The Good
Poems by
Jeff Roulston
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
ISBN: 978-0-9920678-1-6
Cover Art: Dion Fitzgerald (www.dvyneart.com)
Copyright 2013 by Jeff Roulston:
Dedication
For Diego
For Noah
For Brooklynn
I pray that Toronto is good to you and your generation,
better than it has been to me and mine
Thank you for the inspiration:
Slay, Fitz, the whole T.C. crue
L, Ekko, Newz
Shanna
R.I.S.E. Poetry
Contents
The World Outside My Two Windows
The Hallway
Life Is...
Fighting To Be...
Please Move Back
Last Stop
Train Of Thought
Shoot For The Moon
As The City Heats Up
The Heart Of The City
Scarborough Is Not Surprised
Red, White And Blue
Validation
I Respect You
Shoes To Fill
About Me
Other Books By Jeff Roulston
Connect With Jeff
The World Outside My Two Windows
Bachelor apartment with a view
Of the drab brick building next door
And the mould in my own window
That the superintendent won't clean
Everyone has a balcony but me
With alcohol- and drug-fueled joy
Emanating for me to share in their
Low-income cut off existence
Where society has replicated itself
In this little slum allowing some to
Escape the stale air I’m breathing
To taste the rich sunshine
In the world outside my two windows
A real job and a living wage allow me to
Escape, for good one day, while the
Privileged stay, trapped on their balconies
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The Hallway
This is a bittersweet place
Where the rent is low
Enough for the roaches and
The people stuck on drugs
The smell of their habits
Being consumed and cooked
Mixes with mouth-watering
Aromas of dinner prepared
By chefs from several
Beautiful countries
Where the rent was lower
Yet, the hallway cleaner
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Life Is...
Life is the sum of the choices you make,
say the rich, old white men
choosing between finely tailored suits
and shirts and ties and Italian leather shoes
each day, and their children
who chose between McGill and U of T, between
Grand Cayman and Turks and
Caicos and backpacking across Europe when
it was over, putting the so-called real world
off for a few months, and their grandchildren
who do not choose between XBox and PS3
and Nintendo Wii 'cause
they can have all three. When in the real
real world our parents chose between
a land with little opportunity for anyone and
a land with opportunity for everyone but us,
between eating a little in public housing
and eating less in a slightly better home,
and we chose between a desk in the hall and
standing up for ourselves, detention
and suspension, the rap game and slinging
crack and practicing a wicked jumpshot or
being the black guy in Black History class
at York University, making something
of ourselves, making money or
making more money for some old,
rich white man, and our kids will choose
between local, arts, magnet and subway
schools, academic and practical courses
of action and over twenty Air Jordan Retro
releases every year, though the quality of
the education and craftsmanship will be
mediocre at best, not to mention their
chance at a degree, good job, fair paycheck,
home-ownership and, least of all,
a meaningful life.
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Fighting To Be...
We're not fighting to be
Doctors and lawyers
Pilots and teachers
Important people
Those dreams are gone
We're not fighting to have
New homes and new cars
New clothes and new shoes
More education
Those are just dreams
We're not fighting to see
New places and things
Faraway wonders
Our own city's life
Life's in the way
We're not fighting to grow
As communities
As true families
As human beings
There is no room
We're not fighting to be
The most talented
On top of the world
The best we can be
We just exist
We're fighting to be
High school graduates
Full-time employees
No Frills customers
TTC riders
Tenement tenants
Out of the projects
Feeding our children
With some left for us
Eligible for
E.I. benefits
Two weekend per month
Fathers to our kids
Not convicted of
Any offense for
Which a pardon has
Not yet been granted
Average people
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Please Move Back
Please move back, Black man, Thank You.
Thank God you are the ones on the front
lines (Hell on Earth) of the war
going on outside. White men are safe
from behind bulletproof vests
made of privilege, the police
state your name (gangster), rank,
serial (killer) number. In other words,
rep yo' set, tell me where you stay.
