...Daddy

When the marriage ceased to matter

And the family unit shattered

the girls remained with me

....Daddy

But now the girls have grown 

And moving on their own

Beautiful and strong

No place left for me

....Daddy

I guess I could have guessed

My girls would leave the nest

If not this soon,

Eventually

As I watch them gather steam

As they each chase down their dream

I hope they don't forget

...Daddy

I did the best I could

I loved and understood

Best gig in the world,

...Daddy

As the family scatters

It doesn't cease to matter

Always here or there for them

...Daddy

Jeff's Song

I can't hear the birds any more

waiting it out

up here on the ninth floor

and I can't smell flowers either

so far away

from day to day

everything I touch

was made by

someone

I'm too far away from nature
way up here

everything I feel

filtered through

returning thoughts of you

when it clears

at least I

have a view

Tulips

Two lips parting

to kiss the sun

and the run

of life

Miss Duke

Miss Duke had my back

Back in the day

When not much

Went my way

She stood up for me

When it counted

A teacher, a mentor

who really cared

She laughed at my 

confounding questions

and deflected my

Angry Young  Man

Into words and

Self-esteem.

Protected me 

From the suits

And the jokers

who spat,

who never understood

She got me.

She had my back.

I wrote.

She wrote back.

Even now,

When fallow years

And other roads

Diverge,

She has my back

Still

Everyone should

Have a hero like

My Miss Duke.

I hope she knows.

Laid Bare, But For Rain

Ill-preparedness

and nonchalance

Not my song

Not my dance

Tossing dreams

of others

Laid bare

But for rain

Where do all the

unfulfilled dreams

of lives curtailed

End up?

Primal

My love is primary,

My music too,

So are my children,

Who I am,

And what I do

These things are primal

They're not some time-al

Equally Necessary 

None of them Ancillary

Integral parts of whole

Some days it may not 

seem that way 

When near, I seem so far

When words consume

I leave the room or 

disappear into my guitar

Like head or heart,

The breath of life

May not be at the fore

But Which of these 

could we do without

Essential to our core

Restless Soul

I can't settle down

My brain is racing

Like an over revved motor

a high tension wire

That snapped and

Is whipping about

Sparking and sparkling

Like fireworks in 

A cage, 

a snake pit

Of mixed images

Conjured up for

Who knows what

The discipline of yoga

And meditation and

Relaxation breathing

Are as far away 

As my youth tonight

I can't find a position

That doesn't hurt somehow

Or itch, or kinks my neck

Or my bladder

There is an urgency

A deadline looming

A list that extends

Beyond the time

I have left

Inquiète

I am not sick

I am not old

Or unhappy

I don't owe

I am dry 

And fed

I am loved

I have skills

I have talents

I have family

I have friends

O restless soul 

That seeks serenity

A lake, a forest,

An ocean view

Away from faces 

And voices

And gadgets

And needs

A bench with a view

where I can run 

my fingers through

my sleeping

Lover's hair

As the sun sets

Reducing

Reducing

Chucking 

Letting go 

of things

I thought 

I believed

I used to believe

But these objects

Are getting harder

To carry

From dream 

to dream

Reduction

In cooking 

means 

Thickening,

Intensifying 

the flavour

By simmering 

or boiling

So by reducing

We are doing both

The purge of long ago and

Are thickening 

And intensifying

our new life

together

Strawberry Moon

There's a bright big 

Strawberry moon 

in the sky

Such a cliche

It being

June and all

The type of moon

That set designers

Dream of...

That paper moon

That cardboard sky

The shroud of mist

Surrounding 

Makes her girth,

Her opulence 

Immense

Reminding me

To eat wild

Strawberries

off my father's 

Grave again.

Sleepless

2 A.M.

my mind

is racing

Tracing 

outlines 

Of the 

many things

I've seen

And done

In life

The neighbours

In my head

Are having

A party.

Someone 

Call the cops

The music 

That I'm 

Hearing 

pounding

Rhythms

Exotic

Hypnotic

Idiotic

In several

Hours 

I'll scrape

My sorry 

carcass

Out off bed

And smile 

And try

To be alive

In the moment

But right now

The flowing

Momentum

Of this 

Magma of 

Dream vomit

Is keeping me

From the

Stillness

Surrounding me.

