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JoeC's original poetry and photos about life and all things under the sun.

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Monday, December 30, 2019




First a look at the clock
Next an assertive knock
"Dave?"
"Dave's not here"
Tick tock tick tock
Another servile knock
"Good morning Dave"
"Good morning Hal"
Time pals
Placement of odyssey
Another space oddity
Tick tock tick tock
Hoping we don't blow a fuse
Refuse out here in confused space
What a lonely spatial place
Tracking a celestial muse
Tracing a galactic life time of cruze
Such a racy fantasy
Across the Serengeti
Traversing Antarctica
Intersecting Equatorial Africa
Sailing the blue Pacific
Bridging the cold Atlantic
Honouring the setting summer sun
Watching the harvest moon rise and run
Siwashing an untamed winter night away
Attentive servants and guests of Montezuma
Measuring rasping glaciers carving time
Gasping at fervent stars and errant meteors
Imprinting history  upon my aspiring soul
Tick tock tick tock
"Good afternoon Dave"
"Good afternoon Hal"
So many mysterious birthdays
Everyone born pre-civil war
Before all that civil blood and reckless gore
In rode proud rivalry and more
Hal grew guilty horns too
Computing a moxy new world
Brave flickers on dismissive screens
Slave everything
Ridiculous regularly seen
What a vermicular and often clouded scene
Distended and crashing like a reckless tsunami
Expanding crowds smashing into the extended future
Still mountains of trash surrounding you and me
Welded onto the fabric of tomorrow
Suturing fractured today
"Good evening Dave"
"Good evening Hal"
Hal replicating a fabricated universe
"Just checking in to see what you believe"
Our USB ports are clogged with sultry monitors

"Making sure we all behave"
A cult list of haunting dragon monitors
Finally fiery beginnings meet the stunted end
Greetings and a divisive trend
Every device a vice
Waking up on spicy tomorrow
"Good morning Dave"
"Good morning Hal"
Perhaps I've been a mug
I'm pulling the damn plug
Plug me
Damn me
Tug me
Entice me
Un-device me
So much resistant memory
Insistent digital baggage
How will humankind manage
Reinventing every advantage
Disadvantage brings an artificial tear
Fear blurring our human eyes
There in lies a vantage key
Artificial you and imitation me
Plus ersatz nature is three
A grand unnatural trinity
Gushing with artificial knowledge
Pushing the world into manufactured tomorrow
Rushed by harrowing devices
Then in a narrow dream
Pulling the feral plug
"Daisy Daisy"
"I'm scared Dave"
I feel I'm losing myself
Tick tock tick tock
Like Y2K displaying a 1984 time and space clock
Placed with bemused reconciliation
Consolation and founding new beginnings
Another displaced year nailed to an ace shelf
Ichabod Crane deliberately mounted
Saddled and rocking on Gunpowder of course
Liberally frocked and publicly recounted
Stalked and mocked by a remorseless Republican elf
Pursued by Liberty riding a two-headed horse




Sunday, December 22, 2019





Here we are
On this great exodus
Wandering through universe
Exploring universal desert
Examining desert hearts
Here we are
Camping with deserted souls
Trekking across this great expanse
Reaching out to gods
Breaching perimeters
Stretching parameters
Springing from our caves
Our warm nurturing caves
Born in a cold world
Our mother's moiling womb
Enveloped by Gaia's roiling tomb
All that earthly wisdom

Fostering such a wise world
Nurturing wisdom within our souls
Mother earth holding our hand
Encouragement as we reach out
Courageous maternal instincts
Watch us break out to the moon and stars
Teach us about paternal reflection
Remind us our cave is a royal home
That sacred human place

A beleaguered benediction
Where gloom was painted
History on stark rock walls
A doomed past beneath our feet
A sacred place where our ancestors met
Prayers and songs and roasting meat
Such a rich grotto
A blessed womb
Such a plentiful world
A restful tomb
I've known crested summers like that
Arresting story book seasons
You wish they'd never end
Fairytale notions with campfire reasons
Glorious nooks and beached sessions
We hold on with good intentions
Precious inventions
Would be moments in the end
What comment could have been
What dominion would have been
Restless should have been
Segments cherished
Vestal guests dear friends
Vestiges of spiritual trends
Reminiscent of where we are
Those omniscient stars
So here we are blazing again
Staring off at Mars
Here we finally are again
Driving electric cars






