already
“flying” ‘n scribing and arriving
on a high tide and a good wind
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 5:47 AM UTC
spring planting, spring harvesting, spring garlic
One of the great joys of having a job in agriculture
is to think days, weeks, even months ahead,
One of the great joys of having a job in poetry,
like a fireman, a patient planter of love,
you wait to be called,
then becoming by being,
part of an all consuming burning
come spring, take advantage of the cool, wet weather of spring
to put in multiple crops of peas and lettuce, also a great time
to get your perennial vegetables,
like asparagus and rhubarb, started
the planting cycle is not an either/or,
come harvest thy labored fruits,
nine crops to harvest come March,
kale, pick leaves as needed,
leeks, best left in the ground
and harvested as needed,
parsnips, purple sprouting broccoli,
rhubarb, spring cabbage, spring cauliflower,
and of course, my personal fav,
Spring Garlic
Garlic, like like love, is generally planted in the fall,
before the frost and harvested the following late summer.
But from March to May,
once the ground has truly thawed,
the young lover plants, spring garlic or green garlic,
can be harvested.
it’s a long bus ride to Western Canada
where the garlic spring has come,
ain’t complaining lots of time to write foolishness
and plant a few good bus poems in northern ontario
and even michigan,
the window slides, and the seeds scattered,
but at every bus poet stop,
those that need it,
planted many inches deep
April 2 naught how I wish I was nineteen again
Apr 12, 2019
Apr 12, 2019 at 4:02 PM UTC
Pt. Anand Ji A To Z Problem Solution 72 Hours And With 100% Guaranteed. 45 Years EXPERCANCE With In Astrology Systematic Call To Guru Ji +91-8239810997 And Get Advice From Him. Any Problem In Mobile +91-8239810997 Astrology or/and Vashikaran solutions are also very effective for resolving or averting extramarital affairs of husband or wife, in present and future years. Such solutions or measures can be maximally efficacious and safe if these are extended by a well-learned, well-experienced, righteous, and globally reputed astrologer or relationship vashikaran specialist, like our guru ji astrologer-cum-vashikaran specialist pt.Anand ji of India. This web-article is dedicated exclusively to offering detailed and very beneficial information over the solutions of our dignified and benevolent guru ji, for resolving or eliminating unwanted extramarital affairs of any partner of the married life, to make the domestic life smooth and succulent, peaceful, and truly opulent.
The extramarital affairs of husband or wife could be caused by anyone or more of the following reasons:
Astrological Factors
Constantly increasing distance between husband and wife
Differences in the lifestyle and priorities of the two married partners
Absence of full confidence in the other partner
Understanding and compatibility problems between husband and wife
Easily available company of an alluring person of opposite gender
Lack of marital harmony, intimacy, and succulence
Issues related with financial, occupational, or social status of any INTERNATIONAL SERVICE WITH GUARANTEE POWERFUL LOVE ASTROLOGER Anand Ji FROMPUSKARJI RAJASTHAN 45 EXPERCANCE ALL PROBLEM SOLUTION BY SADHANA Hello can u disturb in your life problems and not get desire results? Here is the solution of all problems like as follow:- := love marriage := Business problemsolution := Problem in husband wife := Foreign traveling := Problem in study := Problem as childless := Physical problem := Problem in family relations := problem in your love := Willful marriage := Promotions our wised love back all solutions in your life within 72 hours and with 100% guaranteed. With in astrology systematic call to guru ji and get advice from him. Any problemsin Mobile :+91-8239810997WORLD NO. 1 FAMOUS GURU ASTROLOGER/INDIA /West Bengal OMAN Cape town canada america Usa in Ontario , Toronto Kuwait , Qatar , Doha , Saudi Arabia , San Francisco Singapore , Italy , Germany , Paris , Belgium, France , Berlin , Spain UK, USA, AUSTRALIA, UAE, DUABI, CANADA, Sydney,ENGLAND,united kingdom,SINGAPORE, NEWZEALAND, GERMANY, ITLY, MALASIYA,Abu dhabi London IN New York kuwait SouthAfrica,South Korea,Thailand Qatar,England,Queens California HongKong Japan Brazil
More info visit my Website... http://www.thelovevashikaran.com/
Email .. [email protected].....................
Contact us. .+91-8239810997.............
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 2:54 AM UTC
She had hung it up from the mantelpiece in her bedroom, so when he entered the room there it was. It was suddenly lovely and he immediately imagined her body flowing into it, flowing from it. Standing close to the dress he brought his fingers to the fabric, touched gently, stroking then, as though it already held her form and substance.
