The Ridge

The Ridges is a poem I wrote about Vimy Ridge – a battle from WW1 that the Canadian Corp won, but at a substantial cost in lives lost and wounded.

Canadian Capture of Vimy Ridge - Warfare History Network

 

The Ridge

Reflection’s wise. Its true insight flies

Throughout our minds and forever binds us

To eternal life that is devoid of strife.

Just peaceful thoughts, not restless, nor caught

Into a web of war to tread

Pure madness bred our way to be

For as one we brand an ancestral land

As our spirits rise to embrace the sky

And shed away our fears.

 

Our thoughts of home, as our mothers roam

Among our graves, their faces brave

To the sadness here of men with fear

Yet for our nation’s prayers we died out there.

For our home sweet home, so far away

That knowledge bears our passion, flares

Within our hearts, to love, to shove

Our fears aside and run in stride

To get away from there.

 

Over top we’d go in whistled floes

That plundered us within gun sight foes.

Such madness…crushed, our brothers flush

With abject fear with those guns so near.

We prayed in silence for our leader’s guidance

For in them we trust, and as Canucks we thrust

So far ahead though we walked with dread.

With the barrage we shudder, our blanket cover

Oh God we’re scared.

 

The earth it shakes… please mothers take us

To your arms and away from harm.

We fell in silence as there’s no pride in violence

We looked ahead for behind ’s our dead.

Their faces seared, no longer feared

Just darkness now with thoughts that bow

To a light that’s gone, forever done.

For now it seems life’s passion stream

Is ebbing some for our time has come.

 

We fought for glory, each life a story

With silent breath we faced cruel death.

Our youthful brash ‘gainst madness, crashed

Into the mud, the cold, the blood.

That Ridge has been a horror scene.

A Ridge that bears our lives and shares

Blood curdling chills, then silence… killed.

And down we go with our cries now still

Just silent prayers to loved ones shared…so far from there.

 

The death knell rings for our lives and brings

A peace you share from that Ridge out there.

Is a peace we paved to our silent graves

With a peace we share in God’s love’s lair.

We were men of arms, a brotherhood

And beyond that Ridge, your nationhood.

With souls set free our spirits now see

Just peaceful lands and a national brand…your nation‘s free!

 

Yet horrendous loss this madness cost…Canadians!

–

Please…remember us.

© John Morrison, Manotick Ontario, 2005

 

VIMY RIDGE DAY - April 9, 2023 - National Today

 

You can find this poem and others in a book of poems I put together called:

“Little Poems From The Great White North” – available through Amazon.com or .ca

 

No Comment

Needs no comment:

We can watch and listen to this music of 2025

Or this from 1966:

No comments. RIP Brian Wilson. You gave us great music.

Can your Tesla do this?

What would you rather have? This:

Tesla cheat sheet: Model 3 vs Model Y vs Model X vs Model S | Tom's Guide

or this:

Celebrate Steve McQueen’s Birthday With Bullitt’s Legendary Chase Scene

or this:

Dodge Charger Widebody turns up wick on family sedan

 

Oh and I loved this meme:

Yeah, I was pissed as a nit.

Heard in passing:

Vegan: “You do know that the chicken you are eating has a family?

Carnivore: “Oh yes indeedy. That is why I bought the Family Bucket. I didn’t want to leave anybody behind.”

 

Shakeyjay out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canada Day: Lost In Our Way

You know I hate to do this but our country is lost in its way. I do want my country back.

In that vein, here is my little ditty from my book of poems titled: “Little Poems From The Great White North.”

“Canada Day”

Hip hip hooray it is Canada Day

In our home and our native’s land

Hip hip hooray it’s a time to be gay

From a government that says that you can

 

Hip hip hooray it is Canada’s Day

As our leaderless leaders would cry

Hip hip hooray it is Canada Day

Forget the graft, and the cheats and the lies

 

Hip hip hooray it is Canada Day

With righteousness the bureaucrats hide

Hip hip hooray it’s our national day

Let’s undermine our Veteran’s pride

 

Hip hip hooray, it’s the Canadian way

To lose sight of a national dream

Hip hip hooray on this Canada Day

To be mired in our regional screams

 

So sad to say on this Canada Day

To keep integrity and values at bay

So sad to say on this Canadian day

That my country is lost in its way

This is systematic of the madness we Canadians are faced with today.

