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IN MEMORY OF JON PENNER


Strange death even the half-tamed winds

off Lake Ontario moan through Toronto ...

Leaves in High Park are telling stories

how trapped hours in your rusting car

the police took you to jail

instead of hospital.



They say you hanged yourself in the night!

You who were a semi-pro fighter

not fighting for glory

but for the peace of a needle in your arm.

This fighter hanged himself?

Cat burglar who clung to life on frozen sills!

You defeated the needle

and forsook the city's catspaw money

to live miles down a deserted road -

alone - in a house so haunted the moon

glowed through cracks at midday.



Strange they feared your politics

of democracy while you lived alone

writing novels and making magic

with your silver chloride half-tones.



The wind you now haunt

tells strong tales ...

the leaves are redder this fall.

Your murderers twist and turn

and don't know why

the full moon on the Ottawa Valley

glows brighter than the sun.



- Chris Faiers  (April 2006)



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revised 16 December 2008
URL http://www.eelpie.org/cricket/jon_penner.htm