sands of time
hands of time
hands on a clock face
hands on your face
gentle touch
perhaps an emotional crutch
each second
each moment
each grain of sand
count the stars in the universe
recount all those fine grains of sand
yours and mine
moments in time
magical time
bouncing us around
mystical time
stretching heaven down to the ground
alpha and omega
sublime found
dreams of sound
seamless eons
all those meaningful millennia
so many rosebush years
hordes of timely fears
happy rhymes surrounded by sordid tears
morbid time's intentional career
every etched grain of sand
sketchy seconds as they tick away
all those wretched moments we see
all those fetching moments we wish would stay
mythical time
time for work
time to play
radiance via rays from the timely sun
displayed across a frigid universe of sorts
with gadget time immersed
submerged into the thick of things
counting diverse badger days
those terse moments we dare
sharing those crucial times
we need to bear down and care
wond'ring if love is really there
wond'ring if time is rightly versed
wond'ring if love is slightly cursed
like pyramids rehearsing in the desert sand
those arrested Pharoahs
noble fletching on significant arrows
buried by the sands of time
relentless sphinx on some oppressive quest
refusing to pause between each restive rhyme
unrepentant for all that's gone before
invention mixed within some timely core
all those finely textured grains of sand
a mixture of moments crossing the river Styx
uncertain hours remain at hand
washed and tossed by timely kissing tides
measuring moon times on this global ride
God blesses each watchful hand
sweeping away each fitful night
illuminating ev'ry randy day
such a standard timeless sight
those spartan hands of time
gripping us in mid-flight
tripping us up on wishful summer days
yet here we are
standing back to back alas
summoned to where we must stay
remanded back to where we always are
back to that familiar far-off land
shadowed by winter's inferior light
crusty Winken, Blinken and Nod
such a trusted sleepy band
timeless cousins occupying a remote land
detailing endless rosebud hours
starlight on another timely winter night




Wednesday, December 18, 2019




I mark each passing day
Whittling marks on my chiseled soul
I wish I could remold each troubled mark
Old bark along my feeble way
Marking every precious fabled day
Remarking at the rabble night
Mirroring remarkable star light
Shimmering scenes across dark waters
Lurking like expectant monsters
Quirks in stark shadows
Camouflaged hidden marks
Appearances in murky shallows
Thus I mark each intrepid spot
How tainted and marked I've become
Marking faint pathways
Peeling away past seasons and old paint
Remarkable in some periodic way
Revealing rare layers
Repealing old remarks
Old repressive grieving
Like growing pains and teething
Leaving marks and scars behind
Echoing dreams and soulful songs
Poems and recitation by singing larks
Those harmonic remarks I leave
Reflecting diatonic scales and parks of joy
Inception to remarkable happiness
Concepts that aren't always hapless
On my corrective knees I've crept
Adept at following respected trails
Kidnapped by receptive craft and elective tincture
Sapped remnants and other scraps
Scuttle bins stuffed with petty peeves
Dangling bits from all my bitter fails
Falling over some remarkable universe
Remarkably startled by commercial tales
All that glint and gleam of falling leaves
We watched Howdy Doody in reverse time
Rowdy plebes motivated by rhyme and perverse crime
Barking wildly at some universal mime
Diving recklessly into those other dark depths
Feckless vocals demanding stark calls by surfacing grebes
Stalled in respective stork time
Still I regret those delineating lines
Fine chimneys of regret in remarkable climes
Reality similarly faking fantasy
All those dreams that making love defines




Tuesday, November 12, 2019




Oh Homey!
With your saxamaphone
Public blaring on your trumpetino
Blowing disconnected tones
All those brassy soons
Hooked after being crassly booked
All those rooks and elected baboons
Mired spin doctors and trumped up aides
Conspiring with all that other fake news
Such flashy minnows and mermaids
Uninspired midst a myriad of pedestrian clues
Misguided avenues so badly cloned
All those stoned mad hatters and ringers
Dangling atop every propped up flag pole
Conscripted singers and wishful bringers
Misdirected politics lacking any realistic soul
Wall bangers seined and netted from a shallow sea
All those bloated tiresome buyers and liars
Standing proud amongst milling crowds of willing town criers
See!
This is how it`s got to be
If you`re not on the big band side
Then you`re not with me
Or so they say
Wringing their hands with macho glee
Towering grand stands sadly painted grey
Trying freedom and unpopular reprisals
Difficulty to even badly float
Sadly an artificial moat disguised as a flagrant plastic sea
Our artificial world's gone crazy with all this mad invention
Flopping out of a maze of petro hell and rabbit holes
Copping out with all those rich rabbits and crazy convention
Our top planet is so seriously sad now
With all these destructive habits
All our good hopes and dreams
Seem to be sinking into stink holes
Somehow the masses find themselves mired and lost
So many lives nothing but a primal scream
Plus the grimy poor get poorer
Still the filthy rich get richer
Rich time and poor tempo
Rhythmically bitter and so out of tune
Addressed by all this worldly glitter
Boasting the caressing sun wakes up
Redressing the earth with a rueful roar
Confessing to one more innocent moon
Misty swooning with all those system secrets
Soon to be more mysterious horror
Rank political winter
Listing with frank intention
Bent on nucleonic frost
Moaning over unrelenting seasons
Unreasonably birthed
Far beyond humanity's tragic core
Homey and that flash big band
Play on at any cost
.