Stepping past thoughts of her that so stirred his body he entered the pattern of the dress. It was a meadow in southern Ontario. July, when already the sun had bleached the profusion of grasses: water chestnut and papyrus sedge. He had stepped from the untidy veranda, past the pond, and down the rough track between the fields unmown, uncut, left fallow. As he entered the breaks of woodland between these swathes of grassland, deciduous leaves, dry and brittle from the summer's heat, were strewn on the path, and between the trees clumps of bramble bushes with berries of red and blue, black and purple.
There was no wind. The only sounds an underlay of crickets, his footfall, and the sharp mournful cries of geese on the now distant pond.
He saw her like an apparition standing motionless at the woodland’s boundary; her dress at one with all that surrounded her. When he came close and placed his hand on her shoulder he could smell the sweet dry earth mingling with her body's sweat, a hint of her *** as he placed his cheek against the shower of printed pollen amongst the leaves on her back.
Back in the late afternoon bedroom he heard her move about in the kitchen, and the spell broken, he turned away and went downstairs.
Several days later, as they prepared for bed, she slipped the dress on. As she stood in the lamplight smoothing it against her flanks, adjusting its fall across her ******* he felt himself faint that such a thing of beauty could be a joy forever . . . and beyond.
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 4:55 AM UTC
I wonder where raindrops come from before they reach my window,
A river? Lake? Ocean?
I wonder how far they have to travel before they reach my window,
A kilometer? Mile? Country?
I wonder if these raindrops work together to sing as they reach my window,
Plop-plop, ploop, plop-ploop!
I wonder how diverse the raindrops are as they reach my window,
Oh hello, I'm from Lake Ontario.
I wonder if it's a wild party or wet war in the clouds whose raindrops reach my window,
Let's dance! Fight me!
I wonder how social raindrops are that reach my window,
Stick to me, we'll become a downpour!
I wonder if the cloud is the mother that lets go of its children to reach my window,
Off to the lake, ma, see you soon!
I wonder if raindrops thought they could fly but instead reached my window,
Weeeeee-aahhhhhhhh!
I wonder if they all fall but expect to soar as they reached my window....
Plop-plop, ploop-plop, plop, ploop, plop, plop....
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 8:48 PM UTC
By A Foreigner
I like Canadians.
They are so unlike Americans.
They go home at night.
Their cigarettes don't smell bad.
Their hats fit.
They really believe that they won the war.
They don't believe in Literature.
They think Art has been exaggerated.
But they are wonderful on ice skates.
A few of them are very rich.
But when they are rich they buy more horses
Than motor cars.
Chicago calls Toronto a puritan town.
But both boxing and horse-racing are illegal
In Chicago.
Nobody works on Sunday.
Nobody.
That doesn't make me mad.
There is only one Woodbine.
But were you ever at Blue Bonnets?
If you **** somebody with a motor car in Ontario
You are liable to go to jail.
So it isn't done.
There have been over 500 people killed by motor cars
In Chicago
So far this year.
It is hard to get rich in Canada.
But it is easy to make money.
There are too many tea rooms.
But, then, there are no cabarets.
If you tip a waiter a quarter
He says "Thank you."
Instead of calling the bouncer.
They let women stand up in the street cars.
Even if they are good-looking.
They are all in a hurry to get home to supper
And their radio sets.
They are a fine people.
I like them.
5.4k
TRUMP
i never said a word about you because
would it be rude to call you an embarrassment?
you're everything i'm not and you're
everything i fear in a person but
tonight i thought about you and for the first time
since i blocked your number that night i was
supposed to come over i kind of maybe sort of
missed your touch but i didn't miss you
i loved you when you were inside of me but
could barely stand to be in the same room with you otherwise
you made my heart pound like a bad anxiety attack after
seeing your 47 in math and thinking woah i might not graduate
and realizing even worse: with a grade that low i'll never make it
to outer space (which means we'll be stuck on the same planet
forever no matter how hard i try to rid myself of you you will
always linger between the cracks in the sidewalks and broken
picket fences you are suburbia's biggest fear)
POOH
you taught me that lust never leads to love
and you stole my favourite book. i wonder
if you ever read it but you stopped talking to me
out of the blue, apparently i had done something wrong?
i mean,
that's a first
i dream about you more often than i'd like to admit
sometimes you drop in just to say hi but most of the time
you call me a ***** and tell me you wish i were dead but
no matter what you heard about me i swear to God i'm pure
or maybe God was right when he burned my skin alive and
watched me become ashes in the middle of nowhere with no one
around to hear me scream for help, have i sinned too much to be
let in to Heaven?
