Selected Prose Volumes include:                          
  “ Ardmore Golf Course and North Saanich 1946 ”

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Poems From: Wally's Wilderness Adventures

Marathon of Hope for Habitat

You tuft-eared Lynx

Once wild and free in own home territory

You became Specimen BC-03-M-02

captured as young adult , a bi-national transplant 

Canada to U.S. Kamloops to Grand Junction

Transported like a criminal

Not for sterilization but for forced infidelity

To sire babies, enrich gene pools.

Because lynx habitats had been destroyed in Colorado.

But you yearned for home and family

You were urged to trek homeward-bound, in a cross-border odyssey. 2000 kilometres!

Leaping through sunsets and sunrises, clawing to alpine views.

Snatched your padded paws from the path of screeching Michelins

Skirted the toxic cesspools of industry

What mission control, what GPS gave you guidance?

Your challenge was neither drought nor mountains but artificial highways, parking lots, and man

To Banff Canada, 2010. No UV or police escort for you, marathon hero like Terry Fox,

Your goal was brought to a strangled pain, neck noosed by trap,

Man made like cancer in the leg.

You didn’t get your reunion, didn’t get to touch water in a northern Pacific watershed, see Mom,

touch first love, curl up in the old lairs of home.

Instead, you were struck down by cell suburbs replicating to the loss of habitat and limb.

I could name you Terry but you deserve better than a human moniker

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From: Poems From Away : Fun Poems

 

Heritage Restorations

Are you:

Searching for decoration tips?

For a historically correct home renovation.

Wanting period wallpaper designs just so?

Fussing about china décor, floral or?

Getting silver ware that says “colonial”?

And fabric and wall trim decade authentic?

 

Where ought you go for that information?

The answer is closer to your slippers than you think.

That’s if you are in the heritage home you want to restore.

If you are a serious Heritologist call in a Nestologist

That’s the guy who does Nestectomies.

 

Now if you live in Alberta, forget about it!

You cannot properly restore a home there.

That’s because Rattus Rattus and Rattus Norvegicus

Have been poisoned, eradicated, drowned in oil sands

Even pet rats like Matilda taken to Alberta have been deported.

Yes I am talking about rats.

Historians, architects, and scientists say that rats can be curators

Of wonderful collections! They gather a random sampling of everyday things

And provide a look at how people lived in different eras.

Generations of rats can occupy the same nest

With piles of delightful refuse dusty and rank

Crammed into confined spaces of attics, eaves, or basements.

Dissertations have been written by studying the layers

Of these major archeological caches above ground!

Are you a do-it-yourself type?

Go have a look behind pantry or hearth.

You’ll need to look beyond the crystallized urine

That encases your treasure of paper, from journal pages,

Magazines and newspapers, and that adheres to

China fragments, silverware, and shiny objects.

Ware a protective mask, gloves, and disposable cloak!

Without any formal training you can become a Nestologist

And perform your own Nestectomies.

Sadly because most old-house owners do not appreciate rats’ nests

Wonderful collections of things from The Colonial period of Vancouver Island

Went into the trash. Poor rats who are not valued as archivists!

Come to think of it, even human curators are banished

To archival bins of basements, log cabins and self-storage units

Undervalued.

 
Wally du Temple

 

 

 Poems From Welfare Wally's War