Dear Archie my grandson, I was once a delinquent; someone who commits minor crimes. That might shock you since your parents are police officers. Here is my confession. However, first may I say this; I was saved from a life of crime by the kindness and thoughtfulness of a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Margaret Wardle. I […]
Treblinka Crimes against humanity Whose? Silent guards watching? and Nazi Idiologues Leading the way All the way To the holocaust Love cannot be silent. Syria Crimes against humanity Whose? Gutless globalogues watching and Assad’s brutal butchers Leading the way All the way To a holocaust. Love cannot be silent.
To provoke reactions I will call ‘thought enablers’ of climate inaction ‘crocodiles’. I am not accusing some people of being crocodiles. I am accusing the ‘meme’ or ‘thought enabler’. Those ‘memes’ swim in ideologies that foster inaction. Like ‘genes’ they fight for relevance and procreation. One ‘croc’ is the deity of technology. We don’t need […]
Gwen and Derek Mallard Gwen and Derek Mallard were founding members of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation,(SPEC) the first environmental association in BC. It is situated in Vancouver. Some years later, after moving to Vancouver Island the couple incorporated a new society under the name Citizens Action To Save The Environment (CASE). Gwen and […]
Beauty as a Fire Suppressant Global warming contributed to the wildfire devastation last summer. It may even have contributed to the severe weather that toppled a tree on my home during the gusts of December 20th. I want to share with you two ideas about forest fires and global warming. I think that beauty can […]
Baby Orca Dies ( Aug 1-8, 2018 ) This week in the Salish Sea We witnessed a mothers’ mourning, Seven times both eve and morning, Mother Orca carried baby Swam her up for air by nose How the family pod arose To support mother and child. Dutifully each in turn they filed. Were they […]
Nature is a vitamin. I was raised as a child in the Ardmore part of North Saanich in the 1940s. Ardmore was mostly forested and where the trees had been cleared sheep grazed. Sidney was a tiny single street village where a bus left several times a day for Victoria. We had no television […]
My Lonely Child I heard a mother poet say My fertile fragile thought today Is like my baby born too soon Naked under electric moon Word maternal it’s under glass So my poem has had to pass. And I must stand by a window And I must look calmly somehow As others touch my […]
“I opened this shocking ‘death letter, outlined in black’ sometime after the 15th of November 1970. I was about to send an invitation, and love letter to Gisela Braun. The poem written about it and the sad news was not written until 2017. My love and my sadness persists.” Wally George Du Temple ” Concerning […]
“I wrote this after the death of my dear friend David Smethurst. It was written for his wife Joyce, also my dearest friend from university days at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.” _______________________________________________________________ On the rare occasion of two sail boats sailing without their captains or crew! At A Chance Meeting Of […]
The view Over bare skin of tourist shoulders, On a ship deck behind Nuku Hiva, The wonders of the soft ruby glow, Sun descending into an azure sea, In the Marquesas Islands, Of French Polynesia, Burnt sienna backs, Open cans of beer.
QUESTIONING BITCH A golden feral bitch sits Showing swollen milky tits On a tourist trail in Tahiti, Ears down, tail still, nose quivering, I see questions in her mother’s eyes What’s in his pack sack? “Should I flee or beg”?
ODDITY OUR CANINE LADY I kissed good night to my cocker spaniel, Our black and white lady with shiny long hair. I caressed her soft long ears in her stately chair. Carved, teak legs curved upward around her throne And swept around a shell shaped back where prone On top, sat that fat cat […]
Trench Warfare Trench warfare. Blue moon In fetid puddle. Red poppy In no mans’ land Trench warfare. Springs and summers Endless. Lovely bride Where are you? Trench warfare. Stars above Barbed wire. I’ll be home By Christmas Trench warfare Snow in hair. Sunrise Naked bodies. Decomposing Trench warfare. Incoming shells. […]
Fragrances Sitting on a jet plane Flying to Tahiti on Tahiti Nui To cruise on Aranui I read Enroute Of fragrances. Mascara eyelashes that wink me in. ‘Angel Stars of The Skies’ ‘Rudy Lips’ ‘Lady Million’ ‘Lola’ ‘Fahrenheit Absolute’ ‘Trésor in Love’ ‘La nuit de l’ homme’ ‘One Summer’. Tell me Yves St. Laurent […]
MOTHER VENDOR The red flowering and leafing sari Blossomed on her Tahitian thighs Mirrored on blue water reflecting skies. Bronze toes beckoned on her blankets of business Carvings and jewelry she had laid By her blond haired boy by another trade A ‘tiare’ blossom beckons to the rear Is she asking for more than […]
The Fresco Says It All! From the mountain, From the forest, From the river, From the wild, We came. Naked. Not tamed In their eyes. Depicted by cathedral fresco At Mission BC Our faces are empty In their eyes. No clothes, No nose, No eyes, No ears, No mouth, No expression, No emotions. No individuals. […]
George Martin April 02, 1936 – October 02, 2017 This is a poem for George Of his life in form and time Like rivers that tell stories to the sea George Martin was a story teller On The Salish Sea. From Canoe Cove to Echo Bay From ‘Coast to Coast Radio’, from ‘Great Northern […]
Sixty Percent Chance of Caribou Survival Two caribous meet in the Cariboo One asks the other “Where you going to live?” “Don’t know.” “Where is the 65% undisturbed habitat They promised?” What bureaucratic gobble-dee-gooks call The “disturbance management threshold” “Yea, like fences, pavements, ghettos of mall “But what side of the freeway?” “Will they […]
I am Waiting for a boarding call At Victoria International. I am looking out of the observation lounge At storm clouds moving in from the west. I see rain drops sliding down glass windows. I am Thinking of my Dad He built this airport. Did he do something sad? I mean Like what was the […]