90 Winters: A Poem
90 Winters: A Poem
The Medicine Man Chief of the Blackfoot Nation smoked his pipe
and looked out across the distant prairies at the distant hills
He then began his tale,
90 winters ago
Gitche Manitou sent a wise soul into this world
The same month that talking motion pictures were born
Al Jolson had said, “Wait a minute… you ain’t heard nothing yet”
A few weeks later a baby uttered his first cries under the vast blue dome of an Alberta prairie sky
A child who learned to read when he was 3 years old
Reading the Bible and Shakespeare and Charles Dickens was his fare
When he was 4, his father went away from the farm to work,
that same winter his mother took ill with scarlet fever
And he was raised that winter by a Cree First Nations Medicine woman
She taught him the power of herbs and roots
and how to heal using them
He started his public schooling at the age of 5
in a one room schoolhouse
called Elba
a school built in 1914
on the 100th anniversary of Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1st exile
his exile to the island of Elba
In 1936 at the age of 9
George had determined that Adolf Hitler
was a bad person
so he was going to build himself an airplane
and fly over to Berlin Germany
and bump him off
like Saint George slaying the evil dragon
He built himself an airplane all right
a Wright Brothers style aircraft
much to his family’s and farm neighbours’ amazement
He wisely sat on the very back seat of the plane
as the plane’s navigator
while his elder brother sat in the front seat of the plane
as the pilot
That way if their lift-off was unsuccessful
as they took off the hill over the
Rosebud Creek valley
and the plane landed in the creek
it would be his elder brother who wound up first in the Creek
George wisely reasoned
while he George would have time to jump off the back seat
before the plane landed in the Creek
Well the plane never made it to Germany
not even to Newfoundland
not even as far as the Alberta-Saskatchewan border
but George’s elder brother Tom
certainly enjoyed a very close up look of Rosebud Creek
right in the creek
as George wisely determined after take-off that the plane
wouldn’t reach its destination
so George wisely jumped off the back seat
as the plane made it to the ground
heading straight for the creek
with pilot Tom in the front seat
cursing and swearing
and prophetically foretelling
the language and dialogue
on most TV programs in
the early 21st Century
The 4-Minute mile was not broken by Roger Bannister
at the 1954 British Empire Games in Vancouver
but by George on that day in 1936
as he sought to escape
his dripping wet and deeply agitated elder brother
who chased after him from the creek
George reached the safety of his parents’ house in time.
In the early 1940s as a teenager, George studied palaeontology under the great palaeontologist Dr. Charles Mortram Sternberg in the Red Deer River Badlands
In the mid-1940s, he studied Science and Engineering at Mount Royal College in Calgary
In the late ’40s and early ’50s,
he studied History and English Literature at the University of Alberta
He finally settled on becoming a teacher
passing on his knowledge and wisdom to future generations of children
In the 1960s at Sherwood Heights Junior High School
he and his students built small rockets
that went soaring high into the skies
above that place of Alberta suburbia known as Sherwood Park
A sight that startled many Sherwood Park residents
who thought they were under Soviet missile attack
The principal of the school instructed George not to build
rockets that soared so high
Among George’s students was future astronomer and physicist
Dr. Paul Hickson
who pioneered work in the reflecting mercury liquid telescope
Among George’s students in the ’70s was future palaeontologist Michael Caldwell
who discovered the world’s first fossil of a flying snake in Israel
In the late ’80s George retired from active teaching
and was hired by the Alberta Department of Education
to give training workshops
to beginning Science teachers
In the ’90s, George began painting pictures
and mastered that medium
In the early 21st Century, George
began research for a 3-volume history of Western Canada
that he was going to write
In June of 2010, he was half-way through the 2nd volume of his 3-volume history of Western Canada
when he died from cancer.
90 winters ago, this man was born.
-A poem written by Christopher
Friday October 27th 2017
on what would have been
his father George’s
90th birthday.