We Breathe

Such a sorry state

My eyes seek yours

Barely awake

So tired,  unable to 

Sleep or wake

Quality of life

Is at stake

Joy and sorrow

Numbed to

Tundra where

Nothing grows

But lichen

Not likin'

This sorry story

State of 

Change of life

So strange

Hope is on

The horizon

Her eyes on me

So kind and

Gentle, loving 

Through

The pane of pain

Both hers and mine

We breathe

Night Train

I hear a freight train

But I don't live near

Any train tracks

Some trick of wind

Of rainy night

Has brought

Her near

The moaning groan

Of straining diesel

And clackety clack

Of wheel on steel

There are tracks

To the south of here

On the edge 

of the escarpment

And to the north

Of Côte-St.-Luc

Too far to hear

This sound so near

I wonder why and how

I hear it

I've always loved the 

sound of trains

I recall fondly

St. Henri's

switching 

sparking 

shriek 

To the 

sidings

While the fountains

Poured out of

Jacques Cartier's statue

In the empty park below

As the baby slept

Forgive Me

I want to walk through fields of gold

Hand in hand with you

I want to talk of feelings old

Transferred to suit the new

A maiden stole my heart away

I had no brain to think

I knew not what do do or say

my mind was on the blink

A lad of seventeen knows not

His elbow from his ass

Or what to do when flirty eyes

Return from any pretty lass

For forty years she held my verse 

Which means, of course, she bought it

My earnest hugs and lies and worst

thing Is that I promptly forgot it

Rogues and rascal troubadours

Are teen age boy delinquents

cyclone hormones raging more

and taken out of sequence

Oh the things i said when just a lad

If i knew what i now know

The different life i might have had

no win, no place, no show

After

After

Looking after

Looking

After looking

After

Looking 

After looking after 

Everyone and everything

Looking out doing

Out

Doing out

Doing

Out doing

Out

Doing 

Out doing out

Doing

Out doing 

Everything for everyone

You see...and you feel,

And you wish...and you kneel

And it's real

Really intense

It doesn't matter

It makes no sense

Over

Seeing over

Seeing

Over seeing

Over

Seeing

Over seeing over

Seeing

Over seeing

Everything for everyone

Care

Intensive care

Intensive

Care intensive

Care

Intensive

Care intensive care

Intensive

Everything and everyone

You sigh.....and you cry

You accept ...all but except

It's too real

Really intense

It doesn't matter

It makes no sense

The Author

Some days it’s all too much

Too many pages closing 

way too fast and

I am not sure I understood

this last chapter

It feels like I just skimmed

Looking for details and

finding none I gave up

hope for understanding

Maybe the next chapter

will offer more insight

into the last few

at least now I am

the author

Spinster

Fresh fruit

Left dangling.

Too high

to pick

Ripening,

Juicy,

Her taste

a gleam

She will fall.

Uneaten.

her last

grasp

Futile

as her 

bruises

soften her

flesh

and

return her

to earth

April 4th, 2015

twenty-five years since we
didn’t see it coming
he threw the macaroni and
ran right off the roof

so many storeys
that never ended well
so many stories
he never got to tell

he never got the chance
to make children of his own
he never met my children
and now they’re fully grown

they never heard his jokes
he never made them laugh
they never knew this uncle
except through photographs

we never understood
what he could not endure
no-one knew or understood his pain

for hurt like that I wish that
we could find a cure, so
no-one has to go through that again

if he’d only known we loved him
though he could never hear it
if only there had been a way
to reach his troubled spirit

to end the gift of life that way
takes such a force of will
I wish that he were here today
I loved him, I miss him still

The Album

Looking at life past
Looking at life passed

Those babies aren't babies
Anymore
The wrinkled ones
Have both passed on
There's me the father, me the son

Photographs of "pre-me"
Were they the cave years?
Were they the slave years?
Carved out of the time-line
Of my life on earth?

Or practice years for
Today's performance?
My "10,000 hours"
My exhibition games

"She" is there too.
When did the smile
Become a grimace?
Nurture to menace?
Adoration to indifference?

Monday morning quarterback
Monday mourning quarterback
The truth of photos
Now open
To interpretation

Kinda Blue

I am feeling 
kinda blue.

Don't know 
what to do

It's raining 
outside

Inside too

Inside out

Outside in

With, without

Sink or swim

While You Were Away

While you were away
I missed you in a way
That was okay
Because I know
We are okay
No matter what.

What a good feeling
Like knowing you
Will soon be out of the cold
Wrapping your arms
Around the comforting
Warmth of love.

