Touching the Moon

...after the divorce another level of suffering begins...

Touching the Moon

Clutching her yellow blanket

I offered to carry her doll

up the bricked driveway,

an eternity to the door.

“Forty-eight hugs and kisses,”

she said

I counted as I hugged and kissed her:

“1, 2, 3, 4, 46, 47, 48.”

“That’s not 48,” she laughed,

then serious- 

“I don’t want you to live

in an apartment.

Stay here,” she pleaded.

“Your mom and I just argue

sweetheart.”

With five year old wisdom

She replied,

“Stop arguing.”

Persistent,

“I want to stay at your place

tonight Dad.”

“Your mom needs you too.

We are only two sleeps apart

we’ll see each other then.”

“We can walk the river bank

and cross over to the island.  

The river level is down, or

play dolphins in the pool.

I promise”...and my heart broke.

Tears quickly welled, and cascaded

over her trembling chin and she hugged my leg

and would not let go.

Stretching skyward, taking her tiny hand in mine,

with arched fingers as if to touch

the pointy crescent.

We touched the moon.

“Ouch!

It’s sharp,” and she almost laughed.

In hushed tones,

Gently squeezing her hand

I spoke:

“Your mom is waiting

the wind is cool now.

Go inside.”

I crouched low and 

we hugged tightly.

“Remember, “I love you to hyper space

across the Great Wall of China,

around the moon

and back again...

I said, “Good-bye” and quickly

walked away.

Canadian Tire

The Canadian Tire store, in Waterloo, now stands where the century old farmhouse, I lived in as a child, once stood.





I Lived in Aisle 6”



Aisle 6

paint and supplies

as near as I can figure

there stood my bedroom window.

Hardware

or

was it in automotive parts?

just where the kitchen starts.


RIP

A patriot’s demise

a retro crypt

Canadian Tire now stands

Over my

childhood

home.

Three horses-

a Bay, a Palomino

and a Grey

With a small herd of Holsteins,

including my pet heifer

(Hugh Hefner)

grazed where the parking lot now

sprawls.

I park my deep purple Subaru

my middle-aged legs walk the

distance over dark asphalt memories.

Outback

behind the giant box store

about 40 years into my past

where stands an:

an apple orchard,

a barn and a

pond.

Rowing gently,

lazily

one very hot July

across the silent stagnant green water

my dog, Shadow, sees a frog

and like some demented canine

superhero leaps from the creaky

old boat.

We soon discover, to my shame,

he cannot swim or even

float.

his stroke too vertical,

too frantic.

He begins to sink.

I yank his collar and pull him in.


We hunted ground hogs through farmers’ fields.

Shot squirrels

armed with a crossbow made from sturdy car springs

and a bolt action 22.

Our juvenile arsenal was really swell

but not exactly from Matel.

We shot a barn cat once!

Spectacular…

In mid-air, as it leapt across the bailing pit.

Some silo pigeons too I think

Likely, they were cooing too loud.

We were kids.

There was

no season

rhyme or

reason.


I got a pellet

Between my eyes

And wonder still how I survived it all.


I see now that

The barn is gone.

The pond is dry and the

Orchards have been cleared.

All a residential pit with names like

Lakeshore

And

Forest Lawn

Even though there is no lake

And the forests are all gone.


“If only dogs could swim and

I was young again in aisle 6.”

Rain

Rain, A Brooding Storm




That same morning she sat and

Laughed with her husband over coffee

By the fireplace.


Outside, rain, a brooding storm,

A front had passed through that night.


The driver of the SUV

Jumped the light

Or just didn’t see

And in the end it doesn’t matter

The result would be the same,

Head-on into the van.


He died instantly.


Two cups of coffee on the table.

His wife sat still and quite alone.


Outside, rain, a brooding storm,

A front had passed through that night.



***



They lingered over coffee

And laughed about something

Their daughter had said,

“Dad, you’ll never figure

that cell phone out.”


Outside, rain, a brooding storm,

A front had passed through that night.


“Hi, just on my way to work…”

he fumbled with his phone

and really didn’t see the SUV

that drove directly into his van.


Words left unsaid,

He died instantly,

Bones broken and oddly

His coffee didn’t even spill.


Outside, rain, a brooding storm,

A front had passed through that night.

***


A little hung over,

Angry words with a girl friend,

An unfinished coffee left

Steaming on the kitchen counter.

Outside, rain, a brooding storm,

A front had passed through that night.


Rushing to his SUV

He then jumped the light

And really didn’t see the van.


Crushing impact.

Slightly stunned

He walked away with just a scratch

And stopped a moment to stare

At the slumped and still driver sitting there.


He stood in the rain of a brooding storm,

For a front had passed through that night

And everything had forever changed.

Voices: "You Little Shit"

While working with complex need students in a clinical setting as part of my training I had to wear headphones and hear voices, as some of my patient/students do every day without headphones. It was a frightening and humbling experience.

Voices: "You Little Shit"



An experiment on insight and

understanding

I wore headphones and

listened to the voices.



“The voices made me do it”.



You shit-head.

You don’t deserve to live.

Kill the damn cat.

You shit!



I was to function normally.

Normal…what is that?

interact with the guy

at the corner store and

the young girl at the

coffee counter. You know

those “day to day” things

we all can do.



Fuck you, you little shit.

You must cut deeply.

First they will kill

the secretary then the

teachers will be next

you little shit. They

Are waiting in the gray

van across the street…

waiting for you.

You don’t deserve to live.



Function?

Order coffee

or

Even look a person in the eye.

Did they hear my voices too?

I know they can read my mind.

Is it just the earphone in my head?



Street people some are hard wired

to the brain.

Live in paranoia on downtown

Streets. Hiding from the grey van

in the shadow deep…

Yes, cut deep you little shit.



A business type walks by

And in disgust thinks

“Get a job you little shit”.



Marty Rempel

Nature's Way

Nature’s Way

Summer downpour

I took shelter under a

dead fall

angled across the trail.

Birch forest echoed with

thunder.

I settled in to find

some comfort on the

brown needles and

dead leaves.



Three fox cubs

shared my dry space.

Whimpering,

they eagerly licked my

salty hand and playfully

tugged, with razor teeth,

at my wet sleeve.



On later days I

visited their makeshift

den. I sat and read as

they played and ate

the food I shared.

Feeling both as surrogate

and as Assisi with his birds,

watching my cubs

grow from tumbling adolescent

play to the day they

joyfully killed their first

squirrel.

Christmas /03 in Saskatchewan

Christmas /03 in Saskatchewan




We spent that Christmas inside.

Saskatchewan blizzard, wind chill

Even the dog wouldn’t leave

The back kitchen door. We

Did walk the five blocks to the

Bowling ally where the manager

Gave me a years old trophy from

The backroom and with pomp

And circumstance I presented it

To my daughter after breaking

100 with that awkward between-

the-leg-bent-over-the-hip-style.



At the Home Hardware on Main

And fourth she picked out a locked

Diary to write her deepest ten year

Old secrets and after stopping at the

SPCA to cheer up the dogs and cats

And maybe ourselves we went home

To sing Kareoke. She did a very

Good Spice Girls to my sadly rendered

“Yesterday”.



Bored we wrote poetry sitting on

The leather basement couch while

Eating Haagen Dazs out of the

Container until it hurt. Ice cream

Dripped on our poems. She wrote…



“Confetti threw,

All in the air,

The ball has dropped,

And two by two

They all shall leave

The party’s awaiting”.