Winnipeg Poem
Created | Updated May 30, 2002
I posted about Jesus on this site 3 years ago. Things are going well and I now live in Toronto. I am going to write a poem about what I remember of my old Prairie Town.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Winnipeg - I am
Hot streets summer time and the boys with go-karts - me
Quiet Streets loud streets with the ring of Laughter
Every day like a week-end so much time things to build
Laidlaw school with its yellow monkey-bars
Big school fields with scorched summer grass,
blue ribbons for track and field.
Mr. Bramwell and tent caterpillars running on the asphalt.
Seven year-olds with posters of Farah Fawcett .
Who's she?
Winter snow snow snow dark by 6:42 pm (red digital) and the only sound in the night of you in your snow suit
trudge trudge trudge pulling an impossibly slick tobaggan to the banks of the river. Brothers breathing ... breath frozen on scarves like
musty frost crystal breathing breath on the sky moonlight and still-shaking piercings of starlight.
Swoosh sweating in that cold -20 the "most fun ever."
Winters are where you notice you are getting older. Exams intrude and you think about the future doing better and the streets of summer give way to bicycles to get you there faster.
Prairie paper route and maybe selling subscriptions more reason for the bike.
High school school becomes the thing St. Pauls and goodbye disco I don't like Mondays read the hobbit clash at high school dungeons and dragons latin math class loook at those computers eric honour roll and girlfriend graduation more spare cash and now you need a car and the summers become an impossibly-long bout of drinking and night clubs and its your life on the prairie streets with the spiraling city lights and the girls at the bar and the parking lot fights.
Where and what should I do and the theatre and the marks at the degree at the university get shorter as the longing grows longer as you look for life and your big part be someone and somebody and keep your options only and what happened to all those
high school friends but the theatre and the parties and oooo
that wasn't a good night.
And the self-reflection takes place later and longer and you see your face and its beautiful in the mirror light and so was hers - what was that about Narcissus? Oh yeah 10 years I should have gone to that renuion and I think about those high school guys more often .... why?
And 15 years later the team wins again that you watched the year you graduated... that quarterback who is 17 is the little brother of the guy who had the go cart one block over and who was the best player in your year 15 years earlier it was and Chris - 'Albie' sees me and he and I are the only ones there and he says
Khal
"where is everyone - I thought they would be here"
but he laughs.
I remember that I looked for Eric that same day - I thought he should come but at least we did those Shakespeare plays together.
I 'll phone him now. In high school Bruce was our friend and he was reading Hitch-Hikers and was laughing at the part about the alien insulting everyone. We were skipping honours math and laughing
and laughing like summer prairie days.
Long
long
ago...
but
that laughter is still there. I heard it only last year when i got into a hot air ballon over Winnipeg. impossibly green, all those trees, your old town's sound of traffic dies away and all you hear are the kids voices laughing on an impossibly long summer day. Laughter like stiff foil diamonds rolling up into the sky - past you. In the right spot you can still hear it.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Winnipeg - I am
Hot streets summer time and the boys with go-karts - me
Quiet Streets loud streets with the ring of Laughter
Every day like a week-end so much time things to build
Laidlaw school with its yellow monkey-bars
Big school fields with scorched summer grass,
blue ribbons for track and field.
Mr. Bramwell and tent caterpillars running on the asphalt.
Seven year-olds with posters of Farah Fawcett .
Who's she?
Winter snow snow snow dark by 6:42 pm (red digital) and the only sound in the night of you in your snow suit
trudge trudge trudge pulling an impossibly slick tobaggan to the banks of the river. Brothers breathing ... breath frozen on scarves like
musty frost crystal breathing breath on the sky moonlight and still-shaking piercings of starlight.
Swoosh sweating in that cold -20 the "most fun ever."
Winters are where you notice you are getting older. Exams intrude and you think about the future doing better and the streets of summer give way to bicycles to get you there faster.
Prairie paper route and maybe selling subscriptions more reason for the bike.
High school school becomes the thing St. Pauls and goodbye disco I don't like Mondays read the hobbit clash at high school dungeons and dragons latin math class loook at those computers eric honour roll and girlfriend graduation more spare cash and now you need a car and the summers become an impossibly-long bout of drinking and night clubs and its your life on the prairie streets with the spiraling city lights and the girls at the bar and the parking lot fights.
Where and what should I do and the theatre and the marks at the degree at the university get shorter as the longing grows longer as you look for life and your big part be someone and somebody and keep your options only and what happened to all those
high school friends but the theatre and the parties and oooo
that wasn't a good night.
And the self-reflection takes place later and longer and you see your face and its beautiful in the mirror light and so was hers - what was that about Narcissus? Oh yeah 10 years I should have gone to that renuion and I think about those high school guys more often .... why?
And 15 years later the team wins again that you watched the year you graduated... that quarterback who is 17 is the little brother of the guy who had the go cart one block over and who was the best player in your year 15 years earlier it was and Chris - 'Albie' sees me and he and I are the only ones there and he says
Khal
"where is everyone - I thought they would be here"
but he laughs.
I remember that I looked for Eric that same day - I thought he should come but at least we did those Shakespeare plays together.
I 'll phone him now. In high school Bruce was our friend and he was reading Hitch-Hikers and was laughing at the part about the alien insulting everyone. We were skipping honours math and laughing
and laughing like summer prairie days.
Long
long
ago...
but
that laughter is still there. I heard it only last year when i got into a hot air ballon over Winnipeg. impossibly green, all those trees, your old town's sound of traffic dies away and all you hear are the kids voices laughing on an impossibly long summer day. Laughter like stiff foil diamonds rolling up into the sky - past you. In the right spot you can still hear it.