Canada renames Vancouver Street from “Trutch” to “Strong WiFi Password.”

“Decolonization”: Woke Canada Renames Street Something Resembling “Strong Wi-Fi Password”

Of course the citizens of this city, the constituents, had no say in this. This is what happens when we are captive to ideology instead of common sense.

My favorite anthem (up until 1980) and the one our brave soldiers fought to in WW1. This was when we had real soldiers and a real fighting spirit. Did you know that it was the Canadian Corp under Curry and the Australian Corp under Monash that won World War 1, during the battle of the final 100 days. Britain took credit for this because the Canadian Corp and the Australian Corp were part of the British Army at the time. The picture represents the Canadian Corp at Vimy Ridge, April 1917.

 

I want my country back!

 

Or a more rousing one – with a thousand bagpipes – one in which we marched to.

Have a great Canada Day.

Shakeyjay………Out.

Too Hot

Our home and native land:

Canadian flagFeds did this.

And at this corner, coming in at ???? pounds is Canada’s new chief of health official…

Her name is ????

And in this corner, the US health official, coming in as fit as a fiddle….:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says He Is Not on Steroids | Inside Edition

But we smug Canadians are so much better, superior to those dastardly yanks. Oh and by the way ???? has no health credentials, whatsoever, nada. Perfect for the job!

Elbows up! Buy Canadian!

Federal infrastructure bank provided $1-billion in financing for BC Ferries purchase of four new Chinese-made ships. Chrystia “Cruella” Freelunch blasts BC Premier Eby for going to the Chinese for this contract knowing full well that her government gave China $1B financing to build these ships. But hey, hypocrisy  is the Canadian, Liberal way!

And anti-Semitism

Canada’s weather map: sunny with cloudy periods and a chance of rain.

See the source image

Oops, that’s the USA, but you get the picture. We’re all going to die!

 

It’s the end of the world. Apocalypse NOW baby.

Most prison escapees flee from healing lodges: Correctional Service of Canada says- over 70% of Indigenous offenders escape – out the back flap – after only a few months of their sentences.

The Purpose Of The Native American Sweat Lodge Ceremony - 7th Sense Stories

“It is getting hot in here.”

I have to admit that I would try to escape that too.

Speaking of heat:

Only in Toronto would swimming pools be closed because it’s too hot. But with temperatures hitting 34C, a decision was made to lock the doors and let the kids look through the fence at the cool water in pools. Poor kids!

Hey, when I was doing the Camino in France in 2018 I walked through 10 days of 38 C plus days. One day it hit 44.  And that was the real temp and not the “it feels like” temp. I did not walk that day but camped by a small lake until it cooled some.

Vancouver just renamed Trutch Street to:  Šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmsəm Street to be inclusive. Works for me. Just don’t ask me for directions is all. Google maps went “TILT.”

Toronto, Canada - 28 October 2023: Muslim prayer from Palestine in the ...

Sharia will soon be here. Within a generation unless we do something. I’ll be checked out so I don’t really care but I worry for my grandchildren. And all thanks to the policies of Trudeau part un and part deux. They have destroyed what was once a great and proud nation.

Canada is by far the wokest place on earth.

Hey it’s hot because it’s summer. Enjoy it. Lazy, crazy days o summer.

Quote of the week:

Canada should not become the 51st state nor should Canada ever be the EU’s 28th member, as Carney would love us to be.

We are North Americans, not Europeans. You know, Europe is always at war at some point, yet they label the US as war mongers. Did you know that England and France were at war for 100 years? Then there was the eighty years war (Spain and the Netherlands), 30 years war, which devastated much of Europe as 1/3 of the population died. The War of the Austrian Succession, The War of the Spanish Succession, The Seven Years War, The Napoleonic Wars, Crimea, Franco / Prussian War, Baltic Wars, WW1 and WW2 – to name but a few.

If we allow Carney to have Canada become a member of the EU we will lose all of our sovereignty to the dictates of non elected bureaucrats, and, he will put Canadian troops on the ground in the killing fields of Ukraine. His ego knows no bounds.

Hey, it’s summer. It is supposed to be hot.

Shakeyjay is out of sight, out of his mind and out of here.

Have a nice hot and muggy day Toronto. Have a cool one.