The Good Friday

The Good Friday

Rolling back
The year returns
Memories
Of childhood innocence

Symbols grasping
Believing days
Whatever it was
Every good C child
Was conditioned
To believe
Else damnation

That singular Friday
That doorway
The choking smoke
Swinging in time
Magpies chanting
Following the apparition
Of horror
To remind
There but for prayers
Go I

Then the third day
All the pastel shades
Hope, joy, anticipation
Coloured eggs
And bunnies
Flowered straw helmet
Or scanty feathered bandeau
Perched or nestled
Above or within
Those fresh-sprawed nests
As new shoes
Carried them off
For an hour
Of ancient theatre
Then back again
To homely ham.

Days and weeks
Passing over
Good intent
Reminders melt away
Half-devoured heads
Ghoulish rabbits
Garish stone reminders
That cleaning time
Was most successful
And complete
Having gained
One more paid civic holiday

On Helping Yourself

Get a job …
Get a job …
Get a job …
Get a job …
Pull yourself up …
Pull yourself out …
Send your wife
Out to work …

Who needs help?
Down-towns that have been reduced to parking lots for civil servants lucky enough to find jobs
…
Artists need not apply
Except maybe …
Look Dick Look
See Jane See
…
that crematorium
In the middle
Of downtown
…
Parking Lot
Revitalization
Association Taxes

…
Where NBPower
Used to be
A crooked Cross
‘Neath which to pray
Where you my dear
Will rest some day
Unless you are
Too wicked some say

Thank you, kind sir.
Here is my plug:
From the land of sooty snowbanks …
Red noses not roses
Warm hearts
Frozen toes
And as we say locally
It’s the way she goes
People here
As everyone knows
Our region to be
Famed for hospitality
Put our troubles
In our pockets
For a little while
Though jobs be few
And far away
We’ll keep hoping
For better days
As long as we can
Cheer and smile
At FESTIVAL time
Please visit http://www.chaleurbay.com

Foolscap

Painting Fools cap

By mso 2 1/2 x 2 1/2

Bloody well red
For liberation
Of workers
Who were raped
Body or mind
When all they wanted
Was a decent job
At a living wage
A chance
Nothing more
Than the promise
Of those who push
The buttons

#12

Pi

Enjoy life, live in peace but carry a big stick …

Perhaps the best advice I ever received was from a dear artist friend who told me this years ago:
” Never forget that you are a human being.”
This advice has helped me survive the effects of a dehumanizing world that grows worse year by year.

While the games and movie industry and the war machines that run this world might encourage us to believe otherwise, we are not owned by them. We are human. However, we are also very vulnerable.

As long as we can remember this and retain some bit of our humanity there might be hope for future generations.