THE MOVIES

I used to go to movies

Before my hearing failed.

The shows were entertaining;

Evil lost, the good prevailed!

The hero got the girl,

The villain went to jail,

Or maybe to the morgue.

It was a cautionary tale!

Today it’s very different.

Life is more complex.

Movies are more daring.

There’s profanity and sex!

Sometimes it’s hard to tell

The good guys from the bad.

The endings unpredictable,

Uplifting, dour or sad.

The movie stars of old

Were famous, every one:

Bogart, Gable, Holden,

Bergman, Hepburn, Dunne.

One can scarcely keep abreast

Of the modern movie scene.

Actors come and go,

Just images on the screen.

Still I go to movies

Though rarely, I must say.

Those over-loud commercials

Even keep the deaf away!

TELEVISION

What a piece of work

Is The TV Industry!

It brings to our living rooms

Amazing variety.

News of the world,

Sports of every kind,

Comedy and drama,

Food for the hungry mind.

It shows events unfold,

Ten thousand miles away,

And right where we live,

Folks at work and play.

It also transmits trash,

Numbing banality,

Infantile commercials,

And crass pornography.

There for every taste,

The best and worst that be,

Projected for to see

In HD and now 3D!

COMPUTER LITERACY

I own an old Aptiva.

I use it every day.

But am I cyber literate?

NO! Not in anyway.

I’ll write a line of verse

(If present is my muse),

E-mail friends and family,

Read the latest news.

I keep a daily journal,

List books that I have read,

Names of old acquaintances,

The living and the dead.

But I wouldn’t know an iPod

From a thing to eat.

Blackberries, Kindles, iPads

Are mysteries dark and deep!

I’m falling far behind,

But don’t give a damn.

I don’t need to be au fait

With hard-drives, bytes, and RAM.

When my PC goes awry,

I call the kid next door.

He speaks to me in riddles,

But I soon compute once more.

THE UNKNOWN

What we think we know

Is but a tiny part

Of what there is to know.

We’re yet so near the start!

We know a little science,

Some philosophy,

But still we flounder lost,

In a vast uncharted sea.

Questions yet to answer:

Is there a God ‘up there’?

If so, did He create us?

Does He hearken to our prayer?

Does life have any meaning?

What happens when we die?

Does religion offer refuge?

Could it be a monstrous lie?

What’s beyond the galaxies?

More light-years of the same?

Or other dimensions

No genius shall explain?

If there’s a caring God,

He gave us minds to think.

If there is no God,

We’re still obliged to think.

Faith and superstition.

Lead to a fruitless end.

Knowledge and the truth

Only mind will apprehend.

LUCK

Did you ever ponder

How luck affects you, pal?

Every day’s a risk

For every guy and gal.

You may win a bundle

On Lotto 6-4-9,

Get a big promotion,

Meet that date divine.

On the other hand,

Your luck may not be good.

You could step into the traffic

And dent somebody’s hood!

You may become disabled,

Wrongly sent to jail,

So many things can happen

On life’s uncertain trail.

Events good and bad

That were never planned

Can change your life forever,

In an instant set their brand.

How we like to think

If we achieve acclaim,

It’s because we’re clever,

We’re masters of the game.

But if we’re truly honest,

We would humbly admit,

We were fucking lucky

We didn’t end up in the shit!

INTELLIGENCE

Some are brilliant from day one,

Others are plain smart.

Most of us a mere so-so,

A few dumb off the chart!

Scholars are the genius types.

They put most of us to shame.

When interviewed on TV,

They make us think again.

They express themselves so clearly.

They strip away the chaff.

Of all they things they know,

I wish I knew, say, half.

I appeal for their indulgence.

I’m in the so-so sphere.

Please speak a little slower,

My mind’s behind my ear!

ELECTRICITY

You hardly know it’s there,

And then the lights go out,

The TV doesn’t work,

All is gloom and doubt.

What the Hell has happened?

Are wires down somewhere?

Has the power plant been bombed?

