Fishing Old Wives Lake is a collection of stories and reflections, told through poetry, about growing up on a ranch in the 40s, 50s and 60s and Neil’s wanderings to the present day. It explores relationships with nature, family, friends and neighbors with some nostalgia, a little insight, and a healthy dose of cowboy humor.

Whether this is a trip back to your own childhood or to a place you’ve never been this book will surround you with the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of life on the ranch, connecting you with that pace of life and place in time.

Contact us to purchase your copy.
Ebook and Large Print Editions coming soon.

Fishing Old Wives Lake is published by Blue Accordion Press
ISBN: 978-1-9994330-0-0 Published August 1, 2018
288pg CAN $19.99

OFF TO SCHOOL

They sent me off to school today
round-roofed lunchpail packed
with all five stages of grief

Four layer sandwich of
denial
anger
bargaining
and depression
and an apple of acceptance

I don’t think I’ll eat the apple

THE TURKEY SHOOT

Small town Saskatchewan
raising money for the curling rink

Targets fifty feet away
and old bent-sight 22’s to shoot

The trick to bringing a turkey home
was not how well at the bullseye shot
but how fast you learned that life
is sometimes

three inches down

and two to the left of where you aim

A BEDTIME STORY WITH GOD IN IT

After the mother father God
had coupled long in the joy
of telling their he-she she-he selves
stories of suns and moons and planets and plants
and critters to scamper and fly they said why don’t we make one that can tell tales too
and make them come true

and that my dear was you

IT IS ENOUGH

It is enough
that the baby smiles
even if it’s only gas

It is enough
to know that God exists
though it take a lifetime and a minute more

It is enough
that the dog loves you
at the end of a day filled with cats

It is enough
that the rainbow
can arch your back straight again

It is enough
to watch a sunset

It is enough
that leaves fall like butterflies

It is enough
that joy exists
even when others have it all

It is enough
that the other knee feels fine

It is enough
that in dreams you can still fly

It is enough
that poetry is in the bible too

It is enough
that gifts
come in the size of gratitude

ON THE ROAD TO COMPASSION

Empathy, hell I ain’t got no empathy

sympathy maybe for you and for me
when the same thing happened that hurt
but maybe it happened to me once
and to you a hundred times
and I had someone to kiss it better and you don’t

and I can pretend, but I won’t

AND AIN’T WE ALL

Just
energy
slowed enough
to appear as matter
jelly-molded in the shape of story