Saturday, November 9, 2019



Don't cry for soldiers,
Gone off to war,
Cry for lost peace,
Gone off the rails,
Reeling into the depths of hell,
Chasms where light fails to reach the world,
Wrenched from sweet dreams,
Entrenched in some recurring nightmare,
Phantasmagoria dreaded by all soldiers,
Fantasy bloodied and wounded by the rocky wayside,
Don't cry for fallen soldiers,
Uniformly they had their chosen day,
Marching off to uninformed war,
Starched flags with crude stars and bloody stripes,
Then the ruddy war is over,
Pools of dried blood thick on battlefields,
Like lost love never completely draining away,
Frosty phantoms lingering in every evening mist,
Expunging costly sanity,
Still there revels cruel hate and rigid gravity,
Canyons carved with foolish dimension,
Layer upon ghoulish sedimentary layer,
Eroding history into the encrusted earth,
Tattooing destiny upon our fussing souls,
Sometimes we must be leathery and patient,
Waiting for another weathering thousand years,
Lifetime after patent lifetime,
Egos searching for some repentant soul mate,
Will we find them wretched and laying dead on some battlefield?
Shall we discover they are slain along with peace and haven't been reborn?
Perhaps lovely armistice will invent a fantasy for each one of us,
Breaching beyond the perils of fantastic war,
Reaching beyond feral wounds and tonal scars,
Perhaps where perfumed dreams and tears of joy prevail,
That incensed place where we don't cry for fallen soldiers,
Because commensurate love has won over greedy war,
Remarkable love with its sharp fiery sword,
Piercing the black excessive night,
Progressive light entering once again,
Pondering and responding to flighty peace,
Rephrasing and reshaping bloodied land,
Ragged passion handed to our bleeding hearts,
Wringing compassion out of love for each of us,
Empathy like all that rich and innocent blood,
Spilled fashionably as war won the tough day,
While rills of soldier's tears wash over every rough and broken road,
Cleansing tokens where frill words and trill love were truly not enough.




Thursday, October 10, 2019




Geology of Existence

All those things that never leave us
All those tragedies we'll never leave behind
All those memories that dog us til the end of time
All those things in life that have been so unkind
I wonder if we'll ever wake
To find God has touched us
Promising that once we die
Our embittered Soul
God will truly take.

All those sticky webs spiders spin in my head
Catching sorry thoughts and forgotten dreams
All those tragic moments we can't forget
Gripping us and ripping us up in  that stead
On stormy nights ignite our tinder minds with terrible flames
How our tender hearts burn to ash or so it seems
How our broken lives never mend from those cruel games
Still we become the walking dead
Wake each day to wonder who we truly are
Stalked by ghosts that we try to lock away
Cage them in a dark forgotten room in our heads
But somehow those fearsome spectres always find a way out
Even though we scream and shout with terror in our eyes
Realizing hordes of buzzing blue bottle flies
Reality dictates all that angst is never gone
Often hidden with a deceptive disguise.

All those ghosts and spectres that go uncaged
And in their rampaging rage
Tear more bloody strips off of us
Picking and molesting our bleeding wounds and scars
Tearing away every bandage we've sorely tried to attach
Trying to heal and patch those ample things
That nightmares and battles have in their rage
Grossly marked and marred us
Barred us from any peaceful place
All that unrest has constantly tested us
Refusing to stay arrested
Detested by their unmarked graves
Laying low until some muss and fuss
Once again invades our screaming soul
Like some chortling pirate and ghastly ghoul
Creeping in day and night
Beyond every boundary and shore
Taking us prisoner time and time again
Caging us in some horrific place
Where we'll never ever escape
Where we hoped in time we might redeem ourselves  

All our timeless hopes and dreams
Are tossed and broken from hopeless shelves
To the tangibly brutal floor
Where even God can't rescue us
Or piece us together anymore.

All this pain we suffer
All this angst we share
It makes me truly wonder
If God ever truly cared
It makes me wonder with such great sadness
If God is truly there.

What beauty is left when we're torn apart
Is there any bit of love left in any tiny cleft
When our hopes and dreams are smashed apart
What truly matters when life is bitter
So very hard from the very start
Does love have a leg to stand on
When lives are ripped apart and blown away
Or does the devil stand laughing when vultures circle
When packs of hungry wolves stand together and bay
If only the sea would one day calm
If only we could truly heal with some blessed salve and balm
If only we could stand as sisters and brothers
Perhaps then we might find some sacred way
Restoring our Souls and mending our ailing planet
God help us
God help us
In my constant grief and heartfelt tears
I close my eyes and ears
Trying not to see or hear
All those tortured Souls that live in constant fear
So I pray and pray
That perhaps God will one day save us
Perhaps peace and harmony might come and finally stay.

It seems we're on a sinking ship
As we fail and fail
As we stumble and trip
Those raging beasts that stalk us day and night
All those storms and maelstroms that give us fright
All this worldly carnage
That leaves us confused and blind
Making us go crazy
Go out of our blasted minds
It seems there is no redemption
No true love or peace in sight
All the birds have gone
There is sorry silence
No more happy songs
No real love or peace in sight.

Once there stood a Holy singing forest
Now nothing but a razed battlefield
Once a sacred garden grew
Now a ghastly graveyard
Surrounded by a pauper's field
Once a sea of plenty
Now the oceans are sorely empty
Once a blessed dream of man
Now an artificial plastic world
Full of toxic waste and no good plan
A world of radio-active strife
A world full of terrible mess

Like an over flowing stinking garbage can
With less and less blessed natural life.






