Monday, April 1, 2019

HEAVEN LAKE ( 27 ) ~








Mister






Across the brawn of the river

St. Lawrence from Old Montreal

In a park tree topped by sunshine

We walked and only stopped

Once because we just had to

Listen to a man off by himself

With no hat down or instrument

Case open who sat straight up

On a bench with his both feet

Dancing ‘cause you see beside

This water and flowing up into 

The trees and looking back to

The city we all could hear

His concertina










Dirty Old Town





We used to have a rat that lived in the house

A big old rat who lived under the bathroom floor boards

Being an old house with so many holes the rat had

his own way of coming up through the floor and

onto the bathtub and stealing the soap, he loved the soap

We’d go in to take a bath and see the rat had eaten a bit more of the     soap

There wasn't much you could do, you had a rat in the house

Until I shot it, because I had to, because we had a baby and

you can't have a rat and a baby, so the rat had to go

I used to have a friend who always brought up how I

shot the rat right in front of him right in broad

daylight, almost nicked the toilet

I remember the rat, and the rifle, the toilet, but not the friend

Sweetheart had a fat pink warm and cuddly chair

in the kitchen that she would curl up in on the coldest

mornings and we still get a little sick to think that

the rat had moved into the chair after it had moved

out from under the bathroom floor boards and still

ate the soap — that means he walked across the kitchen










After Awhile




you’ll notice —

the toughest wood to split

burns the warmest







You Can





toss an apple

core to the

river



but never get

to float that

free






Answer






We wanted to know

Where all the snow was



All winter no snowshoeing

But long hikes and ice-skating



Near spring we drove out

Of the valley up to



The mountains and there a

Lonely road of deep snow was



____________________



Bob Arnold
Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018