Lone Dog

(A tribute to the courage and determination of Terry Fox)


Run Terry, run! Run Terry, run! –
...

Have you ever spent a night in the North 'neath the
limbs of the sheltering pines,
When the silence stabs at your pounding heart and the
sounds play tricks with your mind?
...

Grand symbol of the northern lakes
Where you've returned once more,
The echoes of your eerie cry
Awake the distant shore.
...

Noble Tecumseh;
Chief of the Shawnee;
Where do your naked bones
Rest `neath the soil?
...

(An 'Education Week' Rap)

Education, education;
There's nothing quite like education!
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I have a father whom I do not know.
He left our family many years ago.
I often wonder why he went away.
Oh, how my life has changed since that dark day!
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Witch's brew. Witch's brew.
Add a finger to the wicked stew.
Snakes and snails, lizard's tails,
A young girl's heart and an eye or two.
...

(On Devil's Night)


Quick! Inside the house! Dim the lights!
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A match that's spent. A failed attempt.
I must find wood that's drier.
A puff of smoke. A flicker weak.
A flash! A flare! A fire!
...

On a cold but sunny December day,
I wandered down to the ice-strewn banks
of the Detroit River
and observed, before me, a flotilla of ice rafts
...

Blood red ran the eastern horizon.
Fire red was the rising sun,
As a few brave British sailors
Took their stations by the guns.
...

Oh, where are your heroes,
O Canada?
Oh, where are your heroes
This day?
...

Have you touched the life of one person today?
Have you aided someone in need?

Have you wiped the tears from a saddened face
...

`Tis given not to everyone
Who walks along life's road.
And though I've waited all my life
It's never been bestowed.
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A godlier man, there never lived -
My dear old Uncle Fred,
And throngs should fill the funeral home
When word comes that he's dead.
...

(Dedicated to my friend Carlos Velasquez who shared many of his secrets with me)

There's a wooden box that I buried deep
Where a rocky trail still winds.
...

I should have gone to your grave today
As many others do,
And lay some flowers in a small bouquet
Near the headstone carved for you.
...

(Written by my mother and discovered after her death)


My sons, it will not ever be that Love
...

Now I know that most don't believe in ghosts
and I was one of these,
`Til one bitter night I saw a sight
that would make your blood nigh freeze,
...

At the ripe old age of seventy-four,
With nothing better to do,
I sat in McDonald's sipping a cup of coffee
And watching the latest news on their TV.
...