Category Archives: Poetry

The Land Of Stuff

I’ve landed in The Land of Stuff,
Where no one feels they have enough,
Where every message from every store,
Consists of more and more and more,
Now “Jumbo” and “Mega” just convey,
The normal size of every day,
“Bigger” and “Better” both implored,
To keep the economy moving forward,
Disturbing, cuz sure as the world is round,
What goes up,
Must one day come down.

The Sadness Worm (v.1)

I came across this the other day when I was going through some old Word documents on my computer’s hard drive. There was a mysterious file named “Poetry,” which contained, among other things, the original free-verse version of “The Sadness Worm,” which I thought had been lost forever. 

The green worm that lives in sadness,
Wants to find a human heart.

For it craves the taste of it the most.
So very bitter the taste of sadness is.

And no wonder.
The bitterness is the worm you taste.

Its bitterness is the poison of sadness.
The sadness worm is made of it.

A parasite that lodges in your heart,
Eating and eating it all away.

Each time you swallow bitterness,
You swallow the sadness worm.

It eats and eats and eats your heart,
Until it is all gone.

And only a lump of sadness remains.

Just listen.

Everybody thinks they know.
There must be something.
Try it this way.
Say it that way.
They’ll respond to this.
They’ll respond to that.
Just give it time.
Sooner or later they’ll come around.
Just don’t give up. You can’t ever give up.
Don’t give up?
Who the fuck do you think you are?
Give up?
What the hell does that even mean?
No matter what I do. Anywhere, anytime,
They are in my thoughts constantly.
I’ve reached out, so many times, and been slapped down,
again, and again.
I have a right to survive as well.
If you want to offer me help, and support,
An ear to listen, then fine.
But don’t pretend to know. Don’t speak of that
of which you have no experience,
no knowledge.
Give me a hug,
But not your fucking blind ignorant hope.
My hope is chiseled. Focused.
Doled out deliberately in small doses,
for where I think it might be most effective.
At times, even after all these years,
It slips away from me,
And I find myself, against my better judgement,
Hoping with reckless and wild abandon.
Tlll I reign it in,
Knowing that that way sadness lies.
I have hope, a goddamned motherlode of hope.
But I will not squander it foolishly.
It will be tempered.
It must be tempered.
Forged, and made strong in the furnace of my heart,
Able to withstand
The time, and the journey,
No matter what the cost.
I understand never, oh yes,
from too many angles,
So don’t give me your platitudes,
Give me your shoulder, and perhaps a smile,
In the darkest times hold me,
But don’t placate me.
I know of what I speak, from the depth and bredth of my being.
Respect that, learn to just listen. Nothing more.

The People On My Fridge

Pretty soon I’m off to see,
The people on my fridge,
I shall take my expat journey,
Time and distances to bridge,
There’ll be hugs, and there’ll be tears,
Then the years will fall away,
There’ll be lots of catching up,
As well as time to laugh and play,
Then the people on the fridge will wonder,
Why I just can’t stay,
I’ll admit I kind of wish I could,
But I won’t try to explain,
I’ll just hug and kiss them gently,
And then fly back home again.

Dear Brother

Do I have a soul? I do not know. We cannot know such things. I'd like to think that it's not me, but my soul, that rhymes and sings.

When I was seventeen, I told you,
My deepest darkest,
And most devastating secret.
What he did.

What he’d been doing, rather…

It had become my demon possessor.
Strangling me. Choking me.
Every day killing me.
Crushing me.

Under its enormous weight.

And I was suffocating.
So I told you.
But you didn’t believe me.
At least not at first.

Not that I blame you…

Selfish it was to share with you,
My crushing burden.
But we’d been through,
So much shit,

You and I, together…

And how could you go on,
Living day by day,
In the same house,
With the same man,

Who did that to your sister?

Much easier it must have been,
For you to tell yourself,
I made the whole thing up.
That I must be lying,

And pretend I never told you.

Don’t Box Me In! (Walt Whitman says)

I like things,
But I don’t collect them,
Drawn to people,
But I don’t select them,
Don’t have a kind, a style, a type,
Can’t describe me with a magnet swipe,
I’m curious, a blesséd curse,
Love to explore the broad diverse,
(As a side note: I am slightly awed,
When I meet a diverse broad)
But seriously,
Don’t try to peg me,
I beseech, cajole, I even beg thee,
With a world that’s daily more complex,
We insist on labelling with an “X”,
“X” marks the spot – so we can see,
The consumer type you seem to be,
Answer these questions, check these boxes,
So we know what your preferred stock is,
Well I reject that!
No, no, no!
Walt Whitman said it long ago,
Am I filled with contradiction?
Of course!
That’s what makes truth stranger than fiction,
Not narrow-minded, all that that exudes,
I am large, I contain multitudes!

America Day Eh?

Ah, my friends, you’se Americans,
Yes, yes, you know, you’re the ones,
Who sometimes with some wit and luck,
Get mistaken for a Canuck,
Ah, just teasing now, don’t go smashing,
I know ya’ll take some bashing,
You’re always welcome up our way,
If there’s conscription in the U.S.A.,
We love you dearly, and we’ve got your back,
Here’s a Canadian flag, for your rucksack!

Friendship & Understanding

We’re all on our own journeys
All our choices are our own,
Not always a reflection
of how we have or haven’t grown,
We make mistakes, we stumble,
We each learn in our own way,
Sometimes all that we can do
is to take life day by day,
We should really fight the urge
to both judge and to compare,
Instead offer true friendship,
Shoulders that are always there.

The Fourth

Many people wonder how and why,
We celebrate the Fourth of July.
What are we really celebrating?
It’s certainly worth investigating.
What’s being an American all about?
They say we kicked the British out.
But did we gain our independence,
Or did the British just abandon us?
Saying, take the bloody colony then!
And don’t ever ask for help again.
Whatever the reason, it’s our day,
Celebrated in the traditional way.
With big emotions, and big explosions.
And lots of alcohol-fueled commotion.
Obnoxious and big and brash and loud.
It’s what we are and we’re damn proud.
Don’t mess with us. Don’t even try.
Have a Happy Fucking Fourth of July.