Poems from my book- Steep Nap Graffiti

Steep Nap Graffiti

In The Beginning

In the Beginning
Everybody’s job was laughter,
and observation. Gold was the lining in every
heart. Knowledge was simply the soft
detonations of the five
senses in every living thing.
There was no need for dreaming,
and winning wasn’t a word.
Whispering was the evening
wind announcing another perfect
tomorrow was coming.
There were no bad words and blood was
colour.
Education was the Child down the Butterfly
Lane, and the young boys and girls
always had a night sky. Scripture was walking in the Garden,
unmade.

I saw a butterfly not killing a whale
I sent a little song out to the world, every little boy, every little girl.
It said all the things that shoot turn into hymns of praise for the grunts we sent away to die for something, led by a one ounce hamburger from Texas , without the lettuce.
I quit for the guitar, I quit for greatness, I quit for magnificence, for the god
coming out of me.
Thinking prefaces dreaming.
After some practice it isn’t hard. Trust me. It’s arbitrary. For honor.
From fungus, beauty. The fat man singing dreams of glory, a blind man spreading color with his heart. I saw the hosts of ten million thousands breaking hearts, the molecule of a dream. I heard the song of the beginning of the rainbow.
Let this be our song and I ain’t no communist. Absolutely nothing is meaningless.
Though we spill the blood of the young, let’s stop leaving our footprints in it. Let’s
pour it back into the sky of hope they gave us, the chance they give us.
There is only one agenda; The Dream, everybody can be.
Let’s walk to North Korea and find a child, kiss our way to Paradise with a babe in our arms. The child everyone never yet has been.
I hear carols in the clouds. I hear my daughters being born. I hear diamonds being broken open for the children of the bones.
Gold being turned into guitar strings for Africa .
I feel the mountain’s soul trembling, I hear crying. I hear a bleeding Jesus trying to get out again, and I found the lone word that contains the Universe… Dreamed.
The wounded man is still dancing as I watch my hands writing this song of begging for hope. Oh please. Oh Please!
I saw a whale not killing a butterfly
I saw ancient books being burned, and the ashes carried freedom, and that day all hatred died.
Then the Blessed Day will come and I’ll hear music turn into the world, and
all the ghettos into sunlight!
We need to live one more day to sing this song.

Aunt Annie
Waiting on the bus stop
bench. Looking neither right
nor left at the others
waiting. Dreading eye
contact.
Strands of grey filament
stick out from under her
bandana- daddy long legs.
A knobby claw(her retired, practical
hand)pushes them into place. Her hand
an elaborate ballet, floats
precariously down to its spot
near its mate, holding
her purse closed, in that
lap of uncomfortable
bone.
In her rheumy eyes, hopscotch and
skipping, porcelain dollars and
cameo brooches. Not a vacant face, but
occupied, a busy parking lot from
a time gone.
A rough boy with a bone-breaking skateboard
sitting next to her brings back the
dream of her exposed hips, the nightmare
of glass extremities. She holds her
fragile breath and squirms toward
centre bench, away from the
abyss. She feels his mechanical energy
and thinks of violent Friday
nights. She shudders and squeezes her purse,
thighs and mind together. Her fluted lips
crack closer together in a
bad fit.
She drifts…the birthday girl
swimming in the peppermint summer
of Corner Brook at Butterfly Creek, but
in the foyer of her mind, her
unfriendly pension chases away
the black, warm water.
Alone, she stands to board the bus, her
balance no longer fundamental, her creaking
form jettisons air that had
nagged her since morning. "Oh!" she
exclaims."’Scuse me.Cabbage".She
mutters to no one. As she approaches
the bus, their mutually alien forms
somehow, merge. "Nice day m’am",the
driver. "Yes,sir",she replies,but from
the lips out only. Behind her a metal
cough as the boy crushes a Coke can. Near
the uniformed driver, she huddles, holding her
purse in her retired, practical hands.
Her liver marks tick away
faintly.

Dinner at the Magic Wok
Glassine hair reflects the lights of the yum yum evening.
Our group of four exits the car, coats whirling like capes as we preen.
Lucky Gods.
Shuffling into the restaurant in our glossy, black shoes,
noticing the uncouth noticing us.
Of coursing we have a reservation! How provincial!
We order Szechuan loudly, as if we had lived in Peking ,
studying the Bamboo Annals of the Xia Dynasty.
Theodore, Lilly, Agathe and I, smirk and smarm
as we dabble in French, rice sticking to our teeth,
like DNA.
As the uncircumsized look on, we pay.
Our plastic, medieval blades.
Xie, xie! We thank the Chinese university student,
in case those near the door can hear us.
Our hug hug group swirls to the left,
and heads for George. Drambuie and crushed ice,
ahead. Paeans of thanks for what we are,
unspoken. Tomorrow, we’ll begin
our job searches,
again


1966: The Pit
Corner Brook ’s lovers’ hideaway
was the "Pit", the old sandpit
near Massey Drive ,
outside town,
where,on Friday and Saturday nights,
in old Fords, Chevs and Comets,
we gathered in strength,
with our women.
Thirty cars or so,
from the West Side ,Curling, Townsite
and Westmount ;
weekend lust.
Blue Star beer and Big Dipper rum,
in flasks,
made our task no easier, but,
rendered our success
unimportant.
We stayed ‘til two and three
in the morning, and you could tell
from the debris outside each car
who had won, and
who had lost.

The Litany Of The Saints
The mist children make on windows.
The footprints mothers leave in the night
by baby’s bed.
The weight fathers carry on night shift.
Fresh bread and lassie;
A poem every cries and understands.
Fairy tales with knights.
Incubators.
The sound tiny, furry animals make in their
dens, underground;
An orange moon over Random Island .
The stories still clinging to the wet stones, in a
mine, three miles under Bell Island .
Grandmothers knitting in a rocking chair under coloured
photographs of Joey and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
The pools of nylon on factory floors that never become
guitar strings;
Snow falling by a street lamp in Corner Brook on
Christmas Eve.
A newborn baby’s chances.
A bride’s intention.
A welfare recipient’s past.
A policeman’s dream.
A priest on Father’s Day.
A bartender’s eyes.
The hem of a nun’s frock.
The air over Jerusalem .
Tea in a forest.
Baby’s room the day baby comes home.
Families.

The Somme
My old husband, up in the morning he got.
Stretched, and a prayer he got.
His long johns, and his boots he got.
His greatcoat and a big, long gun he got.
His puttees and a dirty big bayonet he got.
Off to the train station he got.
A hug and a whisper, I got.
A great talking to he got,
Onto a big, long boat he got.
Off to France he got.
Into a ditch he got.
Night time, a lonely heart,
and shit-baked he got.
Up in the morning he got.
Over the top he got.
Something whispering through the air he got.
A German bullet he got.
Just above his web belt he got.
Dead he got.
A hug and a whisper I got.

In Memoriam
Today we spare a moment,
we bend a knee,
send our hearts, our prayers out
over the grey and urgent sea.
We look down to its brimming,
treacherous depth,
to where the sons of Newfoundland
and Labrador lie, with their comrades,
perished.
We look down to where they lay
alongside the vessel of their sudden,
swift Passage.
The Ocean Ranger rusts now, but
not the memory of its
vanquished crew, and not their
ancient Dream. We look down into the sea, this
deep and callous cauldron which
issues so much life, and so much
death.
For a moment we touch our brave men
on this another year mark of their
sad passing.
Their berth is cold and silent, but
not their memories,
where love from hearts today look
seaward to warm them.
We remember You Boys!