New York

Northern Ireland was the training ground

I often wondered how civil rights led

to bullets and bombs in such a short time

Northern Ireland was the training ground

for the hidden ones to show us terror

New York was the beginning or end of it



The twin towers did not fall they were pushed

Air India explodes of the southern coast of Ireland



My God in the name of Jesus

WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP

Life

Poetry is a release for me in moments
to capture whatever words are inside
my day to day life is a so difficult
in that I am the long suffering wife
of a man who was head injured left
frontal lobe it is complicated as
so little is known about the brain
and I can only speak from this place
of distorted confusing reality life
how I do it I have no idea I am so
utterly exhausted

oh my beloved you are a constant
I have spoiled you so much let you
take my every moment for so long
my only identity is I am your wife
my name is Sheila and I have been
you wife since 12th January 1991

oh what a journey a long journey
it has been since you blue eyes
stole my heart away and you said
you were head injured and I asked
if you have thoughts......maybe
we all react but I think you more
than any

you are straight from God
you are only in the moment sweet
but you are not like me at all now
you belong with the dreamers now


You wanted to be a natural doctor
when they took your life away on
that operating table you lost it
you lost the ability to decide and
yet your own inner strength gave
you the power and determination to
live to escape to the west coast
you told me the driver of the other
car spaced out for five minutes and
you were left spaced out for life
IT WAS THE DOCTOR AT THE HOSPITAL
WHO CAUSED YOUR HEAD INJURY
I met you
on the day the Gulf war started I
met you in your cabin and I fell into
you blue eyes so deeply I drowned

Canada

We arrived in the winter in Ontario
the brochure said Hamilton was mild
the temperature plummeted minus 28
that kind of cold was unknown to us
immigration office was colder yet
indifferent to my plight to work
they did not need nurses they said
I thought this cold made people well

I got busted for ignoring their rules
Immigration officers came to see me
threatened me with deportation now
for earning twenty dollars a week
I told them I hated their country

The blessing in disguise was they
helped me become a landed immigrant
I would not swear allegations to the
one called Queen instead I swore her
her name was really Betty Windsor
My allegations Chief Dan George
He is on the spirit of Canada

I then affirmed to uphold the laws of
Canada with some contempt I replied
Of course I will uphold the laws as
long as they make sense to me I will

Little did I know that seventeen years
later I would be sitting in a jail I
upheld the ancient laws that protect
ancient forests from destruction I
got sentenced to six months in jail
maximum security they let me know
I came to Canada to wake up
this sleeping dog

weeds and grass

tangled mess you take over and smother
all the flowers I planted in the ground
you grow as fast as you can while I sleep
and in the morning there you are grinning
showing me your powerful ways of being
and how impossible you are to pull up
dare me to see your beauty now and whisper
oh let wild things grow and forget order

grass shouts at me look I hold rain drops
you might want neat cut well ordered lawn
but I am a dandelion and you can make mead
buttercups chamomile purple colored flowers
I did not plant you and yet there you are
for the life of I cannot figure it out now

My Island

My bear self needed to heal past wounds
To listen to the song of sweet robins
To learn the language of deer and owl
To walk where ancient ones had walked
Laich-Kwil-Tach
K'omoks
Qualicum

In the smoke filled longhouse listen now
to hear them sing their nature songs
to dance the thunder bird mask with rattles
while the drummers drum deer skin beats

The scent of cooking salmon near the fire
fills the air and cedar smells so sweet
Generations down thru time they had
no stores
no ferry
no cell phone
no computer
no cell towers
or television
they had stories to tell about the day
they hunted deer
gathered the ripe
huckle berries
salmon berries
oh how they feasted on
herring
cod
oyster
Oh how they were in tune with nature
With the great mystery of everyday life

These tribal folk are this islands ancestors
The land remembers them we need to remember them too

Cutting Broom

Dear lovely yellow determined broom
you belong on wild mountain sides
in far of Scotland where pipers play

you look nice smell sweet
but your taking over my yard
and the time has come for you to go

The holly bush and wild berry snag
my broom puller as I dig
and pulled your shallow roots

you fall with dignity and grace
humming bees try to warn me off

Beloved broom I send you back distant
highlands where you can hear the piper
play you do not belong here in Canada
in fact your a bit like myself dear one

Melissa Fung

They put you down a hole in Afghanistan
Like a mole they put you in a hole in
the dusty earth in a prison for ransom
You survived on prayer and inner strength
Memories of family loved ones and letters
you penned to reassure them you were OK
Beloved and saintly woman baring the fumes
of dust and dirt and filth of greedy men
your rosary beads gave comfort in darkness
tears came when all else failed you alone
I read your book under an afghan sky from
comfort of my warm bed you slept on rock
Each day I wait with you for your freedom
Thank God they did not rape your body that
they had some decency from their own faith
You took time to pen your survival and I
turned the pages with you as you laid bare
the slow turning of time of twenty five days
you made it Melissa you made it to Kabul
but you passed through the shadows first
in your hell hole of filth and stench below
never knowing where the story was going to end

The Storm

On the 11th December 2007,the pilot of a small plane flying out of Qualicum Airport
reported to the Comox Airbase,that he saw,four water spouts,in Bayne Sound, join together and form into a three hundred foot spout that was a quarter of a mile across. That water spout hit Denman Island about 4.11 pm ...this is my poem

