Tuesday 20 June 2023

Rates Of Passage

Two hundred years ago a trip across the Atlantic would have meant over a month on a creaky, leaky sailing vessel with no guarantees. Young arrogant adventurers facing constant peril One hundred and twenty years ago My grandfather’s westward passage on a steamship took five or six days ...Without return passage... He was a young man leaving home For the unknown I am hurtling east across the great Atlantic in a cramped and sometimes shaky silver bullet. This flight takes around six hours. Unsure if the shrinking planet will survive Another century At this rate.

Wednesday 12 August 2020

Treasures


What a push/pull

pressure cooker day

everybody feeling

the squeeze


I can’t move

for the elephants

taking all

the comforts


values clashed,

considered


considered selling

my favourite posession


everything dear to me

is worth more

than can be paid


treasures to pass on



(March 1, 2014.)

Friday 21 February 2020

Uh oh..... There Goes The Neighbourhood

Griffintown could be any neighbourhood at all
I’ve lived long enough to watch many communities fall
people moving up, people driven out
running from the renos and the condos and the wrecking ball

uh oh…..make way for the bobos
uh oh…..the champagne socialists
uh oh…..make way for those bourgeois bohemians
uh oh…..there goes the neighbourhood

immigrants and artists living side by side 
eking out a living and preserving their cultural style
cleaning up their corner, their side of the street
filling up their space with personal and civic pride

uh oh…..make way for the bobos
uh oh…..the champagne socialists
uh oh…..make way for those bourgeois bohemians
uh oh…..there goes the neighbourhood

when the gentry comes, the rents will soar
all the local colour won’t be there any more
when the gentry comes is when the colour goes
you’ll still have a face, but you cut off your nose

immigrants and artists both have economic insecurity
so they move into neighbourhoods sick with urban decay
they defibrilate before it gets too late and
pull the neighbourhood out of obscurity

uh oh…..make way for the bobos
uh oh…..the champagne socialists
uh oh…..make way for those bourgeois bohemians
uh oh…..there goes the neighbourhood

then the vultures come and kick you out of your homes
as they buy up everything in sight
when the vultures come they’ll strip you downt to the bone
bleach you away and treat you like blight

I used to live in a place like this because the rents were cheap
I had to move because it sold and the rent got steep
to hell with artsy romance, it’s all about finance
what you get to skim you get to keep

uh oh…..make way for the bobos
uh oh…..the champagne socialists
uh oh…..make way for those bourgeois bohemians
uh oh…..there goes the neighbourhood

some yuppies moved here because the streets were cool and quaint
the yuppies got older and now…the same streets ain’t
their bourgois aspirations belied their intentions
and now the bar downstairs is closed due to their complaints

uh oh…..make way for the bobos
uh oh…..the champagne socialists
uh oh…..make way for those bourgeois bohemians
uh oh…..there goes the neighbourhood

when the gentry comes, the rents will soar
all the local colour won’t be there any more
when the gentry comes is when the colour goes
you’ll still have a face, but you cut off your nose

some motherfuckers bought up five whole city blocks
said they’d look after everyone, but that was a crock
with their lululementality they destroyed a community
now with impunity we see it’s true that money talks (and walks)

when the bobos come you’ll be on the run
from their phony pseudo psych mentality
when the bobos come you’ll be on the run
from their virtual spirituality
when th bobos come you’ll be on the run
from their actual banality

uh oh…..make way for the bobos
uh oh…..the champagne socialists
uh oh…..make way for those bourgeois bohemians
uh oh…..there goes the neighbourhood

Sunday 28 July 2019

mid-summer


Fireflies flicker in the thicket at dusk
Winking in the warm breathless night
Little beacons luring mates or prey
Being neither, I delight in their display

I heard there were more this year
This evening bears that out
Sequins on the lawn 
before the dew settles

A week of calm before 
the Cicadas arrive to crow
The slow decline of summer
And the next turn of the page

My Heart Was Built For Breaking

Ian Hanchet

It's better to have a broken heart
than to have an unspoken part
To love in life is to do your part
So never stop believing

It's better to have loved and lost
Even at such a saline cost
than to cover up your heart in frost
Just because she's leaving

And even though it's aching
And to get through days I'm faking
It's love I still be making
This heart was built for breaking.

©2013 IGH

Saturday 18 May 2019

Mum

There was nothing left
Before she left
Erosion stole her
And there was nothing
I could do for her
That birthed me 
And fed 
and sheltered
And comforted 
And clothed
And listened
And held
And taught
And scolded
And worried
And most of all
Loved.
"Hush little baby
Don't you cry,
You know your mama
Was born to die....
All my trials, lord
Soon be over"

Sunday 11 November 2018

There goes my home


Paradise is burning
It's been burning all day
Like the sacking of Rome 
Or the burial of Pompeii

There goes my home

Like Hiroshima flattened
Or Atlantis drowned
Don't care how it happened
Gotta Get out of town

There goes my home

This boom town went bust
And The rats had already fled
In God We Trusted
And Now we're all dead

There goes my home

Everything's burned 
burnedto the ground
everything’s lost, 
there’s nothing to be found

There goes my home

There's more plagues to endure
There's no way to prepare
There's nothing to insure
The system is burnt bare

There goes my home