Dear Justin - A Poem by Dave Jaffe

                  Dear Justin

     Dear Mr. Prime Minister
     Be Justin the Just
      Not Justin the Arrogant.
       Remember
     That Quebec is not the only province in Canada
     And that other provinces sometimes get angy too.
     (But they don't threaten to secede).
   
     Don't forget
     The 325 promises you made
     During tense election days.
     Don't break most of them
     At once or immediately.

     Listen to the old wise men of the Liberal Party.
     Whose heads are wreathed
      With cynicism arrogance and power.
     But remember
     The young people who voted for you
     Their hands full of hope
     As they cast their ballots.
     Think of the homeless and the poorest
     Laying their creased faces down on sidewalks
     Or in crowded shelters
     Day after day
     Night after night.
   
      And don't forget
     The 149 Indian reserves
     That have to boil their water.
      Didn't your mother
      Once campaign
      For clean water around the world?
      Shouldn't you do the same for our First Nations?
     
      And don't end your time at 24 Sussex Drive
      In an orgy of patronage
      As your father did.

    Be wise, be compassionate.
    be Justin the Just.

      

My Knees A Poem by Dave Jaffe

                                 My Knees

            My knees
            Are battered broken
             And wrenched all out of shape.


            My knees
            are ugly twisted and
            misshapen.


            My knees
            Are painful hurting bruised and
            Filled with pain
            Especially when it rains.   


            Yet my knees
             Keep me moving
             Push me out of doors
             Into mornings of welcoming sun rays and blue skies.
             They glide through
             The water when I swim
             They sit me down in restaurants
              Raise me up from drowsy armchairs
             Walk me through
             Upscale malls and scrappy ones too.
             They bend me down to sleep.


             It's amazing
             That my knees still work
             Sometimes.
             
            

Montreal Spring Days by Dave Jaffe

     Montreal Spring Days


     I loved those days.
     The snow the snow
      Piled up by months of winter
      Was melting under the mild yellow sun.
      At night time I slip but don't fall
      On the freezing sidewalk
      As water hardened into ice.
      Today I would shrink from the night's dangers.
       But back then
       Young and frisky
        I crunched the ice with my supple feet.


       Soon, too soon
       Summer's heat would descend on the city
       And crush me in its humid grasp.
       Yet now it was spring in Montreal
       And the clear night sky
       Curved like a dark joyful bowl above me,
       While ice froze below.


       I loved those days and nights
       They were lovely
        In the spring time of my life.
      
      
       
       
      

Beyond The Present by Dave Jaffe

                    Beyond The Present by Dave Jaffe




      Time can't be gathered in your hands
       It moves like the crow's flight
       A falling black shriek
        In a grey autumn sky
       Or it floats in a calm blue sea
        Of waving memories.


        In city streets
        Giant bulldozers noisily
        Crush memories into dust.
        While giant blue grey condos
        Slowly rise from the underground
        And throw shadows
        On the human dots below.



        Old people like me
        Are wafted into the past by poetry or music
        Or look at old landscapes.
        There I dwell in lands
         Empty of backfiring cars
         The electric whine of the carpenter's saw
          And the brute noise of the jackhammer.
         My world is
         Small and beautiful,
          Like the aspens standing in white quiet coloumns,
          In a photo I took long ago
          Outside of a town whose name I have forgotten.