Is war about to flare?

It’s like the Middle Ages,

Trying to read by candlelight,

Heat from the fireplace,

Phantoms in the night.

Who’s that lurking in the yard?

What’s that noise I hear?

Will it be like this forever?

Is it in my mind, the fear?

At last the lights go on.

It was just a local thing.

Someone struck a pole,

A drunken ding-a-ling.

Electricity is a miracle,

Without it what would we do?

When the power fails,

We appreciate it anew.

Those who supply it

Deserve our encomiums.

Let us be grateful,

At least, till the next bill comes!

THE INTERNET

Right at my fingertips,

As I write this simple verse,

Is a tool that has no equal,

A gift of untold worth.

I refer to the Internet,

All knowledge to be had,

Waiting to be accessed

By the bright, bold and the mad!

A few well chosen keystrokes,

And there’s what I wish to know:

Say, the myths of ancient Greece,

The works of Burns or Poe.

While on line I check the spelling,

And definitions of what I say.

I have no good excuse

If my usage goes agley!*

The Internet’s my bookshelf,

My Oxford and my don.

Some day I’ll be a scholar.

(I should live so long!)

*A good Scottish word. See Robbie Burns!

WHAT’S ON TV?

What’s on TV? A lot, I’d say,

Fare both good and not,

Any hour of the day,

High def and polyglot.

Abundant sex and violence,

The off-beat and the trite,

Opinion, sense and nonsense,

Sports from morn to night.

Lots of pretty women;

Of Vanna White I am a fan.

Games to test your acumen,

And win a trip to Mazatlan!

Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose

Interview the great.

News from every network flows,

Controversy and debate.

Oprah fills the afternoon

With her wisdom and her ‘nice’.

Dr. Phil’s in your living room

Giving free advice.

Want to know the temperature

On the Himalayan slope?

Tune in the Weather Channel;

You’ll get the latest dope!

Leno and Dave Letterman

Keep us laughing after dark.

They’re snide and irreverent,

But often hit the mark.

TV keeps us occupied

And also up to date.

It’s much too easy to deride.

It also keeps us up too late!

MORNING MAN

Radio’s most important man

Has the early morning show.

We wake up to his chatter;

He gets us on the go!

I’ve been in many towns,

And wherever, rain or shine,

A rousing radio guy

Got me off to work on time.

In London was Lloyd Wright,

In the a.m. hard to beat.

In Kingston Al Boliska,

A nut case but a treat.

Ron Wilson wakes up Edmonton.

His voice evokes a smile.

He’s so bright and cheery,

Who’d dare change that dial!

In T.O. Wally Crouter

Raised the performance bar,

Fairly bursting with energy,

A morning superstar!

Of these and many more

Whose often-thankless task

Is to drag us out of bed,

I must this question ask:

Who gets you up so early?

Do you ever sleep?

What puts you in a good mood,

And can I get some cheap?

APOCALYPSE

We’re heading for disaster.

I can sense it in the air.

Each day the news gets worse,

Pain and misery everywhere.

The front page features murder,

And death by accident,

Storms that wreak destruction,

Defeat and lives misspent.

We hear of endless wars.

Disease its harvests reap.

The elements assail us.

The earth shakes beneath our feet.

The arts have abandoned us.

They repel us and bemuse.

What once delivered hope

Fails even to amuse.

Religion is exposed

As dangerous fantasy.

God may well be there,

But's been made a travesty.

Where do we go from here?

The future’s looking bleak.

I predict apocalypse.

Now I need to take a leak!

SEX

What’s happened to sex?

It isn’t fun any more.

Romance has fled the scene.

Sex is now a bore.

Getting laid’s as common

As a peck upon the cheek.

It can happen in a cafe,

In the park or on the street,

In a public washroom,

In a taxi, on the stair.

No one pays attention.

It’s hardly worth a stare.

‘Making love’, we used to call it.

One did it in the dark,

It was private, almost holy!

Ne’er a carefree lark!