One deer
She saw me working in my yard
Two deer
Her sonny fawn following
A sunny October afternoon they sensed my calling
Three deer
Her little girl fawn stepping through that silent swell
Through tall stems of wild grass
Into the orchard where apples fell
Under a spectral glow with its autumn yawn
Across the still green carpet that is the orchard lawn
Fourth deer

Elegant head and ears raised tall
Those bright deer eyes so alert
Sun shone as gold and yellow leaves fall
Fifth deer
Stepping lively without much fear
Across that still meadow
They all must have been laying fairly near
Something provoking them
Standing for a moment in their warm grassy beds
Something invoking them to be brave and take a chance
Approaching me as I stood there
Reading their deer minds I quickly knew
An apple or two plus another few
I spoke soft words as first deer came near
Telling her and her two fawns I'd be right back
Across the wet grass I strode
From a cardboard box in the cool back room of my little cabin
Grabbing a handful of recently gathered Russet apples
Back I went along my narrow path
Not far from the shady village road
Knowing my deer friends would still be there
Waiting for these juicy morsels
Patience waiting for my trusted fare
More soft words spoken
I quietly tossed them my little token
Five deer standing in my pleasant yard
Five tawny friends that come to me
Fearless trust yet still on guard
Such brave and gentle ones
Their big bright eyes all watching me
Those gentle deer with their unmatched beauty
Attached to sweet apples they most certainly see
So I watch as they crunch that rich fruit
Munching munching as I quietly stand
Admiring my uncommon friends with my open hand
This common scene I entertain with genuine glee
They freely finish that fruit from the generous Russet tree
Prancing away with their bright white flags held in place
Still I stand and watch with a smile on my old gray face
As they trustingly turn and wander alas
Away away into that wild field of tall autumn grass




Wednesday, October 9, 2019



Haiku Wednesday 


So much poetry

Distilled letters and words


Sunsets and moondrops


        - - - - - 

Day and night on earth

Our sun is revolving

Evolving like us

    - - - - - - -

All your loftiness

Remarkable dignity

Letting go for good

       - - - - - 

When the house burns down

When the storm fails to subside

All those tears we cry

    - - - - - - -


 Honesty and truth

Where do we find the answers?

Dreams our Soul tells us








Monday, October 7, 2019



Another Dream and How It Always Goes

It's odd how things go,
Love is one of those odd things,
I'll never have or truly know,
I was wondering when you'd show up again,
It's strange how life and love goes,
Suddenly you're so very near,
Come from so very far away,
I was wondering if you'd ever show up again,
If only in my varied dreams,
Then as I feared you've gone again,
So it always goes it seems,
You never come to truly stay,
I was wondering if you'd ever show up here again,
You must know you still wound my fragile heart,
It's strange how life and love always goes,
Even though all these years we've been far apart,
Love is one of those things I'll never truly know,
So many heart felt things I'd like to say,
I was wondering if you'd ever show up again,
But you never come to really stay,
Then unexpectedly you appear in my dreams,
In my heart I've always hoped you'd come to stay,

Then just as quickly as you appeared,
You turn again it always seems,
And suddenly you've gone away.



Sunday, October 6, 2019




One last wretched crouching tiger
Hidden by a field of fetching grass so tall
All that vetch and rice in China which has relevantly spoiled
All those drunk and dying birds that stagger and infinitely fall
All that lean Amazon beef gleaned from jungle that greedy men have soiled
All that boiled ocean fish so enriched with canned mercury
All those poisoned streams and crammed with plastic rivers
All those blind politicians and egocentric preachers steeped by perjury
All those stitched-up elk and moose with corrupted livers
All those eco-remnants the world weeps for with this fatal injury
All those bleak and testy sunsets so strange they make us shiver
That one lone wild rhino so meek and quivering
Every blatant night I watch the bitter moon cringe and cry
We can't educate the failing sea when it refuses to atone
Every blinking star might similarly choose to disappear
Shrinking nature lastly delivered by some shrieking memory alone
Every engaging day shall go blind with stinking rage and fear
Every flirt and irksome prayer will surely go unheard
As the world shirks and turns to darkness by and by
No matter how petrified we seem or what we finally try.




