Sweetening the pot I’ve been an incurable insomniac since the age of five, when I became convinced by the minister of our local parish that I would burn in hell for eternity because “I took the name of the Lord God in vain.” For the next few years, I spent entire nights praying to the..
Avian and human grief …a cinquain poem Owl grieves… A loss of mate; We mourn, anticipate A certain fate … Bereavement is To come. https://chirpforbirds.com/bird-brain/do-birds-have-feelings/ “There are many instances of birds expressing grief and even engaging in mourning rituals, showing that sadness isn’t just a human state. It’s interesting to note that birds exhibit..
The Ottawa public transit blues A letter to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper My wife and I are newcomers to Ottawa, both of us are seniors with disabilities, and we are appalled by the abysmal bus service offered in our newly adopted city. We rely on public transit to move about as neither of us..
Dads with fedoras…A Tanka poem about a 1950s childhood Childhood: an ocean Of dads in fedora hats… Oh a kid could drown! Only present in absence, Dads erased; headgear remains. Tanka poems follow a set of rules. They all have five lines and each line follows a pattern: the first line has..
As she will be the first to admit, my wife is hyper vigilant about the expiration dates of tasty comestibles. Here is a little sonnet in honor of her “best before” zealotry. Expiration dates…a tongue-in-cheek Shakespearian sonnet Portentous dates do haunt my darling wife; Expiry cutoffs rob her of fine cheese ..
Fur Children I wrote this little piece of foolishness based on the classic tune “Goldfinger” from the 1965 James Bond film of the same name. The song is about my son’s cat Sassy, who simply won’t let you stop stroking her once you’ve started. Fur Children Fur Children… They’re the cats, the cats with..
Andy McClelland: A singer/songwriter you’ll want to share In 1969, by a strange fluke, I won a scholarship to study at a small private Canadian institution located in Switzerland, Neuchâtel Junior College, receiving financial assistance for which only students from London, Ontario were eligible. I never should have been granted this award. It should..
Shiny Grey Suit is now on Soundcloud…Awarded the Golden Pineapple Award for the most original Hawaiian Blues tune of 2024 My old friend Andy McClelland is a brilliant performing artist and a highly skilled singer/ songwriter with his own studios in northern Ontario. Check out his voluminous body of original, complex, and highly creative..
Shiny Grey Suit is now on Soundcloud…Awarded the Golden Pineapple Award for the most original Hawaiian Blues tune of 2024 My old friend Andy McClelland is a brilliant performing artist and a highly skilled singer/ songwriter with his own studios in northern Ontario. Check out his voluminous body of original, complex, and highly creative..
The Incomparable Alice Munro 1931-2024 Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories — and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories. – Alice Munro The incomparable literary titan Alice Munro passed away yesterday at the age of 92. This renowned Canadian author created groundbreaking literary works of the..