JonArno Lawson's first book since his internationally acclaimed award-winning Sidewalk Flowers is a collection of poetry, Hobo's Crowbar, with woodcut illustrations by Alec Dempster, a collection of poems brimming with whimsical wordplay, rollicking rhymes, and funny, profound, occasionally contrarian life lessons for children of all ages.
We are pleased to feature an excerpt here.
*****
Spunky Dunker
There was a spunky dunker who swept across the flux
she floated in the flotsam
and trudgened in her tux
Shouts from the shore
Had her turning about
where wrathful officers hollered her out
Her peace was disturbed
So as smooth as a trout
She disappeared under the ducks.
**
Under a Billboard at Bathurst and Eglinton
Under a billboard at Bathurst and Eglinton
Using nothing but my eyes
I bought some clouds—
Because they were big and self-sufficient
but I bought them too for protection—
Since a friend of mine
Once safely walked this same street
under similar clouds
They passed over the same sidewalks she passed over
But the past can’t be touched, and you can’t touch clouds
And there’s something wrong inside me
and the clouds might solve it ...
I bought them also because they’re grey without being depressing— And slow, but not in a way that makes me impatient
Because having nowhere to be or go
Doesn’t stop them from being or going
They travel like jokes
So I accept them as natural
See how they activate my wit
without taking credit
Because they ask nothing
And pull me gently away
from the great loneliness
to which no one gets accustomed
but the clouds.
**
Exits Exist
Exits exist
Entrances too
Look and you’ll find them
In all that you do
**
Sink
You’re driven by desire
I’m drifting on a whim
You’re heading for the centre
I’m clinging to the rim
You keep growing brighter
I keep going dim
You go I stop
You lift I drop
You stare I blink
We’re out of sync
And when it’s time to dive straight in
You won’t need to stop to think
You’ll dive in and swim and swim—
I’ll slip off the edge and sink.
**
At the End of the World
In come the oceans
Out go the mountains
Volcanoes erupting
Like soda pop fountains
Souls of our ancestors
Rose up and swirled
To watch from the moon
At the end of the world.
**
From the book The Hobo's Crowbar, © 2016, by JonArno Lawson and Alec Dempster. Published in 2016 by Porcupine's Quill. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.