The Old Wing Chair

In the corner,

arms curved out to hold,

wooden hands protruding,

stretching ,  resting,

from its sea green damask clothes,

its legs slightly bending,

clawed to the rug below,

awaiting, making room

for two if one was small

to be there snuggled in a lap

when happy or when sad,

now worn in spots,

with traces in its threads

of all the times it held them,

a father and a son,

who now grown gazes down upon it

and imagines he’s still little,

standing looking up,

his father there again,

his arms held out to hold.

This Old Sweater

This old sweater,

white ribbed wool,

heavy

with times we’ve spent together,

the patterned puffs ,

and yarn stitched lines,

by myth I’m told,

but tell my friends as true,

were first used as family signs,

so  those Aron sailors

washed ashore were known.

Its gentle itch next my skin,

welcome to me unlike others,

an alive and touching friend

recalling worn past ways of:

love lying rumpled by me on the floor,

cold wet tear soaked days,

wind tickled times blowing joy,

the soft light blazing inside me,

its thick white cables tied,

to memories from the deep.

I Saw a Bicyle in the Road

I saw a bicycle in the road

tossed and tumbled

when father yelled at son

“Next time kick him when he’s down.”

and wondered what else he,

trusting  so  advised,

this boy by chance

a man might become.

Perhaps even little

would be more than I had done.

If this father’s way became the son’s,

the heights ahead,

of brutal hurts and hates

harder than I ever saw

would be more for me than him

and I hopeless

blasted bloodied

in the try.

I see a bicycle in the road.

I smile.

My daughter laughing

rides on by.

The Cottage Tap

Out from the broken lattice,

below the white clapped cottage side

water from the sand point well

through the one turn tap,

through wriggling toes,

splashes beach sand on the flag stone path

before toe and heel track away,

dripping foot slapped puddle shadows,

to the front screen door that springs and slams

behind the damp traces left behind,

from shore side joyful playing paused,

drying in the smiling sun

and the kissing pine scent breeze,

carefree days’ passage kept,

by the flowing  time of the cottage tap.

Toronto Tramp

I tramped my early time

in Kingsway roads so said by

names of kings and queens and princes,

grown among the Humber flow,

ravine side scrambler, adventurer,

salamander hunter,

clamberer of my dangerous heights,

now but a shoulder high,

a distance to hoist and hug.

I tramped along the unlocked time

to pass the open doors and linger

for the bread man’s basket at the back,

for the laundry strung by patterns placed,

for the milk man’s bottles, thick cream on top,

for the front flung open, the delivery calls.

The world came in – my world went out.

Now doors there are to touch,

but just by keys, to close behind.

I tramped with the horse clomp’s end

of wagons pulled, by finished war delayed,

the sound made soon to power’s noise,

packed and wrapped by glory chrome

that bragged by curves and glint

and gathered neighbors homage round

to greet the new, and speak

expert each of specs and speed and style.

Now good sense is seen as best

with regretted loss of innocence.

I tramped among the unknown voices

of other places poured upon our grid,

their  tastes and smells combined,

their soundings sensed around,

of changes charged to leave behind

my own English Irish city’s start to be

this now boundless blended flow,

from streets of new arrival

drifting in our current’s daily tide

that casts us all in chorus by Ontario’s side,

now making other cities strange,

where no faces but like my own arise.

I am a tramp,
wearing ragged jagged time
to rummage places where past is present,
finding  changes my forbears feared
have wrought alive my love
of all the difference that makes us same
in this city huged in my drifting days,
coloured, touched and made
from universal unbounded rays
in fond and unexpected ways.

Homage to Dylan

As ancients mused on angels,

Let us dance together my love

“In all our tuneful turning”

On this tip of a pin of time.

Our Past Beneath Our Feet

It doesn’t matter that we didn’t know you,

your name eroded above this graveyard plot,

history not marking your place,

nor to great events connected,

that even like an unknown soldier

would otherwise note your part.

But like your fissured stone,

your missing presence in the past,

even just your may have been walking on this grass,

would by tiny cracks make absent

some substance lost in us

and imperceptibly diminish

our cosmic consciousness.

Upon the pictures of what has gone

we gaze at heroes and the greats,

nobles and devils,

those we love and those we hate.

Yet without the painting’s canvas,

by most of us ignored,

this fabric, we its warped and wefted threads,

this stretched taught plain of plainness

upon which these epic daubings stand,

our own story would be fractured

and us this canvas, torn.

Even while looking upon your place,

our standing present here

drips its instant droplets

of this now becoming then,

moments falling from our lives

absorbed to yours before

our dreaded destined end.

We splash our colours in hope to leave

our memorable shapes and signs.

Until our story stops its flow,

we add our likely unknown tale,

our own brief and humble history,

to blend with yours forever.

becoming this and all the ground

of all we’ve been together.