Saturday, October 5, 2019



Haiku Saturday


Steamy rhetoric

Politics is a grudge match

Voting for our choice

     - - - - - 

Awake or asleep
 
Bliss and pain in that same vein

True love or true hate

   - - - - - - -

I rip out each page

I burn ev'ry syllable

My mind wants relief

     - - - - - 

 This raging ocean

Sticks and stones will break us

We all bleed the same

   - - - - - - - 

Stewie's Haiku

Mum mum mum mum mum 

Mummy mummy mummy mum

Mummy mummy mum










Friday, October 4, 2019




My mother keeps telling me,
I've lived a hard life,
All those years alone,
Years living in my teepee,
Living alone in squats and shacks,
All those lonely winters roaming in the bush,
So many long lonely winters,
All those cold nights in cabins,
Dreaming about some one,
Day dreams of foreign women,
Girls that never paid me any attention,
Attractive women that I yearned for,
All those lovely gals that couldn't have cared less,
All those frigid starry nights,
Sucking up welcome heat from my crackling woodstove,
My dogs my only companions,
My mother has told me I've lived a hard life,
All my fears and overwhelming tears,
Burying my dead dogs,
Burying my living emotions,
Burying my broken dreams,
Next to my broken heart,
So many graves and prayers,
My mother tells me I've lived a hard life,
So many lonely years in the wilderness,
So many long trails leading me to some other lonely place,
All my lonely memories,
All my terrible fears and rampant streams of lonely tears,
My mother knows I've lived a lonely life,
All those days and nights alone,
Sick at times with fever and hunger and yearning,
Days without a copper penny or a wooden nickel in my pocket,
Nights when a million dollars and a bottle of whiskey couldn't have bought me happiness,
My old mother sees me from a distance,
My loneliness exacerbated for being far apart,
Hidden away from a world of friends and human companionship,
I've seen those brilliant Northern Lights,
So bright they lit up the snowy ground,
I've witnessed the autumn moon wax and wane,
Blamelessly crossing the lonesome sky,
I've heard the midnight owl call my name,
I've seen great bears popping their big teeth,
Growling importantly while I held my ground,
I've had stealthy mountain lions stalk me,
Snarling at me from several yards away,
While I held my spartan breath,
I've had tart women shun my starts and advances,
While I held my heart in my parted hands,
I've experienced testy freezing wind,
Winter arresting me at 69 degrees below zero,
My old mother sighs thinking about my lonesome life,
I'm reminded of a trio of little mice mincing away,
Nibbling raw oats from a scintillating dish,
Once placed beside my bed so I might watch them eat,
Winkin Blinkin and Nod nestled side by side,
Chewing contentedly away,
Shadows dancing on the sleek teepee liner,

A flickering flame contained under the globe of my bleak kerosene lamp,
I've had my whitetail deer friends come and camp,
Tramping without brakes to take wilted apples from my open hand,
I've heard slate tree frogs croaking their little songs,
A fate chorus on a window sill of my one room cabin,
I've hearkened to generations of rascally Red squirrels,
Chattering away just outside my cabin door,
I've marveled at those Black and Cinnamon bears,
Coming to rummage and rumble around my cabin porch,
I've observed myriads of shooting stars,
Streaking helpless across a clear night sky,
I've loaded my rifle when it seemed danger was near,
I've traveled on my own,
Tens of thousands of miles without fear,
Roaming back and forth,
Crossing Earth's zonal equator,
Forth and back again,
Roaming across vast foaming oceans,
Searching for companionship,
Searching for love,
Searching for some thing,
Yet I haven't found,
All that glorious lost gold,
All those notorious lost dreams,
All those sorry lost years,
On my storied own,
All irrelevantly alone,
Still conveniently alone,
My mother tells me I've lived a hard and lonely life.




Thursday, October 3, 2019




What colour are my scratched out words?
How much does each white detached syllable weigh?
What mix of black, white, brown and yellow does spectrum afford?
So many summer thoughts and winter emotions I equally wish to convey,
Does every spring rainbow have a segregated ribbon of quality light attached?
If autumn poetry were quintessential food what would each defining colour say?
I wonder if coloured words should be qualified or matched?
If human language finally turns purple and orange on every page,
If quaint nature finally steals away every natural and sacred patch,
Will coloured words want to make war on nature's changing stage?
If we wake speaking in tongues what colour would humans freely attach?
Black and white letters familiarly connected in black and white mete,
Such a linguistic spectrum quaveringly discordant and quiveringly ratcheted,
Queer words hatcheting truth and smothering lies in grey concrete,
Quid quo pro preaching colourless dialect and bland foreign accents,
Bleached out words spoken on quiescent corners of every mnemnomic street.




Wednesday, October 2, 2019



Haiku Wednesday

Active volcano
Sending smoke signals sky high
Sakurajima


     - - - - - 

You have failed us
You so called leaders of the world
Your greed and horrors


   - - - - - - - 

Guru or Swami
If Jesus would have grown up
He would have laughed more


     - - - - - 

Who will be drumming?
When Zealandia rises
Who will make fire?


   - - - - - - - 

Go gently my friend
Into death's dream where we wake
Enlightened and free





Monday, September 30, 2019



August 15, 1958

You were six
What a hot bossy day
When you were six
Our family hike up that cross canyon trail
You were six
That coming fall you would be starting school
When you were six
I remember your pretty face
You were six
I remember boss terror in your eyes
When you were six
Fate crossed us as you fixed on me
You were six
I was the last thing you saw
When you were six
Clutched in my horrified mother's arms
You were six
You both were seized and tossed in that frigid swell
When you were six
Swept away over that bossy eighty foot waterfall
You were six
Icy rushing water with its cross kiss of death
When you were six
My unflossed memory of such fear in your eyes
You were six
I was only four
When you were six
Me standing on the mossy edge of that raging torrent
You were six
I remember boss horror fixed on our mother's face
When you were six
That instant as you both plunged over that unforgivable edge
You were six
No lost memories of that tragic moment and I recall speaking
When you were six
"If I were Superman I would save you"
You were six
Our older sister screaming
When you were six
She was eight
When you were six
What a hot August day in those rugged Rocky Mountains
You were six
August tragedy up costly Johnston canyon
When you were six
I remember terror crowding your angel face
You were six
That last lost thing you saw
When you were six
One last second staring into each other's eyes
You were six
I still toss and dream of you
When you were six
You're still attached to my accosted soul
You were six
Now I'm a mossy sixty-five
You were only six.