Now we call it ‘fucking’,

‘Screwing’, or ‘in and out’.

It’s just a form of greeting,

Not to get upset about!

Every sexual deviation

Known to psychology

Is an entertainment subject

On the Internet or TV!

Nothing’s sacred, nothing’s bad,

All on DVD and live.

The result is total boredom.

The race may not survive!

BEAUTY

I walked into the office

To register my car.

Little did I know

I was about to meet a star!

She was seated at a desk.

I hardly noticed her at first.

A tiny Asian woman

In paper work immersed.

She was one of seven clerks

Serving folks like me.

She signaled me to come.

I strolled over casually.

She was thin, and turning grey,

Neither old nor young.

Her dress was nondescript,

English not her native tongue.

I bantered with her briefly

Then she broke into a smile

So radiant and infectious

It knocked me for a mile!

She was missing a front tooth

But her beauty from within

Glittered like a sunbeam.

Heaven was in her grin!

THE INDUSTRY

Be good to senior citizens!

Were we all to up and croak,

Nothing could replace us,

You’d end up sad and broke!

All that pension money

No longer in the till,

Countless pill prescriptions

The druggists needn’t fill.

Hospitals half empty,

Retirement homes shut down,

Undertakers bankrupt,

Not a bingo game in town!

Unemployment soaring,

Even doctors on EI,

Golf courses growing over,

Cruise lines high and dry.

Caring for the old folks

Is a prodigious industry,

The heart of the economy,

Salubrious it must be!

So try not to forget

We make the world go ‘round.

Give us due respect

Or we’ll go underground!

SUPERNOVA

According to astronomers

Someday our sun will blow,

Become a supernova,

A celestial fireworks show.

The Earth will be enveloped

In a cloud of burning gases.

No one will have a chance

To save their sorry asses!

Think of all that’s lost

In this catastrophe:

Works of human genius,

Reduced to space debris.

Mozart’s compositions,

The paintings of Seurat,

The plays and verse of Shakespeare

Will have had their last hurrah.

Not more Elvis, no more Bing,

No Frank, no Sarah Vaughn,

No Bergman/Bogart movies,

Even Oprah will be gone!

Let’s hope there’s some dimension

Where this greatness goes.

Where it will last forever,

And there too our sorry souls!

LIFE IN A TEST TUBE

Some day some biophysicist,

Experimenting in his lab,

Will mix together elements

And unleash an outcome bad!

In his test tube will appear

A brand new living cell,

Multiplying like crazy,

Up to no good one can tell!

The cells change into insects

And flee into the night,

Intent on the location

Of human hide to bite.

Once bitten by these creatures,

We’ll at their mercy be.

The bugs will be in charge

And spray us with DDT!

ENABLING THE DISABLED

If you are disabled,

Don’t let it you despair.

There’s a world of gadgetry

To get you anywhere.

There’s the metal walker,

An ingenious device,

To prop you up, no matter what,

On deck, or floor or ice.

Then there is the shower bench.

No excuse to not be clean.

You can seated scrub and soak

Beneath the cleansing stream.

Have to use the john?

A commode is what you need.

It’s wheeled and height adjustable.

Just be sure your aim to heed!

Of all the woundeds’ friends

The sock-aid is the best.

It’s just a sheet of plastic,

But it works! I can attest.

These supremely simple items

Make a cripple’s life worthwhile.

Their anonymous inventors

Have earned Nobels by a mile!

KETCHUP

Ronald Reagan said it all,

And he was an honest man!

Ketchup is a vegetable,

Healthy, tasty and…

If you apply it thick enough

Any food it will enhance.

Lather it on broccoli.

It’ll make your taste buds dance!

It’ll add a dash of colour

To the blandest dish,

Say a bowl of porridge.

However, if you wish,

Even cordon-bleu

Will get a flavour boost

When Ketchup’s gently dripped

On tenderloin au jus.

This subtle gourmet touch

May not the chef endear,

But you’ll be a candidate

For Heinz Man of the Year!