It was no wind like any other that quiet afternoon
It blew across our farm without any sound at all
the line of tall trees began to toss and turn then
gyrate down their roots that clung desperate to earth


The ferry was pulling into the dock when the wind rose
and the tall lamp standard fell in crashing metal tone
I heard it missed a crew member by the breath of a hare
Ethel was the lead car of the ferry as all hell broke
Cool calm and collected as is her way she kept going
up the hill into a throng of wild flying tree boughs
Ben her grandson close beside her in the car eyes agog


The light house keeper on Chrome island reported a wall
of water and wind carrying of planks of his decking
like a kite in motion they flew out into the chuck
all over the island in a split of a second hydro poles
fell like toothpicks pulling down thick cable haphazardly

In eleven minutes our precious island looked like Beirut
no road was passable until the boys fired up chain saws
strong men cutting pathways to fit a car width between
the gigantic trees that has no chance in that strong force
of kundaline divine feminine water rage
I think Des Kennedy called it all up when he revealed his
Greek God naked image the Sunday before to the gray hairs
at the food bank fund raiser in the old warm community hall
hysterical laughter of repressed sexual desires roared out
and it took some time for them to compose themselves again
I wonder was it them who called in this three hundred foot
wave of water to cool the passions of their raging desires
you just never know where nature is concerned now do you

Thirteen minute ramble one

Would you listen to thone
wee birds singing
if only we had a note
like them to share





Growing up in the land of Seamus Heaney
Van Morrison and Edna O'Brien how could
I not fall in love with sound of stone

Jimmy described the dance hall "Boys it
was so crowded there was no room
to fall down"
or he would scold and say "would you have
a titter of wit"
or "did you come up the river
in a bubble"
intertwined with the
ancient tribe of Delradia
a stone was a stane
a door was a dour
a spout a spoot
diarrhea..dirrirr....two farts and a splash
and daddy taught me his alphabet...
absha
badsha,
lmnopq
rustvw
xyz



my beloved Ballyheather
was a place of peace
underneath a great blue sky the rain fell
in a thunderous roar or in a sweet warm drizzle

ah Jesus the memory banks are overflowing
of wee birds
drinking the fresh cream from
early delivered milk bottles
As they pecked through the tin foil
and we didny mind sharing with them
for their songs were so sweet


The fairy tree of hawthorn would grow
and be respected and never touched
farmers would cut around the bush
to not
disturb the magic of them little people

the rivers were a place to fish or
contemplate the wells blessed each spring
with a sprig of wild garlic and thyme
the land sad with voices of the past
of starvation ships setting out across
the cold Atlantic as millions fled

I was born six years after the war that
ended in forty five and dreamed of Germans
raiding the house where I hid in the attic

Daddy brought home those memories along
with medals and stories of trenches in France

I grew
safe and sound amongst fields of wheat and corn
working in potato fields at nine years old
hands and fingers caloused from gathering
them spuds from healthy brown earth
or
writing a hundred labels at the kitchen table

we shipped our fresh potatoes to distant tables

On sunday we went to church me and daddy
when I asked him why he gave them money
he would tell me he was paying his way
to heaven

For the longest time I thought Jesus
was crucified in derry the walled city
nine miles down the road

We lived in a stone house with stairs
and carried water from the spout that
mammy washed the heavy blankets in

eighteen years of wandering the
hills exploring and climbing bared wire
fences where tufts of sheep wool caught
blowing in the wind like a ancient prayer

we walked to school in the north wind
that turned our knees blue

We chatted endlessly while the
grandfather clocked ticked in
the corner
while granny knit socks

Daddy rode a Raleigh bicycle till he
turned seventy four
me and mammy walked
six miles was to catch the bus to Strabane
mammy would trade walking shoes for
a pair of modest high heels for town

Turning sixty

The time went so fast from here
Till I was a wee girl walking
Amongst the purple heather hills
Now I live on the far side of Canada
A fish out of water to be sure
Life is like that you know as
you are lifted from a known place
and dropped into a place unknown
but the turning of wheel on karma
shows you a thing or two about you
I'm here as I am here for reason
To embrace the beauty of myself
To find the meaning in meaningless
Caught in an eddy of time I am
On Denman Island of the great quiet
Oh beloved place surround me now
As I hear the strangers meeting
Ah sure you must remember the way
It is the same way you came in
In reality I am only turning six

Punchlatt Island

Shelter from the storm or life
my eyes feast on green grass
yellow buttercups and tall trees
in my orchard birds sing sweetly
and days fade into night slowly
How I love the spring time here
when eagles soar and ravens squawk
where everything stands still now
and the robin sings me to sleep
and dawn chorus wakes me at daybreak

Canada

I came here in the winter of my thirtieth year
Looking for Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell
Oh Canada you froze my bones in that first year
I jumped your immigration hoops annoyed at you
My humanitarian degrees meant nothing at all
You wanted scientists with white lab coats
Scientists who washed their hands first.

Nurses were not needed you said and I thought
it was because you all lived under the snow
I do not belong here I know that now I am a misfit
Just another lonely immigrant pinning for meaning
Standing in the shade of great Douglas Firs

I do not belong here I am not english enough
I drive in the exit gate that is my first clue

I was here some time ago on the Prairies
In a tipi before there was a Canada or America
I lived with buffalo wild sage and sweet roots
I just need to find my peace of sacred ground...again