******
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
SIRIUS
history repeats and i've been stuck in this loop
since i can remember i fall in love with the same
person over and over again i fall in love with you
and you fall in love with him and i stop believing
in love all together but i fall in love with someone
else because they remind me of you and i hope you
think of me from time to time and miss me as much
as i miss you as i try to fall out of love but it never
works the way it worked so easily for you, first love
doesn't mean forever love because the first is never
the last and everyone said so but i was hoping that
maybe one day we'd get married in the garden down
the hill by your house that overlooked Lake Ontario
or the ocean as you liked to call it because you could
never distinguish the difference between blues
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 2:05 AM UTC
Matt. British gent to British *****
You became insecure, moody, obsessive and possessive
And that doesn't give you the excuse to abuse. It’s over.
Norman. Male twin to turned twin.
You became my best friend so easily, come boyfriend
Then you broke up with me for my brother. It’s over.
Ryan. Sweet guy to skaterboi.
I don’t even know why we dated,
Probably because we left people who abused us. It’s over.
Noel. Romantic to heart-frantic.
You chose that nasty ex over me, and she only hurt you.
I've never came so close to fighting a girl in school. It’s over.
Morgan. Cuban fling to cutie far away.
I realize we were both drunk, but you initiated the kiss
And you weren't too bad at it, for a girl… but you’re in Ontario. It’s over.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 7:20 PM UTC
In measured verse I'll now rehearse
The charms of lovely Anna:
And, first, her mind is unconfined
Like any vast Savannah.
Ontario's lake may fitly speak
Her fancy's ample bound:
Its circuit may, on strict survey
Five hundred miles be found.
Her wit descends on foes and friends
Like famed Niagara's fall;
And travellers gaze in wild amaze,
And listen, one and all.
Her judgment sound, thick, black, profound,
Like transatlantic groves,
Dispenses aid, and friendly shade
To all that in it roves.
If thus her mind to be defined
America exhausts,
And all that's grand in that great land
In similes it costs —
Oh how can I her person try
To image and portray?
How paint the face, the form how trace,
In which those virtues lay?
Another world must be unfurled,
Another language known,
Ere tongue or sound can publish round
Her charms of flesh and bone.
3.6k
the lakewater near the banks darken with the shadows of coniferous trees
not unlike the way my ***** darkened just the other evening with transgression
and i find myself waiting,arcing the ash from my cigarette in fiery transient streaks.
this is north west angle's public dock, a sunken relic of the anishinabe
appropriately too young to be old just like the ******* rest of us.
kee no wahh she spits with conviction,
her forked tongue a testament to the near science fiction
that keeps its ugly head low to the ground
in the backwater communities of
rural ontario and manitoba
and saskatchewan
and beyond.
purple and yellow and green galaxies span across the deep space of my neck
and that's good enough, they reckon, to land me in the passenger's seat.
now the sun's shallow beneath the canadian shield
leaving only a violent, open **** on the skyline
and the watered down blood of ritual sacrifice to
filter up through the cheesecloth of the underbrush
and effectively discolour the poplars in a pastel
identical to the lining of my ****
so ask me how many children have been
stranded on the pallid, uneven terrain of my thighs
and i'll stop making references to my ******
Feb 22, 2010
Feb 22, 2010 at 10:12 AM UTC
But I'm Not Bitter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a dark and dreary day ( I know its Tripe but today it is true )
rain makes me sour and truly an old crone
My skin is too tight and my bones are not nimble but stiff and useless
Stairs are insurmountable and the phone seems too far away for the effort
I no longer try to be pleasant and am left alone
but for my furry mob who can care less my bad mood
my desk chair is surrounded now with hot water bottles
electrical pads and nuke em packs and of course pill bottles
the detritus of pain
It is now a companion old and well known to me
I am told ever "Its age my Dear, Just live with it
I am told "It's all in your mind there's no pain at all"
I am told :Push through it and endure don't acknowledge it ignore it"
When will it leave ? at death ? What a thought to have to drag it with me at the end.
I curse his name
His Family
His Heritage
His Intellect
His Temper
His one action one blow in fury his one tantrum ...
And the sentence is life ...for me
I wonder ..If I saw him could I strike back?
