Some Poetry About Life–and some about writing poetry

unadulterated shit (Owned by Donald Smith of St. George, New Brunswick, who loved this poem so much he paid me $25 to buy it in about 2001. MY 1^ST OFFICIAL SALE!

i sat beside a mountain brook
and wrote a book
and when i read what i had written
i was smitten by the
inconsequentiality
of reality

the words did not make sense
and the plot was much too tense
for the mood and for the tone
which had shown the anti-idealism
of surrealism

so i threw it page by page
into the water which did rage
with laughter at each word
till a bird flew by and read it
and shit on it

a poem of silence

silence
noises unheard
not one word
no peep nor cheep
nor footstep creep
nor bleep!

alone
no one home
but me
does anybody be?
i cannot see

to be alone with silence
is to be alone
in the universe
not knowing for sure
if anyone else exists

this could be frightening
and border on insanity
but not necessarily so

silence can be:l,
peace of body
peace of mind
peace of soul

just me
and the universe
in cosmic harmony

be

a ball of words

sometimes i wonder
is it really worth it
to spend my time on rhyme and verse
to curse the world and all its faults
to praise the beauties i can see
and then i answer
it is
to me
even if not to anyone else
for myself it does wonders
to calm a confused mind
and straighten out my head

moments like these
are ever so rare
in our galloping world
that to curl myself up
into a ball of words
is a pleasure
of uncommon delight

the miracle

pictures are worth a thousand words
but poetry is worth a million
so on i write
into the night
cringing in fear
with insanity near
breathing new life
into words as old as death

isn’t it amazing
in all the length of time
humanity has spent upon this earth
someone can still combine
words into lines
that never before have graced
the printed page

miracles

are all around us

if only we had

the presence of mind

to see them

epitaph at birth

please
allow no man
to be my teacher
for he cannot live
mine life for me

therefore
allow me not
to be his teacher
for i cannot live
his life for him

but
let him help me
where he can
and i shall help him
wherever i can

because
we are brothers

let us remain that way

following my desire

like an eagle on the wing
soaring ever higher higher
trying to capture sun and stars
following my desire

like a mole beneath the earth
burrowing blindly through the mire
digging deeper than before
following my desire

like a leaf cast off by tree
like a snowflake softly falling
sliding down then gliding up
seeking rest — yet stalling

so i live my life each day
to opposing goals i do aspire
learning good exploring bad
following my desire

enigma

why do i see
divinity
when everyone i meet
sees mere humanity

is this a cursed blessing
or
is this a blessed curse

like a near completed puzzle with
just one piece to go
but the last piece doesn’t fit
that’s how i feel

i cannot fit myself into
the puzzle of this world
no matter how i stretch and strain
this enigma lies beyond my brain
to remedy

significant language signs

bark
goes bacon in the dead of night
awakening my neighbours
who pound on my door
who pound on bacon
whom i see nevermore

propound a baconism
if you know one
(i don’t
sorry
i didn’t mean to wet your appetite
or rain on your purr-aid)

a pound of bacon
for breakfast
a bunch of bananas
for lunch
and for supper a steak
with roast potatoes
mushrooms
and you

you are my night
if i were a woman
would you be my knight
i mean if you were male
wearing mail
i might add

twenty-two plus twenty
makes forty-two
but even douglas
doesn’t know the question
from adam’s
garden of eve

words
have no meaning
but the meaning i give them
when i write them
down

and if i believe that
you’ve got some prime property
(canada grade a bacon?)
in florida
to sell me
but i have no money so
i can’t buy that

so why do i continue to string signifiers one after the other (as if they were words in a sentence {You’re Guilty!}) in a vain attempt to communicate my thoughts to some imaginary being called ‘reader’ (providing they get past an even more imaginary being called ‘publisher’) whom i cannot be sure exists and who has no conception of me (that was my mother’s job)

i am a person
or
at least i was
until i wrote these words
at which point
i became
a poem

and that me immediately vanished
vanquished
by the ticking of the clock
ripped asunder
by the tickless time bomb
squashed
as under the foot of a flea
who got swept down the gutter
of gravity

imagine the coincidence
the play i saw last night
concerned gutters
kate and annie
maggie and polly and ellen
(they made a lot of offal jokes)

is that what inspired this crap
crepe-paper pancakes
inedible solid liquid
indigestible
barf

a lunar tune

to crash wildly

through jungles

of green

grass

to chase wildly

butterflies

on dewy

days

changing streams

in the middle

of a

horse

changing screws

in the middle

of a

dick

to follow

after none

but those

you don’t know

to fathom

the heights

of green

seas