THE BLACK CLOUD

Iceland is an island it’s hard to care about.

In the realm of world affairs, it lacks a lot of clout.

The population’s small; fishing is their game.

Far from anywhere, no foe that one can name.

They’re near the Arctic Circle; it ain’t no Waikiki!

There’re mountains and glaciers and all around the sea.

Icelanders are descendants of hearty Viking stock.

Used to raising hell, they said: ‘Time to awe and shock!’

‘Too long we’ve been ignored! We’ll get attention yet!’

They summoned Eyjafjallajokull to express their surly pet.

Happy to oblige, the volcano rudely spewed,

And suddenly the world was to the TV glued.

News of that eruption spread wide to say the least,

Iceland now on every tongue, for CNN a feast!

Today a shroud of ash, five-thousand metres high,

Blankets most of Europe. No airline dares to fly.

Travelers by the millions have had to alter plans.

Iceland’s profile soars in all once heedless lands.

But a problem lingers on. Who can say the spewer’s name?

Why don’t we simply call it Iceland’s Claim to Fame!

THE TAXMAN

The end of April nears.

The taxman’s stalking you.

Dig out those dusty files.

You have much work to do!

Records of your income,

Of tax already paid,

Of transactions with your broker,

Have you noted every trade?

About those whopping gains

You made on Whatzit shares,

Were they offset by losses?

Who won, the bulls or bears?

Are you likely to be audited?

Will your errors just sneak by?

Will you go to prison

Because you told a lie?

Try not to be so worried.

You’ve not been in arrears.

But maybe you’ve been lucky.

Tax fraud gets seven years!

A SECOND LANGUAGE

I know a little French,

A little German too,

Some simple words of Spanish,

In Greek can say ‘fuck you’.

In several other lingos

I can speak a phrase or two.

Mostly something bad,

Insulting, sick or blue.

English is the language

Taught at mother’s knee.

It’s my mother tongue;

Fluent I ought to be.

But my spelling is atrocious.

In grammar I do err.

My punctuation, ugh!

My vocabulary only fair.

Many new Canadians

Learned English when they came.

Now they speak it better,

Put us natives all to shame.

So I’ve set myself a goal:

A second tongue I’ll not pursue.

I’ll work on proper English;

To those others say adieu!

MY FANS

I’ve many thousands of fans,

From Alberta to Oz to Japan.

They read my work with delight.

I’m a laureate in Azerbaydzhan!

My fans the intellectual elite,

The cream of the literate crop.

They have insight, humour and soul.

As winners they stand at the top.

Were they in the Olympics,

Every time they’d win only gold.

They include the straight and the gay,

Young, middle aged and old.

They express a preference for verse

That swings with rhythm and rhyme,

Whose meaning is perfectly clear,

Whose truth will endure for all time.

They also appreciate wit,

That rare and wonderful thing

That from unlikely places

Can sometimes surprisingly spring.

I fear they can’t get enough;

My goal is a verse every day.

But Thalia my muse has been known

To go on a brief holiday.

My fans give me ideas,

Subjects I can turn into rhyme.

With them I’d happily share

The returns that ought to be mine.

But so far I’ve made just a million,

Barely enough to get by.

When it gets to a billion,

I’ll send them all a bottle of rye.

Rye is a Canadian drink.

It brings out the poet in me.

It also brings out the liar.

My fans really number just three!

THE PAINTING

Hanging on my office wall,

Soothing to the soul,

Is a painting by Seurat,

An artist whom I extol.

The scene is of a park

Near Paris long ago.

A sun-lit afternoon,

River Seine and shore aglow.

The park is full of people,

Lounging near the stream,

Or stately strolling,

Not a trouble it would seem.

The world is warm and safe,

Peace and contentment reign,

Everything in its place,

Secure and slow to change.

This moment of tranquility

Seurat was quick to seize.

He forever made it real,

His work a masterpiece.

In winter’s cruelest grip,

I can always get away.

Seurat’s work transports me

To a lovely, summer day.