I know there is no forgiveness no saint like pity or absolution
Every time I hit the ground in a seizure he has hit me again
Everyday I cannot climb the stairs in my own home He has thrown me once again through the window and I fall the 6 floors again
Stop holding on to it you'll never get any better ... And I try ..I really do ...
Then the seizures come or I cannot do a simple household task
or I must once more tell a friend I cannot meet them for tea (a selfish luxury)
You know I bet he has not thought of me in years ..but his actions govern what I can do every day of my Life
But I am not Bitter
Solita -2006
Author's Location: Toronto, Ontario
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 5:33 PM UTC
i hate it when you have a hangnail but it is mostly a piece
of skin that is really steadfast about not detaching
from your finger. it’s like the piece of skin has
separation anxiety and you can’t get it
to leave ever
all you want is for the piece of skin to move out.
today is your twentieth birthday and you are thinking
about your mortality a whole bunch and how you have provided
the piece of skin with a comfortable home and now
you want it to move on and make a big life
for itself so when you’re old and more carrot-like
you will have the piece of skin to take care of you
until you are ready to make the big trip to hamilton
known as dying alone and feeling okay about it
because hamilton is a nice place to die alone
hamilton is a port city in the canadian province of ontario
you dream of hamilton and you are already a little bit more
carrot-like on this day, your twentieth birthday. we want the
piece of skin to get its **** together so we can all be happy
for you one day when the amount of carrot-like
characteristics you grow into becomes immeasurable
and creamy. the piece of skin smiles and says
it does not like your conservative-minded nonsense
the piece of skin feels as though it has a right to
prosperity and a new season of hey arnold
and its own episode of mtv cribs.
you say the piece of skin is too liberal and you
get out a pair of scissors and cut of your finger
the finger with the piece of skin that was too clingy
is now resting peacefully on the hardwood floor
of your apartment in a pool of blood that you are
proud to say is something you made on your own.
the piece of skin quotes hemingway as it dies
the reference goes over your head and the reader’s head too
Dec 30, 2011
Dec 30, 2011 at 1:56 PM UTC
Going on a road trip
Something for my soul
It's gonna take a while
But, it's gonna make me whole
I'm going to cross the country
But, I'll start on both the coasts
I've been in too many bottles
Have to exorcise some ghosts
Mile Marker Three Three Three Nine
That's where the dream did end
Mile Marker Three Three Three Nine
That's where I'll start to mend
Greyhound bus out of the east
From the Maritimes my son
I'll venture through Quebec as well
This is journey number one
I'll stop and meet the people
Get their stories, of the man
I'll find the ones who met him
Try to learn just what I can
Adversity, I've had my share
Always tried self medication
Now, I need to find myself
This will take some dedication
I'll head on through Ontario
On the Trans Canada Highway route
And I'll try lose my demons
Give my devils all the boot
Brick by brick I'll bring down the walls
That over years I've built
Bricks made up of hate and rage
by love, and fear and guilt
From the west, I'll make my way
Do the highway he could not
Through the rocky mountains
Every mile is hard fought
I'll learn about the person
Who he was and who I am
I'll come through the fire stronger
I'll be a much better man
I will bus across the prairies
Through the Manitoba cold
I will focus on my endgame
I'll learn from what I'm told
Two journeys I will travel
Neither one from coast to coast
But, both are to be ended
by that famous mile post
Maybe I can find the answer
Join myself, go through the door
As he joined a nation
So many years before
Mile Marker Three Three Three Nine
That's where my journey ends
Mile Marker Three Three Three Nine
That's where I'll start to mend
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 12:16 AM UTC
~for Bex~
in the flesh, not really, but I was...
ordered five bone china coffee mugs for you,
from the Artists Gallery, all scenes of nature,
painted by Canada’s Group of 7,
to go with the Lawren Harris mug,
'Lakes and Mountains'
from which I am currently sipping
for when I thought of you up north in Ontario,
I thought of my mom,
who was Toronto born and bred,
and the caramel oranges of fall
that have not yet arrived
in northern Manhattan,
but have already peaked in Ontario,
in late September
I smile,
while voyaging on the curving line of thought perusal,
at all the things that have already peaked,
someplace else,
and that have may yet, be late, arriving in my life
and I dream of:
all the poets who
I will never meet,
the living and the dead,
all the poems,
I will never finish, perhaps, n'ere to start,
never chance to speak, or chance to peak
all of you, sipping, from those real mugs of porcelain,
that are soon to arrive, via an imaginary railroad,
running on creosote stained ties of caramel orange,
built by a namesake, that I can no longer imagine,
but whom I knew
so well in my youth
my mug is sadness filled by
those stillborn verses that will never chance to peak,
but am comforted by the knowing,
as long as there is freedom to write,
that there is hope for one more poem
to be imagined, sourced from deep within,
drawn from the cool well water
of happy wishing
Oct 30, 2016
Oct 30, 2016 at 1:15 PM UTC
It starts like a beige tuft of fibre
Protruding from a large burlap sack.
