The Way I See It

 

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write a poem about winter. Today’s contribution comes to us from Phil Yeats, the sole member of the group’s anti-poem brigade.

 

In April, 2024, Phil Yeats published The Body on Karli’s Beach, the third book in his Barrettsport Mysteries, a series of soft-boiled mysteries set in a fictional South Shore Nova Scotia town. For information about these books, and The Road to Environmental Armageddon, his trilogy about the hazards of ignoring human-induced climate change, visit his website: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

 

The Way I See It

by Phil Yeats

 

A poem about a Canadian winter (political and meteorological), drafted on January 6, 2025, the day the PM resigned.

 

He swooped into power,
promising sunny ways
while making aspirational statements
about our glorious future.

 

His frivolous foreign exploits ruined our reputation.
Too few promises led to real improvements.
Scandals accumulated, as they so often do.
The number of intractable problems
rivalled the growth in our national debt.

 

A decade later, he addressed the nation outside Rideau Cottage
bare-headed, wearing his winter coat in frigid, ice-bound Ottawa.
His way, he said, was the only proper one.
The MPs finally saw their duty to the country.
They refused to bow on every issue.

 

In what became his winter of discontent,
he couldn’t rely on his acolytes’ blind obedience.
He locked the doors to the rink and disappeared.
Was he seeking sunnier climes to plot his comeback?
Or something else?

 

From sunny ways
through scandal-riddled days.
It really was
all about him.

 

The Spot Writers:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/