I thought of all
The reasons I love you
And made up more

Insomnia

ruthless, 

grinding

sleeplessness

muting the

brightest light

and sweetest

soul and

most deserving

creature

I have ever met

hope for

health for

her

Miles Apart Together

Lying some miles apart  

No skin on skin tonight

Eyes open in the dark

Seeking your shape

No stroke of hair

Nothing smooth 

No scents to 

Lull a boy 

Imagining you

Missing my fingers

My hair and my beard

Touring your temple

Inch by inch

Ebb and flow

Connected

Protected

Contented

Untitled

I'm in love with her essential
Not just with her potential
And our love is Providential
It's bloom is Exponential

Although separate residential
Our meld will come eventual
Our impatience Influential
On matters so torrential

November Landscape

Tossed another hour

On the wakeful fire

Wondering what in the 

World has just transpired

My body is rejecting

Sleep, ejecting waste

Another enemy 

this time within

I have been ordered

To do too much 

with too little

For too long

How can I protect

The only things

That matter when

I'm being poured

Through a funnel

Into a world

With no escape 

A dreary, bleak,

November landscape

No shadows no forms

No silhouettes

Nothing familiar

To lean on

No hope to hold on to

From my former life

That clings to me

Like a bad reputation

And My bliss is put on hold

As I attempt escape

The stranglehold 

Of debt and obligation

To a world that I rejected

After that world

Rejected me

I'm still held down by

Gravity

It's not the monetary cost

That matters most

I'm used to sacrifice

Filling a hole that 

Can't be filled

A Hungry monster

In A bottomless pit

On a dead end street

In a condemned

Neighborhood

For now, it feels

Like death row

But I know that 

After winter

Comes the spring

I must hold on

For come the spring

I will be dancing. 

Bad Dreams

Bad Dreams

Unfinished Business 

Bubbling

To the Surface

Bad Dreams

Restoring Living 

Nightmares

From the past

Bad Dreams 

Recurring Misery 

Haunting

Overwhelming

Bad Dreams

I should have 

skipped

The curry

December

December.

There is no turning back. 

For a working musician, 

December means 

less choice in what to play. 

Not that their ears are more attuned, 

not at all. 

Mine are.

I dare not into malls. 

The oppressiveness 

of yet another 

version of whatever to 

rob me deaf of my peace.

Silver Moon

Silver moon

December moon

Luminescent ice

Reflecting Her face

Her Cold stare

On these

Darkest nights

Away from

Festive lights

Passive 

Indifferent

To the folly

Below

Sniper

Sniper

Viper

Coward

Fool

Open season

Easy target

Anonymous 

Anyoneofus

Bubble Shot

Troubleshoot

Trouble spot

Turkey shoot

Sniper

Viper

Coward 

Fool

The Magic Doctor

When it stopped it started,
When it closed it opened up
We kissed then we parted
I could have stayed asleep
But I woke up

You're my silver road
You're the magic doctor
You're the silver road
I'm on my way

You're my silver road
Leading me home
You're the magic doctor
You are the one

Like sleeping Beauty under cover
Waiting for a Royal lover
Deep in the dark awaiting a spark
To re-ignite that broken heart

You're my silver road
You're the magic doctor
You're the silver road
I'm on my way


You're my silver road
Leading me home
You're the magic doctor
You are the one

When the lights went out, the lights went on
I tried to count to ten, I could only get to one
When the spinning stopped, I turned around
I never felt so lost, I never felt so found
You're my silver road
You're the magic doctor
You're the silver road
I'm on my way

You're my silver road
Leading me home
You're the magic doctor
You are the one

Everything's in order, all my debts are paid
I'm not looking for reward here, but I'm not afraid
We don't know where it's leading,
I don't remember where it's coming from
But I know you stopped the bleeding,
Kept my soul from coming undone

You're my silver road
You're the magic doctor
You're the silver road
I'm on my way

You're my silver road
Leading me home
You're the magic doctor
You are the one

Scrag

Wall to wall squalor

Still chasing a dollar

But gentlemen callers

Are scarcer these days

Down after midnight

And up before dawn

Picking at shadows

And Lost when they're gone

Skin sagging on bones

Like the clothes hanging loose

She used to pull box-cars

Now she's the caboose

The envelope is wrinkled

Over-used and never sent

The rules of the game

Have never stayed the same

Not guilty but not innocent