I found an old journal come sketchbook I kept when I travelled across Canada ten years ago and found some poems I wrote that I had forgotten I had even written. I'm sorry but I'm going to have to make you suffer with them. I guess you can just ignore this thread. (Just dare! 
)
Reflection
(Dartmouth)
the ferry, round as a tub
worked furiously
pushing hard with the elegance
of a tin bath
fermenting a lather
on the water’s lazy calm
through sequin speckles
breaking gently on silver grey
its irritation vibrating the decks
with childish tantrums
thinking itself undervalued
because whalers once set out from here
there’s an eye in a jam jar
just to prove it!
it holds you in its reflection
or is it the deep green ocean?
each way you flinch before it blinks
and does it see?
and if it sees, feel?
an austere world of dark interiors
the nonsense of mooning faces
peering with an intense curiosity
like seers into a crystal ball
yearning to see what it saw
Disaster
(Halifax)
along the waterfront
a washed up assemblage of bones
a skeletal ship adrift
in a sea of sand
through the telescope
a nut hard wave
a monumental lick
of ice cream
shimmering through the heat
threatening to melt
spilling vanilla
and swamping the quay
a cartoon drama
where once two ships
sparked a deep
and brooding universe
when the sky lit
and the earth cracked
parting the waters
and spewing out hell
the devil had his ghosts that night
and gave them a restless sleep
beneath the winter
and its cruel and bitter sheet
Paranoia
(Quebec)
built of stone
as heavy as Europe
not the stones
but the hands
that fashioned them
its walls defining
a state of siege
curtails the horizon
and leads you
through narrow streets
through tourist traps
and past eateries
where defiant banners
waved in celebration
for Jean Baptiste
while beyond
those fortress walls
a cacophony of revelry
as neighbours
can be heard to party
struck the child dumb
for forty years
only to speak
once again
in a foreign tongue
paranoia has roots
and needs to feed
he nourishes it
and provides it
with a clarity
Strange Weather
(Winnipeg)
outside was wet and windy
like English flatulent weather
the rain permeating Portage Ave like a virus
the sky having spit its abuse
bore down its weight
and threatened to smother the town
the gods having connived
to have brought me here
where even a summer's day
can connive to snap the spirits
here the centre
has a strange air of the peripheral
people come here but do they leave?
I sauntered down to the confluence
"The Forks"
where a Slav-faced citizen
took a break from his walk to talk
passionately about the rivers
the city, his city!
it is not far from here, he said
the town took root and grew
and the old cart track reached out
its ghostly path
heading out across the prairie
you follow it like the fur trade
through history and across this country
the commercial rivalries
the upheavals and rebellions
but the wheat grew over the buffalo
like a fungus
and buried the ancient trails
the Fort gate still stands like a tombstone
a gateway
through which a drunken Indian passed
staggered until his legs buckled
then collapsed into a formless heap of rags
liverish flesh and sour sweat
an odious cocktail of piss and cheap wine
I side-stepped him like an inconvenience
zigzagging back through a network of shops and malls
Moonscape
(Sudsbury)
is it a basin
or a crater
or just a poisoned chalice
man in the moon
man on the moon
moon walk?
across a bald
and craggy
lunar landscape
black heap
nickel crowned
spewing volcanic trails
sky high stacks
erupting sulphur
northwards
to precipitate
a vinegar cocktail
over the forests
pressed beneath
the liquid sky
in the bus station
a gathering
of locals
disappointingly human
Deep Waters
(Montreal)
whiling away the sultry evening
meandering through the pleasant sociability
of Vieux Montreal
while in the cafes they’re plotting
as the world puzzles, shrugs and turns away
history, I suppose, is a litany of grudges
Dawn
(Quebec)
neither morning or night at Marie Antoinette’s
the warm kitsch interior in sentimental light
pinched French faces with dyed black bouffants
served up breakfast and donuts
to late night lovers and early morning workers
the sombre alienation of the early hours
those melancholic sighs anticipating the daybreak
as we rubbed sleep from our eyes
while Angel slept in her new umbrella
sedated by merrily whistled musak
dawn drifting in on the night like a tide
the neon lights fading towards pastel
movies start like this, setting the scene
the street stretching into life as we left the diner
and went in search of French Americana
Enough is enough. I don't want to bore you too much. If I find my other journals that will bore you because they go Vancouver through Saskatoon and Calgary and then back to Toronto through Edmonton and Regina.
