Category Archives: Poetry

The Fatherly Chain of Forgiveness

The circle turns, the world moves on,
Generations have come and gone,
In some ways it seems we’ve evolved,
In other ways we’ve just revolved,
We’ve handed down from dad to son,
A bag of tricks already spun,
Who knows how far back the chain goes?
With no sign it’s in its death throes,
My granddad not a dad you’d  call,
Still dad forgave, mistakes and all,
Then Dad left us with naught to live on,
I learned to forgive and to move on,
It seems now I live my destiny,
Waiting for my sons to forgive me.

Lobotomy

One usually associates them with,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
McMurphy’s eggs are scrambled,
And he becomes a vegetable omelette.
His body and his brain are then,
Reunited in death.

Real life is far less romantic.
My grandmother once told me the story,
Of her own mother’s lobotomy.
There were no triumphant escapes,
No mercy killings.
Only tragedy.

Her mother had a brain tumor.
In the 1950s, the usual treatment,
For a brain tumor was surgery.
To cut away the tumor,
Along with part of the brain:
A lobotomy.

Unlike McMurphy, she did not,
End up in a vegetative state.
She was not brain dead.
Instead, she was not she.
My grandmother’s mother,
Had become a different person.

She still recognized everyone.
Still knew who she was.
But her personality was altered.
Her affection now indifference.
My grandmother lost her mother,
Before her mother died.

A Treatise On The Art Of Wooing

1)
When one is entering the courtship dance,
Make  every effort to increase your chance,
By trying to reveal the inner you,
(Which is what one does when trying to woo),
Don’t bother shopping to try and impress,
Kind gestures and words get more bang for less,
Gifts should be simple, few and far between,
Chosen or made to show just what you mean,
For the truth is you won’t get very far,
If you can’t cleverly show who you are!

2)
Wooing should not be a strain,
Close your wallet, just use your brain,
For some intrique, some fun,  and some laughter,
Will more likely get you what you’re after.

3)
There was a young woman named Kimberly,
Hoped  a certain man would woo her you see,
She wanted him to be charming,
Clever and disarming,
And not crass like the other fish in the sea.

Spontaneous Human Combustion

.    .    .

– I don’t have my keys.

– You don’t have your keys?

– Nope. I must have left them inside by mistake.

– You should always have your keys.

– Yeah, well, I don’t.

– What if I got into an accident or disappeared? What if I spontaneously combusted?

– If that happened, I probably wouldn’t be worrying about my keys.

.    .    .

Replacement Heart

For your own heart,
Was fragile.
Too fragile from the start.
You needed a replacement,
So you got a brand new heart.
One just like you,
Both young and strong,
Full of music, joy, and art.
But then this strong,
Replacement part.
It became weak,
And fell apart.
And now there’s no,
Replacement,
For your replacement heart.

Dedicated to my friend and former colleague Jonas Sjödin, who passed away last night from a cardiac arrest. He was 33 years old.

Chambered Heart

(On a song writing course we were given 15 minutes to write stream of consciousness. This is my result.)

Heart beats, hands shake,
Feeling like a big fake,
In my head it’s butterflies with wings,
But I can barely find the strings,
On my guitar, which I know well,
But just right now you couldn’t tell,
That when I’m calm and home alone,
Not one missed note,
Not one missed tone,
But that’s the nature of the beast,
That must be tamed,
And then released,
The beast that ruffles every feather,
So sometimes I am not sure whether,
I can do this properly,
I need to train the beast to see,
That this is where I’m supposed to be,
That with the presence of a quiver,
Slight tremolo and nervous shiver,
This is where my light’s revealed,
Where broken parts of me get healed,
Despite the twitching ruffled feather,
This is where it comes together,
That behind the nervousness there’s more,
A feeling anchored to my core,
That there within my chambered heart,
Music is the one true part,
The sacred chalice, golden key,
That shapes and shines the inner me,
And though I really can’t say why,
And know that I might never fly,
My hope will never yield its place,
So keep the sky above me open,
Just in case.

Dr.Seuss Moves On

Old fish, new fish,
Sometimes blue fish,
This one is passive-agress-fish,
Makes you think it wants to stay,
But nips your heels anyway,
No, no!
This will never do fish!
No need to even think this through fish.
I don’t want that sort of play fish,
So I’m sending you awayish,
Sorry if it makes you bluish,
But out with old fish,
In with new fish.