Selling Newfoundland

A page of native rights

We sold away for oleo-margarine

Good job, Joey!

The infusion of Canada cash

Drew conmen like flies

Joey, a fine judge of character

Put them to work bilking the money away

Two bought hotels and retired to Panama

I am proud

The first contact of missionaries with Labrador Inuit

Ended with cannibalism

I have a bit of missionary in me, I guess

To make up a little

For the lifestyle they bled away

We took on the debt

Defending England in WW1

Let England use the generation of young men

Who could have led this country

As cannon fodder in France

So English soldiers could go home on weekends

No wonder England shut us down

Sent us packing to Canada

They were also tired of governing

Not tired of taking millions

In royal bans for the Queen’s visits.

But that’s why the land was claimed

To sell off to the old country

I guess not much has changed

Ode to Books

Daunted

By the books

Which wait to be read

Like icebergs

Awaiting the Titanic

To sink my perceptions and misconceptions

To sweep my decks

With their submerged half hidden truths

House fire

This grand old house

Burns beautifully

While I sit on the sofa

Watching teevee

I brush ashes

Off my lapel

As the dining hall

Roars into hell

As other guest burn

I sip Chardonnay

Wishing they’d go

So I alone stay

A shroud of smoke

Billows around me

As I stretch out

And start to sleep soundly

If I seem mad

If my actions seem crazy

Think of the earth

And what we do to it daily

Three Pond Barrens Date

Poised in perfect equilibrium

Between cruel winter and cruel winter

Fragile robin’s egg sky of Newfoundland

Reflected in Three Pond

Poised in perfect equilibrium

Between crying child and crying adult

Golden taught perfect skin of our youth

Sliding into Three Pond

Poised in perfect equilibrium

Between horny loneliness and stifling love

Fragile moment of warm summer lust

Bathed in Three Pond

First Sight

The first time

I saw my mother’s face

I left spitting youthful words

I can’t stand this house a moment longer

The first time

I saw downtown

Bright lights and the sounds of the city

Wrapped in the smelly grey fog against my greasy window

The first time

I saw myself

Boy working behind the counter at midnight

A job that would never let him become a man

The first time

I saw love

Is when we had lost everything

And love was all we had to warm that cruel grey morning

Broken

Broken

Is what I am

Boyish brain

In the body of my old man

Red hot poker in my back

Someone’s mother stepped on my crack

Broken I am

This year of sickness

I grow stouter

I lose my quickness

Make more sitting on my old ass

Than youth ever did out mowing grass

Broken

Is how I feel

When I see my mirror

It looks unreal

That this ageless soul

Should be wrapped in a shroud so old

Ode to The Penis

My Penis

My penis is just a sack of blood

That does not make me bad or good

It does not define or control me

I feel no threat from lesbians

Some have been my close friends

Sharing tastes for women wine and life

I feel no fear of gay men

Although we work at different ends

We are both just working people

I sometimes dislike other men

Who let their penis rule them

They can be awful-minded boors

Likewise I dislike women

Who dislike me for my gender

Prejudging without knowing is a shame

I sometimes fear the penis

Is what often comes between us

If we let it stand when it should sit