Why do you stay there? Don't
you want to do something bigger?
Be something more? Go
A little farther (?) back, Black man, Please
remember that standing
still is the same as going
backwards. Going forward,
try standing up for your-
self and your comm-
unity. You have allowed me
to convince you that your
selfishness and materialism
has divided your comm-
unity even more than
colonialism and racism and
capitalism and isms and schisms
out of (your) control
and it worked.
Thank You, Black man, for moving back.
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Last Stop
McCowan is the last stop
You're on you're own now
Hopefully you don't have
Much further to go
Many people that live
Past the last stop have
A harder time getting
Where they want to go
> If your dreams aren't too big
The last stop is good enough
But if you want to be special
You'll still have a ways to go
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Train Of Thought
I went to College but nobody else did.
They were trying to stay forever Yonge,
looking for that fountain of youth, that
money tree, chasing that Pape station,
ending up in front of a Warden at Collins
Bay, where the Union protected the C.O.'s
that watered money trees with the inmates
blood, sweat, tears and addiction. Their
lawyer was their only friend, but
the crown attorney went to Osgoode
Law School too, no wonder they referred to
each other as "my friend." With friends
like that, who needs enemies. God save us,
the Queen is just fine. But we are dying,
destined for hell for a second time
instead of the throne where we once were,
should be and would be King.
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Shoot For The Moon
We are willing to do anything,
to rob, steal, sell that stuff,
to kill even, without blinking,
not because we are bad, but
because we are desperate.
Hungry, not just to eat
or have things, but to be
something, to make some
thing of ourselves, out of
nothing. We are ambitious
too! We have big dreams
too! We just aren't allowed
the same dreams as you.
So we shoot for the moon,
miss, and land among the
stars of the morning news
headlines, dead, another
statistic. A life and death
story written hastily on
deadline. But at least
it is written, unlike so
many that live and die
and never really live.
For if a boy is born
and raised in the ghetto
and never busts a gat
at another boy
in broad daylight,
does he make a sound?
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As The City Heats Up
The biting cold
Of winter in the city
Is made worse by the loneliness
And the isolation
The loneliness and isolation
Are made worse by the throbbing
Heartbeats and voices of the
Neighbours, separated
By only a wall or a stairwell
Or an elevator or a brown fence
How is it possible to feel alone
In an apartment building
Where a hundred people live
Or on a subway
With a thousand people on it
Or in a city
Of almost three million?
As the city freezes
Do our hearts freeze along with it?
The first bright, warm day
Of spring in the city
Is made better by the harshness
Of the winter that we've survived again
But the spring is made bittersweet
By the light the welcome sun shines
On the city's problems
The rich cannot ignore
The struggles of the poor
Now in plain view
And the poor have to look
At the blinding success of the rich
Their green lawns, shiny cars
New fashions and glimmering condos
Shooting skyward
How is it possible that
A stifling, hot, sunny day
Can make some of us
So happy and hungry
For barbecue chicken
Macaroni pie, potato salad
And cold beer dripping with sweat
And others so thirsty and desperate
For money, survival
Respect and revenge
Quenched only by violence?
As the city heats up
Will the bodies pile up in it?
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The Heart Of The City (June 2, 2012)
Amid the confusion
We wait to hear
Is he okay?
Is she okay?
Or another life lost?
Even more lives lost?