Just wondering if anyone else has any 'on the road' poems.
)Reflection
(Dartmouth)
the ferry, round as a tub
worked furiously
pushing hard with the elegance
of a tin bath
fermenting a lather
on the water’s lazy calm
through sequin speckles
breaking gently on silver grey
its irritation vibrating the decks
with childish tantrums
thinking itself undervalued
because whalers once set out from here
there’s an eye in a jam jar
just to prove it!
it holds you in its reflection
or is it the deep green ocean?
each way you flinch before it blinks
and does it see?
and if it sees, feel?
an austere world of dark interiors
the nonsense of mooning faces
peering with an intense curiosity
like seers into a crystal ball
yearning to see what it saw
Disaster
(Halifax)
along the waterfront
a washed up assemblage of bones
a skeletal ship adrift
in a sea of sand
through the telescope
a nut hard wave
a monumental lick
of ice cream
shimmering through the heat
threatening to melt
spilling vanilla
and swamping the quay
a cartoon drama
where once two ships
sparked a deep
and brooding universe
when the sky lit
and the earth cracked
parting the waters
and spewing out hell
the devil had his ghosts that night
and gave them a restless sleep
beneath the winter
and its cruel and bitter sheet
Paranoia
(Quebec)
built of stone
as heavy as Europe
not the stones
but the hands
that fashioned them
its walls defining
a state of siege
curtails the horizon
and leads you
through narrow streets
through tourist traps
and past eateries
where defiant banners
waved in celebration
for Jean Baptiste
while beyond
those fortress walls
a cacophony of revelry
as neighbours
can be heard to party
struck the child dumb
for forty years
only to speak
once again
in a foreign tongue
paranoia has roots
and needs to feed
he nourishes it
and provides it
with a clarity
Strange Weather
(Winnipeg)
outside was wet and windy
like English flatulent weather
the rain permeating Portage Ave like a virus
the sky having spit its abuse
bore down its weight
and threatened to smother the town
the gods having connived
to have brought me here
where even a summer's day
can connive to snap the spirits
here the centre
has a strange air of the peripheral
people come here but do they leave?
I sauntered down to the confluence
"The Forks"
where a Slav-faced citizen
took a break from his walk to talk
passionately about the rivers
the city, his city!
it is not far from here, he said
the town took root and grew
and the old cart track reached out
its ghostly path
heading out across the prairie
you follow it like the fur trade
through history and across this country
the commercial rivalries
the upheavals and rebellions
but the wheat grew over the buffalo
like a fungus
and buried the ancient trails
the Fort gate still stands like a tombstone
a gateway
through which a drunken Indian passed
staggered until his legs buckled
then collapsed into a formless heap of rags
liverish flesh and sour sweat
an odious cocktail of piss and cheap wine
I side-stepped him like an inconvenience
zigzagging back through a network of shops and malls
Moonscape
(Sudsbury)
is it a basin
or a crater
or just a poisoned chalice
man in the moon
man on the moon
moon walk?
across a bald
and craggy
lunar landscape
black heap
nickel crowned
spewing volcanic trails
sky high stacks
erupting sulphur
northwards
to precipitate
a vinegar cocktail
over the forests
pressed beneath
the liquid sky
in the bus station
a gathering
of locals
disappointingly human
Deep Waters
(Montreal)
whiling away the sultry evening
meandering through the pleasant sociability
of Vieux Montreal
while in the cafes they’re plotting
as the world puzzles, shrugs and turns away
history, I suppose, is a litany of grudges
Dawn
(Quebec)
neither morning or night at Marie Antoinette’s
the warm kitsch interior in sentimental light
pinched French faces with dyed black bouffants
served up breakfast and donuts
to late night lovers and early morning workers
the sombre alienation of the early hours
those melancholic sighs anticipating the daybreak
as we rubbed sleep from our eyes
while Angel slept in her new umbrella
sedated by merrily whistled musak
dawn drifting in on the night like a tide
the neon lights fading towards pastel
movies start like this, setting the scene
the street stretching into life as we left the diner
and went in search of French Americana
Enough is enough. I don't want to bore you too much. If I find my other journals that will bore you because they go Vancouver through Saskatoon and Calgary and then back to Toronto through Edmonton and Regina.
Just wondering if anyone else has any 'on the road' poems.
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