Poetry

Bill wrote the full musical scores for two broadway-style musicals (unpublished) and self-produced small volumes of his poetry, which he recited at scores of public and industry occasions over the last forty years of his life. Here they are.
(All writing is copyright, permission required to reproduce)

1969 1972 1976 1979 1983
I Knew a Logger The Logger's Hiring Slip A Toast to the Logger 'The Gypo' and Others
The Bunkhouse Diplomat

I Knew a Logger

 

I Knew A Logger

I knew a logger –
They called him Joe Charleston.
He was a big barrel-chested man
And a damn good steam donkey engineer.
Joe was soft-spoken,
came from South Africa.
He had a mouthful of the best looking teeth
you ever laid eyes on.
He used to brush them with charcoal,
from the 45 gallon wood burner.
Joe loved animals –
even mice.
I remember
him walking
along a string of boomsticks
out to his A-frame on a Sunday
in the wind-blown winter
to feed those little mice.
Joe was a steam man,
Never made the change to diesel.

I knew a logger,
His name was Friend Cornilius,
a professional chokerman
in the hungry thirties.
He was stocky – with a
weather-beaten bark creased face.
Friend was a Mudhen
And I believe He enjoyed
digging under logs for that elusive
choker knob.
He was a friend to kids
for he had none of his own.
And he could whittle a block of wood
into a boy's ocean-going four master.
He was a bunkhouse diplomat too,
Loved to talk
When he entered the bunkhouse after work
He'd throw the old bone-dry clothes
under his bunk
and crawl back into them
still wet
in the morning,
He was a friend.

I knew a Logger
His name was Alex Barr,
and he was a high-ball Hand faller,
Black curly hair,
handsome, strong –
They called him the Irish Swede,
His two partners and he could
fall half the trees in B.C,
in a DAY,
if you told them to.
and they could drink all the booze in B.C.
if they got turned loose
in the old Stanley Hotel.

He was a ball of sweat at 5 after 8 in
the morning
and he made a saw sing.
The Irish Swede felled a lot of trees
but one too many
for he died at his trade,
under a snag
too young.

I liked the Irish Swede – everyone did.

I knew a logger
His name was Steve.
He was Yugoslavian
A power-saw faller.
Tall, boney thin, hawk nosed
and the look of fire in his eyes.
He had a short partner
SAM
"Fall the tree Sam"
"Come here Sam"
"Sam, hurry up"
"Sam don't make the ham sandwich
make the jam"
"Where the hell are you Sam?"
Sam got the cancer
Steve took him to the hospital
Never left his side and –
Steve gave Sam the best funeral –
and some of the fire went out of Steve's eyes.

I knew a logger
His name was Pegleg Murphy
a timekeeper on the old float camps.
Scaled three sets of hand fallers
in the morning.
Ran the water pumps for the steam pots –
and worked on the boom in his spare time.
Wasn't much for government forms
in those days.

Never will forget how old Murphy used to
holler and curse
when he was caught out on a
lonely boomstick
and they blew from up on the hill that
the logs were coming down the chute.

He was a poker-playing-stiff-legged-
cranky-old-Irish timekeeper
But was all solid logger.

I knew a logger
His name was Fib Johnson
He was a high rigger
and there weren't many men on the coast
who could rig an old wooden
spar
faster or better
than Fib.

He could move a steampot
through felled and bucked timber as though
it were paved highway.
As a young man I watched him
go out hand over hand on a skyline
a hundred feet above the ground
to retrieve a carriage that had
bust its tail-bolt.
Fib had cracked just about every
bone
in his body
twice.
He was a big man –
Silent-
Lumbering and
He really knew how to get a log out of the bush.
I knew a logger –
His name was Moses Dean
He was a Boom man
and a good one.
Moses had worked his way out west
with the river-drives from Michigan
in the early days.
Didn't like talkin –
Used to eat his lunch by hisself
Down on the windy end of the boom
Just sittin
Just thinking
Wore bone dry clothes when he
hit the big city
Cause he just didn't have time
to change
into fancy town ones.
Moses could stow up a boom of logs
like they was meant to fit.

I knew a logger
His name was Red Langes
Red lost one leg at the knee
"cause he let the infection spread
from an ingrown toenail that got hurt
while he was on a drunk.
Too busy
spending his wad
to bother to see the doctor.
Red could high-rig or
hook
or do most anything
in the woods.
A rock-hard man who never spared hisself
or anyone else around him.
He hired back out to camp
about two months after they
cut his leg off at the knee
and I used to watch him
at the landing between turns
rubbing that old stump
because it hurt –
so much.
but he was nobody's ward –
No charity seeker he,
Red was a logger.
I knew a logger –
His name was Albert.
He ran a small A-frame float camp
out on the West Coast.

His men were hungry thirty loggers.
Top man got six-fifty a day
Jerk wire whistle punk got two six bits.

He was a kind man
tall and thin
and his crew stuck with him
year after year.
He logged for seven dollars
and fifty cents a Thousand
in 1934
and swung the logs three or four times
with steam donkeys.
He asked no favours
and he worked hard
every day of his life.
I can see him yet –
wearing his old battered felt hat
Standing on the felled and bucked
and
Sizing up the lay of the land.
He was a logger
and
He was my father.
They came from all over –
From Sweden, Yugoslavia, Maine,
from South Africa, Finland,
Ontario, Ireland and Poland
They came to the big trees of British Columbia.

They hired out to Masset –
Green-point,
C.R.T.,
Seymour Inlet,
Cowichan Lake,
Jarvis
and
They were bossed by
Dewey,
Paniky,
Kelly,
Morgan,
Gibson,
Smith, and H.R.
They shipped out on
The John
The Maquinna
The Venture and
The Adelaide.

They ate silently in cookhouses
and sat on their bunks
played crib
and talked of other days.

They got wet in the winter and cursed
the heat of the summer
This old world has hosted many
but
she never saw .a better bunch of men
than the logger.
I'm glad I knew some of them,
Aren't you glad too?

"keep out of the bight"
Bill Moore