The subway's closed
Streetcars sent around
Traffic clogged in
The heart of the city
A broken heart
Broken again
The news on TV
Surely won't let us
Forget the last time
Bullets flew through
The heart of the city
We don't know yet
So we speculate
And hold our breath
The city’s lifeblood
And heart stopped
I hope they didn't die
I hope they aren't black
Like they usually are
Because the news will
Forget too soon
I hope they didn't die
I hope they aren't white
Like she was last time
Because the news will
Never let us forget
I hope they caught them
I hope they aren't black
Like they were last time
Because the news will
Never let us forget
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Scarborough Is Not Surprised (July 16, 2012)
The news reporters
Call it shocking
The police chief
Calls it tragic
The Mayor
Calls it senseless
But we are not
Surprised
Every summer
The temperature
Goes up
Unemployment
Goes up
And desperation
Goes up too
In our Toronto
We watch
The young men
Black and brown men
Poor black and brown men
With nothing to do
And lint-filled pockets
And we feel the tension
And wipe it from our faces
Along with the sweat
And wonder just when
Something like this
Will go down
And then
It does
And we are not
Surprised
And we are used to
Tragedy
And it makes perfect
Sense
But the news reporters
And the police chief
And the mayor
Are surprised
Because this
Never goes down
In their Toronto
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Red, White & Blue
Red is for the blood that's spilled again. It drips and drops delicately or runs wild like a chicken with its head cut off. It darkens the grass cryptically, freezes clumsily on the white snow, hardens in a sticky pool on hot concrete in city summers. Unfulfilled lives go with it. It's for the hearts that stop and break at the same damn time. The embarrassed and freezing faces. The logos on expensive sneaker tongues, with the hat to match.
The blue is for the cold. The stares of the people riding by on the bus, judging. The hands of the police, the steel fingers of their handcuffs on warm skin. The temperature in Maplehurst from October to May. Or Lindsay. Or East Detention. The tone from loved ones on visiting day.
The white is for the people in power that do nothing to help, the cops, the TV reporters. The blank page that would replace the story if newspapers were only allowed to print the truth. The emptin
ess.
The now-empty schedule of the accused, his weekend plans preempted for a date with justice. A real ice queen, that bitch. Ugly too, symmetry of facial features being the basic rule of beauty.
I can see the red, the blue, the white, the lights.
I can feel them creeping through my window at night.
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Validation
It's like living in an inferiority complex
With brown fences and metal plaques.
Trophies, wives don't validate us or
Stamp out our insecurity, out our fury
At playing second fiddle. Number one
Prospects, first round picks, number one singles
Double, triple, quadruple platinum albums
Carve out bigger and bigger chips
On Toronto's cold shoulder. Faces
Screwed tightly into each others' hearts.
Bad-mind, small-thinking, measuring the city
By the success of its rap game, those
Slinging crack rock and shooting wicked
Jumpshots in the States. United by our self-
Hate, the blood of our young dripping
From our teeth and the stench of our self-
Fulfilling prophecy. We win big betting
Against ourselves, and celebrate
Failure to remain true to ourselves. This
Poem is dope... you can't even tell it's by a
Canadian.
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I Respect You
I respect you no matter where you're from
but I respect you more if you survive my
city with heart. Even though I've only just
survived myself. I've only just begun
to thrive myself, to stand on my own two.
If you think you're going to stand out
in this concrete jungle with the biggest,
tallest dreams, teeming, heat rising, smog
colouring the sky, you've got another thing
coming. I came of age in this place,
running for my life, always playing catch-up.
Running in place, with the God-given gifts
to win in a race where my rivals have a head
start. Finish your rant about how unfair life is
and get going, you can't afford to be late.
Your job pays just enough for bus fare
to and from work, you can't afford to lose it.
You can't be a chooser, the food bank it is,
to fill up on secondhand items that weren't
even your second choice or third but Plan A
and B didn't work. You said you'd never
settle for sloppy seconds, kiss your dreams
goodbye. They are secondary to survival in
the city with heart, but no respect. Don't
expect too much too soon, but don't be
infected by this epidemic of low expectations.
Decide what you want from this city and
take it.
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Shoes To Fill
I want my sons
To walk the same
Streets and paths
Where I became
A man who went
Against the crowd
And grew to make
My father proud
Among the building
Balconies
And not quite
Inner-city trees
The duplex houses
Lawns so lean
Alternating
Brown and green
The sounds of balls
That bounced upon
The driveway
Till the sun was gone
The highway's hanging
Yellow haze