Mountains Blue: A Poem
Mountains Blue: A Poem
Mountains blue
lakes so green
a national park so clean
This is Banff
jewel of the Alberta Rockies
Not far Lake Louise
where British singer Vera Lynn
The songstress of World War II
longed to dance on its silvery banks
And not far from that
Castle Mountain
once called Eisenhower
after World War II
It stands a solid rock
much like that great general
There is Tunnel Mountain
and Mount Rundle
and Cascade Mountain
whose majestic beauty
cascades in view
down the street
of Banff Avenue
There is Banff Hot Springs
and gondola rides
In winter, Banff is
post card Christmas village
come alive
There is Lake Minnewanka
a glacial lake at park’s east end
There is Moraine Lake
and the Valley of the Ten Peaks
south of Lake Louise
whose beauty graces $20 bills
in this Land of the Maple Leaf
Mountains blue
lakes so green
Banff one of Mother Nature’s jewels
waiting to be seen
-A poem written by Christopher
Sunday June 5th 2016
Haiku About Cold November Evenings
Haiku About Cold November Evenings
They chill to the bone
coats and scarves snug one tightly
seek warmth by fireside
The Pumpkin Patch Chainsaw Massacre
The Pumpkin Patch Chainsaw Massacre
Nighttime falls
your skin crawls
because you’re in the Halloween Pumpkin Patch
with the date you fancied quite a catch
This is the 13th year of the Trembleton Farms Big Scary Event
you were so excited your dad’s car now has a dent
but you’ll worry about that after midnight
when werewolves howl and vampires bite
but for now you’ll enjoy the scary fun
as you chew on your hamburger bun
Ghosts and ghouls and witches too
jump from behind these gourds shouting boo
you jump and scream
your girl holds you like a dream
and then you notice a little trodden path
so you say to your better half
“Let’s go down here!”
She says, “Really dear?”
so you grab her hand
and say, “It’ll be grand!”.
And down and down you go
What lurks there… friend or foe?
It’s pretty dark
this walk in the park
what’s that you hear?
A noise so queer
Sounds like a chainsaw
cutting pumpkins raw
your knees start to shake
and your belly turns to fear
you look to the ground
and see a severed ear
What the Hell is going on?
Body parts strewn across the lawn
you’re still holding your girlfriend’s hand
in this field of bloodied sand
but then you discover that is all
and then your skin really starts to crawl
where’s the rest of her?
then you see the best of her.
Her lovely head sits astride a pole
her eyes have that fiery glow
you open your mouth to scream
your own head comes apart at the seam
but look on the bright side
as your head rolls on the bloodied tide
your father won’t kill you for the dent when you get home
as your tortured spirit seeks a place to roam.
– A Halloween poem
written by Christopher
Saturday October 18th
2014.
Humourous Rhyming Haiku About The Unicorn
A horse with a horn
more pretty than foot with corn
this the Unicorn
Haiku On The Death of Seamus Heaney
Bard Seamus Heaney
now joins Ireland’s great poets
in hills forever green
Haiku I Wrote About Jesus
Haiku I Wrote About Jesus
Lord Jesus on Cross
his arms nailed but outstretched
Love embraces in pain
Renfield’s Lottery Ticket Or Wagging The Dog Cerberus
Renfield found nothing wrong with his selection of lottery picks
but the combination caused Cerberus to cross the River Styx
and the result of Cerberus’ 3 heads abandoning their posts
would cause this planet Earth to be overrun with ghosts.
-A vampire novel poem
written by Christopher
during the Midnight Hour
early Wednesday morning
July 24th 2013
when ghosts are out
prowling about.
One Line Poetic Reflection After Having Watched A Hallmark Christmas Romance Movie This Evening
November 27, 2020 at 11:36 pm (Commentary, Inspiration, Life, love, Poetry, Romance) (Christmas, poetry, snowfall, winter)
A Christmas snowfall is God’s gentle baptism of the Earth in the darkest of winter.
-Christopher Dracul Van Helsing
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