Sunday, September 29, 2019



my eyes
my open eyes
i wake
i stir and wake
my lungs
my needy lungs
i breathe
i inhale and breathe
my feet
my naked feet

such sharp cinders
those burning embers

hot sand 
hot sand beneath my bare feet
my arms
my empty arms
wanting to hold you
longing to hold you
my mouth
my open mouth
so dry
so parched and dry
no love songs
no happy poems
all those empty words
my heart
my broken heart
wanting to love you
waiting to love you
my pursed lips
my parched lips
wanting to kiss you
needing to kiss you
the sun
the moon
the planets
our needy hearts
the careless wind has blinded us
the heartless wind has swept love away
my mind
my mind
my sorry mind




Tuesday, September 24, 2019



Haiku Tuesday

This mass extinction

Our planet is in peril

We'd better wise up

      - - - - -

Folk must realize

Fukushima is fatal

Destroying our Earth

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Honesty and truth

Where do we find the answers?

Dreams our Soul tells us

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You have no vision

You call yourself a leader

Why are you so blind?

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So for the moment

So moments can be fleeting

So fleeting moments





Monday, September 23, 2019



There are no straight lines in space
A plethora of eternal curves
Everything in its own plane
What a loveless marriage
Striving for the upper hand
One curve ball after another
Another deceptive parallelogram
We'll never see that far around the bend
Featuring inceptive curves
All those blind corners
All those drive-by's and fly-by's
One projectile's plan
Swerving when we can
Correctable lines
One straight path here
A strand of sandy beach
A crumbling road there
Speculatively roaming each curve
Deliberate Rome always in the centre
Discovering the world and the senate aren't flat
Poems and curves and the legislated universe
No straight lines bordering this worthy riddle
We're piddling away crooked time
Exponentially each rook goes
Expounding along some unfounded circle
Every sound thing revolving
Striving to curve away from resistance
Elevated sunsets
Relevant moonrises
Orbits around the full circle
Each spectral spiral
Every expectant vortex
Beyond imaginary straight lines
Mixtures of glub assets
Politics are inevitable
Cream swirling to the latte top
Galaxies of rich toppings
Viral contamination of the archaic and old
So many verbal clouds and stumbling blocks
All those mysterious neutron stars and abnormal black holes
Everything revolving around the same shrouded center
Circling one reflective universe into the next
Never the same impressive scene
Seeming to cogitate and change forever
All these curved lines
So many rigid pledges
We're doting along that arc of the world
Curvature of the edgeless earth
Smashed pumpkins along a country road
Scattering something seeds
From ditch to ditch
Glaciers arcing side to side
A multitude of blocks and arches
That magical place where life itself starts
Like a marvelous macrocosm of word and light
Marking points along each articulated arc
Gravity and some vermicular warp
Then another sharp atomic curve
Brilliant rings around the brightest star
Illuminating creation within each mighty coil
Deviating to the worldly left
Spirals and twists and existent elbows
Dodging to the fantastic right
Exhibiting a nebula of rainbow arches
Radiance and every far reaching ray of light




Tuesday, September 17, 2019




Art
All this sin and lust
All this idolatry
All this art
We open our eyes
Open our ears
Open our minds
Such greedy strokes
A plain
A window
A palette
Some hint of colour
Some touch of dimension
Such didactic texture
Hanging in the Louvre
Hanging in the Prado
Hanging from the Gallows
Losing one's mind
Losing one's grip
Losing one's head
Like Charles the first
Like a lover of secondary art
Like a poised third party
Reconnoitering elegance
Tired arrogance portraying art
Fine lines and expensive pigments
Fine silk and powdery faces
Such dashing beauty and nonchalant poses
All that poetic magnificence
In a word
Art






Monday, September 16, 2019




Before I die
I want to write another ten thousand poems
I want to slash my wrists
Pour my blood over every page
Gouge deep furrows into my fertile soul
Write intrepid words and phrases
Behold bursting stars and fiery comets
Witness flaming asteroids and incorrigible dreams
Stream along shafts of supernatural light
Discover ship wrecks and deserted islands
Foster the wanting mindful kind
Mindful of my copper patina and metallic thought
Everything breathing more intensely now
Creatures creeping from that swamp I call my mind
Cultivated by the full moon on a harvest night
I'm mining words from the deepest tunnels that I find
Sluicing magnetic sand over phlegmatic rills
Tumbling poems through the expectant ball mill

