Tag: paper

Two Five Three Six

ned Leave a comment

Letters from my ancestors
Have each spelled out ten names
Two to be used in case of emergency
Five for female spawn
Three for patriarchal ties
And six as shadows of mine own heart.

I love each one as any man can
I’ve researched each story true,
Chosen from my memory
I’ve drawn each one out, too.
I hold my head up high for them;
Each they’ve passed to me their secrets.
In my hands I see their scars
So, too, I see their years.

Through their streets I have sure walked
I’ve also gone for a ride
Sitting in the back seat
Of a stuffed full 1965 Studebaker
Heading out on summer vacation.
I’ve opened the door on Union Street
To taste homemade crabcakes and beans,
I’ve rode the long trail home
Passed Devick Lake out on the range.

So each of the names I keep at the helm
Awaiting imminent deployment,
Like roses saved in a jar
A timeless memorial stored as fondness,
An old lined sheet of blank paper
Found in the desk of y’or.

Fences (day 3124)

ned Leave a comment

It would have made more sense
Had the locks been undone
But the height of the fence
Resisted the direction begun.

So the height was evaluated
Prospects were gathered
Witnesses were brought in
And a document was then signed.

Reduced then to tears
The paper found it’s owner
Lost in a myriad of fears
And a tall, tall fence to get over.

Ode To My Favourite Pen (day 3067)

ned Leave a comment

I found you down a darkened road
Construction and rainy smells
Inside an old historic building
In to what felt like a historic store.
The walls were lined
With countless pens
And items supporting pens,
All illuminated so eloquently
Showcasing the finest specimens
Any penman could want.
In here I walked back and forth,
And fellow patrons wandered deep in thought,
Where finally in the deepest corner
I found you resting on a stand
Not a fingerprint laid your barrel.

And now so many years have passed
Yet not once have you let me down
Though the world we’ve traveled by foot
No wear shows upon your barrel,
Your nib a perfect flow.
And your mark has been inscribed
On countless pads sent afar
With, what I believe, quite an exquisite touch
Unique to me, my penman mark
You so critically help me lay.
I look and hold you every day,
Proud to know you by feel and weight
To have you by my side,
And to know that when I need you most
You’ll be right where I lay you down
Ready with your perfect balance
Upon paper we do play.

Back Endings (day 2283)

ned Leave a comment

I never wanted to fall apart like this
Leaving pages bent and pencils broken
My back pages are written upside down
And my back pockets are filled with memories
That keep reminding me I’ve gone away.
Rusty backstops echo number five
From a once was now gone away
And we might send a letter
To remind you we’re far from you are home.
I close my eyes and wind lays your whispers
Upon my hardly kempt whiskers
With leaves blowing too early now
For autumn to be upon us,
Yet every breath I hear coming towards me
Leaves traces of my sadness
Rolling along to the tune of the trans-Canada
Like coyotes howling in the night
Reminding me you’re far away.
But I don’t want to say goodnight
I don’t want to wipe the tears
That cool my evening breeze,
I want to take back my endings
I never meant to write down
In a love poem I never meant to send,
No, I want to listen to the stars
Until connection has been made
And my back pockets hold bits of paper
Your pencils wrote to me.

Back Endings by Ned Tobin

Moon at Midnight – Part XXXXXXIX (day 2043)

ned 1 Comment

(part XXXXXXVIII)

For three days we hunted
And for three days we found nothing
That would serve as any kind of sustenance
We of course found plenty of squirrels
And small birds to feed us
But deer, elk, buffalo, moose…
Nothing.

I woke up on the morning of the fourth day
Feeling like I had been charged with bolt of lightening
Awake from a dream that had left me silent all morning
As we packed up and prepared to break camp
Moon Cow came over and looked at my arrows
And asked if I was alright
I said yes, I’ve never felt better
And he asked about my dream
Moon Cow always had a sense about these kind of things
I think that’s part of the medicine man in him.

“When I was young
My mother used to come into my room
In the early hours of the day
And tell me that my father had just left again
She would cry to me
And I was..
Hardly able to understand what that meant
But her crying
Would alert me, and wake me up
And I would feel like I had to protect her
I was responsible for her
An assumed set of duties
That charged me with purpose
You should have seen me
Walking down the street
With two cents in my pocket
Going to buy the daily bread and a paper for mom
I’d say hi to all the folks I knew
And they’d smile back at me
Knowing and seeing the determination in my eyes
The responsibility I had in my shoes
They knew my father
Some would even stuff a nickle
Into my well worn pockets
I’d smile and say: ‘thank you m’am’
And charge off on my way
When I’d return home
Mother would be waiting with a broom
For the paper to devour
With the hopes she would find something better
For herself and me, I guess
In my dream I remembered my determination
For a better tomorrow
The perseverance that was required of me
I feel it now
And it makes me think about the future.

part XXXXXXX

Grandfather’s Shop (day 1557)

ned Leave a comment

A sentence was all I wrote
On a dusty pad of paper
Laying on the old workbench
Inside my late grandfather’s shop.
I knew he was still around there,
He spoke to me in hanging machine parts
Scattered about full walls.
Then I whispered goodnight
And turned down the lights
Making sure the heavy door
Was shut the way he’d shown me how.

Ashram Day 18 (day 1421)

ned Leave a comment

When this voice begins to rise
Like a letter I did not write
Could you hold your hand out now?
I’m a Saint and you’re the cloud.

If this sound was more then that,
If words were meant for writing
Would the pen keep upright marks?
To pause between the breaths.

All my paper has begun to curl,
And you’re the little triangles
I’ve drawn around the page
To fit between my mind.