As we pull it from the hidden source
It gradually reveals itself.
Simple and unassuming,
A uniform, coloured strand
Which we gather up into a tidy ball.
Sometimes another strand is tied
Onto the one we pull.
A different colour?
A change of texture?
And so we pull that one anew,
We build another coil,
While the original strand awaits.
The interesting new thread,
Reveals itself from the hidden reservoir.
The fibre slides through our fingers.
Slowly, when there is resistance.
Quicker, when it comes loosely.
Now coarse and wiry
Now soft and slippery,
Now thick and tufted.
Tough Scottish highlands perhaps?
Or rural Ontario?
Sometimes the hidden source seems like it may be
A hand-knit sweater that we are pulling apart.
The strands are still kinked and twisted in places,
Echoing a memory of a shape it has held for years.
We recognize bits here and there too.
Colours and textures from our own story.
"I had a pair of socks like that."
"Remember our scarves from those cold childhood winters?"
The collection of small skeins increases.
From a sheep's fleece, yes, but now too
From Alpaca, camel and rabbit.
Cashmere from Pashmina goats in Nepal?
But at last the final strand comes free.
You feel the weight of the coiled wool,
And see the diversity of the colours.
And for each coil
We remember again how it appeared
How it felt.
How the strands
Came together
And apart.
Aug 12, 2013
Aug 12, 2013 at 10:13 AM UTC
It's December in Ontario,
And an early morning fog
Has cancelled school buses,
Again.
In a few more years,
We'll worry about frost
In our orange groves,
As Florida digs out
Of another blizzard.
Dec 7, 2015
Dec 7, 2015 at 11:57 AM UTC
Here's a little ditty about my father named Hugh.
He has three grown children, that's one more than two...
He was born in Ontario but now resides in BC
Along with his three kids, Medea, Sean, and me.
He has a work ethic that is second to none.
I remember as a kid he would say yard work was fun.
He would bust his *** until his back was sore...
Then come home from work and still do more. .
He had some slips and trips that broke his hips..
And that's not Ironic..
Thanks to the great Doctors, he is now part bionic..
I've looked up to this man right from the start..
And still do so.. though he's an old **** .
So I stand up here so I can shout..
Happy birthday dad, I love you, and peace out!
Feb 5, 2017
Feb 5, 2017 at 4:57 AM UTC
‘We must have entered the Latter Days
For the Moon has broken in two,’
Said Paul Maresh in the month of May
Of Twenty Twenty-two,
‘I said they shouldn’t be mining it
And drilling through to its core,
For now the Russians claim half of it
And the States have gone to war.’
‘That nuclear bomb on Ohio left
A crater, big as a lake,
And I heard that Lake Ontario
Has flooded New York State,
The world is shifting allegiances
So we don’t know where we are,
Since the Internet has crashed and burned
With my friends, both near and far.’
He went to the old style UHF
That he kept in his father’s shed,
Checked that the aerials were up
And the generator fed,
For the power had gone for the second time
And they said, it won’t be back,
With the power station the target in
That first, but brief attack.
He switched on channel 11 then,
Hoping to hear her voice,
Through shifting, drifting frequencies
He sat there, calling Joyce,
But all he got was a wailing call
To prayer, from a Dervish man,
Sent out to all of the faithful from
Some place in Pakistan.
He checked through all of the channels that
They’d used, back there in the past,
But mostly got a cracklng sound
From the swirling, nuclear ash,
His sister Joyce, having flown on out
To the States in the month before,
He thought was missing in Florida,
In the first week of the war.
Then a voice came through on channel three
That was lost, and fraught with pain,
‘Is that the Paul Maresh I met
In June, on the Sydney train?’
His mind went back to the smiling girl
With the drawn out Texas drawl,
Who’d chatted, stolen his heart away
With her laughed, ‘Be seein’ Y’all!’