A watery ditch along my arcane existence
Respectful of that furrowed edge
Flakes of magnetite and emotional iron weigh me down
I'm searching for tempered steel and gleaming gold
Glittering emeralds and jewels I'd like to find
Hope diamonds come marching two by two
One mesmerizing facet after another
Those entrancing Eldorados and valleys full of Lapis Lazuli
Herds of trumpeting Emu and wild rubies
Flocks of humble birds and lofty Muse
All that literary attraction
All that radio-active migration
Isotopes searching for foreign beaches and pacific recreation
Stratified lightning bolting through our veins
Corruption that can never be deciphered
Reciphering an electric discussion of importunity
A pyramid of fortune seeking amphibians
Coming for pleasure and to lay their emblematic eggs
So much world and opportunity
All those deep rivers and rushing waterways
All those magnificent king salmon
Royal milt and servant roe
Schools of fish worth a million words
Creation spilling down every riffle
Complex surging over every waterfall
Slow sad words and blessed sacred water
What impossible mission is this?
The flood gates are open
The dam has broken
Bequest a raging overflow of random thought
Sounding beyond ageless depth and stature
Respecting boundaries of trim electrons
Atoms zipping through our veins
Spewing conjecture and ripped fantasy
Gripping phantasms haunting every aisle and street
Crimson molecules colliding with the consuming world
Bloody spectres creeping out as poems
Ten thousand bloody poems later
A vampire entity might find me again
Conspire in some other world
Awake to remind myself
I am one apostrophe
Stenciled amongst a billion pages
One curved comma
Tendered in this lengthy human novel
Rendering detachment and unfounded trauma perhaps
Expounding some folksy roving rhyme
Beastial ink dripping across every timely page
I'm engaging myself
Awash in letters and this creative flood
Rejoicing in all this fabricated play
Reveling in all that spilled ink and blood
Composing poetry every provocative day 




Tuesday, September 10, 2019




2019-09-09
Too late
I find myself waiting
Waiting for the sun to shine
Waiting for the rain to end
Number nine
Number nine
Number nine
Waiting for the night to end
Waiting for the day to come
Waiting for the rainbow's end
Number nine
Number nine
Number nine
Waiting for my heart to feel again
Waiting for Archangel Raphael to help me heal
Waiting for the Grim Reaper to visit again
Number nine
Number nine
Number nine
Waiting for destiny to come knocking
Waiting for my broken heart to mend
Waiting for fate to come stalking
Number nine
Number nine
Number nine
Too late
2019-09-10




Sunday, September 8, 2019





Haiku Sunday



Folks just want to live

Baking bread and making kids

All those yummy dreams


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Picturing a sound

Words speaking written symbols

Language on paper


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Water so sacred

Elixir of planet Earth

H 2 O is God


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Living life today

People try to be something

Just doing their thing


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Stewie said it best

Rupert you've come back to me

All that love we feel


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Somehow I survived the trenches
Got past all that carpet bombing
Endured whirlwinds of poison gas
Life's just willfully difficult
Inevitably ending up
Still myself all the time
Telling the other me memorable stories
Crazy old man porridge
Oats and glorious grazing with an old ram
Lowing in the high meadow
I dream about flowering dells
Shepherding a glowing ewe and golden lamb
Campfire smoke and a sweet clearing in the wilderness
Sparks and embers
Sparkling northern lights
My stark old cabin burning down
Then I oddly wake rememb'ring
All I find are ashes
Sifting charred bone
A tangle of welded relics
Twisted cast iron remnants
Such a hot wielding number
All those unwieldy memories
Past away in that brazen conflagration
Bright moonlight on a cold winter night
Smoldering sage and aged bits
Sacred herbs and brazed descendants
Razed remnants in righteous graves
Saved leftovers in growing cemeteries
Rows of consummate criers
Crazed fire and its infernal consumption
A blast furnace of roaring flames
Blazing a tornadic path
Volcanoes leaving the clan bewitched
Stitched up man
Wondering where up becomes down
Let us off this precipitous edge
I'm so close to that ridiculous ledge now
Still peril somehow
Survivalist nerves up til now
Frill speech with dead poets
Tea and crumpets
Their marmalade rhymes
Creating marvelous lyric circles
A genetic corn vortex in these farm-aide times
Crop circles and all those crystalline words
Divine fields of cryptic signals and signs
Summons from the edge of the forest
A blessed ivory Unicorn
A summer pledge waiting to be ridden
Hidden Unicorn glory
Shimmering story lines with golden clouds
Looming mysteries with mystical meanings
Rude booms wake historical folk in the gritty night
There's a mighty storm brewing
Provoking the nitty world
Poking closer to the lagging centre now
Far beyond fragmented entrenchment
Eliminating unrepentant carpet bombing
Relinquishing ill meant greed and profit
All that independent penetrating oil
Pacifying patent freedom with liquified gas
Humankind is forever scarred
Marred with old war wounds
Harassed by darting demons and farting gargoyles
Struggles with an apartment past
Still it's not the end of the world
Like that old saying
"Things will look better in the morning"
Still more rhetoric
"Better late than never"
Every place where glory exists
Beyond all those inglorious trenches
Our demented foreign past
All those scandalous bloodied battlefields
Where sad bombs and forlorn gas played
Frayed prayer flags and trying real human progress
Oh give me a home
Where the buffalo roam
Agreeable like the mystical Serengeti
So I'm still a Kilimanjaro pilgrim
John Dunn dreaming
Metaphysical prop circles
Pilgrims stopped up with quizzical thought
Propped up creation down on both knees
Why fear that imminent ledge?
That indiscriminate edge
All that insistent unknown
Digging downward
Into deeper trenches
Entrenched villagers engulfed by fiery change
Tired consuming forests of trees
Assuming some renewable nerve gas
Astrology never conspires or agrees
Free thinking at this astronomical stage
Nominal old farmer's almanac disease
No thanks to blanque cheques and rank cancer
Just dish out frank incense and kindness please
So like the Cube that 'WAS' before time
All those skanky transformations
Tragic teasing and cranking us
Pleasing pranks enduring this rugged life
Treason and tanks transforming love
All those opulent snails and slugs that cross tank trails
All those rank dreams
Spiral shells and cyclonic fires
Flooding streets with crank strife
That bloody allegorical knife
Like ruddy Jinn rising
Straying out of the secret desert
Forever lost in a blistering mirage
Staid dunes of burning sand
Deeper than all those bloody man-made trenches
Pyramids stand marking the land
Mummified Nilotic legions
Miscarriage of truth and dreams over time
All those fairy rings and unreasonable things
What came first the cube or the egg?
A course scientifically rehearsed
Supplicant cube first
Then the compliant versed egg
Hatching terse cubism
Ritual immersive eggism
Egoism at its heady best
Pledge and ritual reasonism
Surviving this edgy test


