rig prayers

click wheel spins
rolling through
three thousand songs

bass rolls out
over the rush hour cars
stuck
  just music
       and time
for traffic jam prayers

new rig

still rising monk early
stumbling for coffee
up into the warming rig
short city hauls
replace
long temple halls


Brother Ollie ~ Trucker Poet

swishy dress

dressed for a party
 long formal dress
fetching
for a big Montreal ball

"dolled-up" she called it

glorious night
lights, dancing, music
cute army boys

back home
to the north
on the 7:30 train
same swishy dress

memories
vague and beautiful





Big hiatus for the Tired Monk, but a few poems are brewing.  This from a little fractured tail my Grandmother told me about a night out in Montreal in the forties.  Her suitcase got left behind, so she partied all night, and wore the same fancy dress home in the morning...scandalous. 

kitchen concert

last hot dish
toweled dry
stacked neat
a strong cup brewed

novice brings
Brother Ollie his guitar
tunes it up good
strums soft
slow
feeling it out

songs come
 Neil, Gord, Bruce
build up big
power chords
gutsy blue rhythms

solid kitchen concert

power

dark dreams

the last knife finally drops
no longer pinning shoulder blade robes
clanks to the ground
     done
an era ends

then one new keen blade flashes
stabs to the face

 monk jumps up
bedding flies
               3:37

brews tea
waits by the window
for dawn

one poet

his robes
gone
shaved head
grown in
sacred vows
forgotten

paths
don't cross
songs
left unsung
jokes
undelivered

in community
no more
yet connected
by poems

lingering

the monk waits
leaves the key turned
to that one power click
just enough to keep
the radio running

parking lot lingers
'til the last strains
of a beautiful song