They’d kept in touch on the Internet
And she said she was coming back,
Preparing to give their love a fling
On some great Australian track.
But then the world had shuddered with
That first American bomb,
So now, as frequencies swirled, he said,
‘Where are you calling from?’
He thought that she said from ‘Boston’, though
A crackle had interfered,
Maybe the word was ‘Austin’ back
In Texas, that he’d heard,
But then her voice was carried away
In a trans-pacific hum,
And the last few words he heard, she said
‘I really love you, ***
Part of the Moon has crashed to earth
In the Gulf of Mexico,
With Texas drowned in a sea of mud
And the earth’s rotation slowed,
But Paul Maresh in the Aussie Bush
Is clamped to the UHF,
Looking for Joyce and Linda if
It takes him his final breath.
David Lewis Paget
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 3:34 AM UTC
He came as an orphan
June 26th, 1865
Having seen
the death of his mother
Chased and speared by a hunter
First African elephant
in Europe
At the London Zoo
All alone
in all of Europe
How he broke and wore his tusks
In the iron of his enclosure
In night pain from toothaches
From many rotten teeth
Caused by his only grass hay diet
Given whiskey and beer to calm
Shared with his keeper
Matthew Scott, a difficult man
With no close friends
But with a deep empathy for animals
Who drank whiskey
with Jumbo
Into the late, lonely night
Jumbo liked whiskey, beer
and lots of sticky buns
A problematic elephant
With a Jekyll and Hyde character
Sold for 2,000 pounds
To PT Barnum
as a star attraction
Jumbo tearing his chains away
Then sitting like a mule
Until he knew his keeper
Would also ride the boat
Across the big pond
Barnum’s Scott
Made a deal
Queen Victoria wasn’t happy
Her children had sat
And rode upon his back
Jumbomania in America
Accompanied his arrival
20 million saw him alive
Brooklyn bridge opened in 1882
A year before Jumbo arrived
Then 17 May, 1884
Twenty elephants
marched across
All the way to Brooklyn
led by Jumbo
The bridge vibrated and rebounded
In St Thomas, Ontario, Canada
was his suffering demise
The day the circus train came to town
Tom Thumb and Jumbo
Were waiting to get loaded
Perhaps bumped in the ****
By the speeding freight locomotive
Internal bleeding
and a slow death
Tom Thumb only a broken leg
Jumbo in a slow death
Scott in a slow death afterwards
Having witnessed
the last breath
Of his best friend
Photographed (a recent novelty)
just after his death in B&W
Poor dead Jumbo
Scott at his head
Weeping inconsolably
Although PT Barnum
In pure PT Barnum invention
Says Jumbo ran headfirst
Into the freight locomotive
To save his keeper and Tom Thumb
Jumbo died
at twenty-four
still young
and growing
in size and girth
His stuffed mounted skin
burned at Tufts University
except the unbroken bones
plus the end of his tail
“And this is what remains of Jumbo”
Yesterday, I saw wild elephants on the banks of the Zambezi river
near Victoria Falls
Tomorrow I’m hoping to touch Jumbo’s bones in New York City
And walk the Brooklyn Bridge
© 2017 Jim Davis
Nov 15, 2018
Nov 15, 2018 at 12:42 PM UTC
An Ontario man and his two children have turned up safe after getting lost in the woods on their way to an Alberta wedding.
RCMP Const. Jason Curtis says David Hill, 33, along with daughter Sierra Hill, 10, and son Riley, 8, set off from Edmonton International Airport on Saturday morning.
They were destined for a family wedding in Hinton, a couple hours drive west of the city, that was scheduled for 11 a.m.
Family members got a call Saturday afternoon from one of the children in the car that they apparently got off the highway and were lost in a wooded area.
The phone then cut out and Curtis says the family spent the night in their rental car before finding someone Sunday morning who directed them back to the highway.
He says he doesn't know why the Hills left the highway.
And exactly where were they?
"I don't know if they're entirely sure of that,'' Curtis said.
RCMP said a ping from the cell phone placed them in the area of Obed, Alberta, which is between Edson and Hinton.
Police said they launched a full search for the family out of concern for the ages of the children and for the fact that some of the group suffered from medical conditions.
Curtis said that after getting directions out, the family notified their relatives and police.
"It couldn't be a better outcome. Everyone's safe and sound. And we're just very happy,'' Curtis said.
"The people are moving onto their family event, though they might have missed the wedding.''
read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses
www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 1:39 AM UTC