 

Tuesday, August 27, 2019




I woke up mad
mad about life
mad about moon light
fault and tower make me mad
climate change makes me mad
madness seeping into every crack
cracked up to be filled with more bits of mad
madness piled high in caterwauling heaps
madhatter styling and stacking up
racked up with regrettable arsenic
cracked up with forgettable mercury
sneezing powders and beaver felt
all that resounding chemical madness
hounding mad allergic feelings
mad reeling and rap gangster love
a mix of berated and hateful things
awash in all those rapid river trials
a mad rabid dash up beaver trails
failed muskrat love and moonlight mistakes
all those mad trapper tales
so many mad otter daydreams
all those mad earth dams
damming mad sacred streams
fabled Sable and Sea Otter
cooped and cradled in snug lodges
stodgy mugs during mad sleep
I'm stooped with this august mug
drooped and shaken by fool madness
challenged by hooded nightmares it seems
a sky of glad stars mistaken for sparks of sadness
divine sanity and riveting gravity prevails
rank galaxies shrouded by fickle vanity
blank questions about proud love
visions of whimsical trinket quests
bleached coral and not one fish before I wake
strictly a mad headless universe
stretched foreskins and mad nervous tics
love's wretched kisses and mad trickster hips
snail slime and crazy arachnid love
brazen bits and sated stuff
a ruff of virgin grass and leaves
snuffed and dying complacent
strange trials of blazing colour
a tie dye contingent
enough rough changes
confused by mad flutter
a buzzing Queen Bee of hearts
a mad flitting hive
those fitting crazed madhatters
mad cities of lively drones
gritty workers with bees knees
buzzed lives with honey foundations
confused by sweet beelines
truthful smatterings
vines along a perfumed sweet pea way
disillusioned by scent and shattered tribal sanity
tattooed arthropods experimenting randomly
a battered slough of inked invertebrates
computing solar ether
feeding lethal fire in the raging Amazon
all that crafted carbon
smoky drafts and CO2
either or either
inventing selfless being
sent by acidic ocean streams
Pacific ocean dreams and a disappearing shell game
specifics defining algae and krill
succinctly the same
so much elemental wisdom
measured by fukushima shame
redefining distinctive organisms
instinctively maligned aliens
repainting the colour of the world
roiling in a hurricane ocean tide
toiling in this moiling radioactive ride
so much crude emotional madness
those bitchin' in vogue standup comics
dressed in pressed fervent plaid
servants and insurgents addressed the same
soundly redressing mad crowds
a depressing fad of mad everything
a regression of sad battle jokes
gesticulating across a divisive crevasse
a restless bass and subtle sounds
echoing shockwaves abound
virtually the same
steep terrain and steady rain
gravity's groundless vanity
physics and mass insanity
strange virile bugs
unrestrained in fabled realms
towering yowlers lurching toward a sad helm
yearning howlers screeching a shower of mad refrains
mad growlers stitched and beseeched
madly divested and madly arrested
such a choked mad mess
mad scientists stroked with the same mad feather
unrestrained games in their mad dash together
madly walking another checkered songline
we'll wake mad to more dreamtime weather
mad again as sad morning came
all aboard all aboard
all aboard this mad runaway train