This short satirical work proposes that backbenchers be removed, benches and all, from the Canadian House of Commons, in the interests of modernity and efficiency for both the backbenchers and the rest of the House of Commons.This short work proposes that backbenchers be removed, benches and all, from the Canadian House of Commons, in the interests of modernity and efficiency. A special “Backbencher’s Heaven,” can be set up not far from the Parliaments buildings. There, backbenchers could spend most of their time in up-to-date offices dealing with the voters in their ridings. At the same time, the rest of the Members of Parliament (the ones that really matter) could have the space to install and use current data collection and display systems (built into their desks), the better to debate bills with the facts at their fingertips. A giant leap in productivity is predicted.

18 poems about canoeing in spring, about the joy of watching ice turn to snow and catching the flow of waters at their best.These 18 poems express a love for canoeing at a season when canoeing’s barely possible. I look out the window and the breaking away of frozen waters stirs my heart. Then, finally, the first excursions into river and lake.

In this short play, the ghosts of the Métis leaders of the 1885 rebellion in Canada talk about their lives and deaths.“Could have been worse,” Gabe commented as they sat beside a heatless phantom campfire one day, “We coulda gone to Hell.”“And just how would that be worse?” Louis asked darkly, in his one hundred and sixteenth year of ghosthood. As a practicing Catholic, he had a good idea of how much worse it could have been, but he didn’t always like to admit it.“I think,” said Gabe. “that in Hell I’d have been forced to listen to your story of what you should have done at Batoche, over and over until the end of time.”“You want to hear it again?” the Métis leader asked.“No thanks.”***1885. Manitoba, Canada. Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont lead a second rebellion against the Canadian government.Present day: A lot wiser, the ghosts of the two men talk about the rebellion and their lives, and talk about the fame Riel eventually achieved.

22 poems about the ceremony of dancing naked in the moonlight.How to Dance Naked in the Moonlight is a book of maybes. Maybe it contains the key to traveling to a magical and powerful sphere as practiced for millennia by Celtic priestesses. Maybe it is just a cheeky romp in the moonlight by bare-assed bad boys. Maybe it contains the recipe for the exhilaration of stepping out of boundaries into the only freedom we have left: the unadorned experience of self in the lonely moon-lit night. Maybe it will help you see aspects of the brief human journey in ways that will change and transform you. If these verses make you wonder, smile, tearily respond, or long to explore the un-mapped terrain that pulls your blood as the moon does the tides, then the skeptic and the pagan have reaped the moon--- and are satisfied. This cheeky little book manages to combine mysticism and mischief. Great for hearth or moonlight reading!Katherine L. Gordon lives to write in a secluded river valley, where she is free to dance unseen in a midnight moon-lit stone circle, following her Celtic Pagan traditions. Lenny Everson is a country boy currently living in the city. As a result we suspect he’ll eventually be found on some moonlit night running through the suburbs, pursued by the local Esthetics Police.There are 22 poems in this book.

Win Szczedziwoj is a would- be escapee from society for a few days. Just him and his canoe. But his solitude comes to an abrupt end when his fishing line comes up with a boot - with a body still in it.Win Szczedziwoj, a man known for photographing subjects in the rain, is on a vacation. Just him, his camera, his canoe, and a small, dark lake well away from civilization.That solitude comes to an end when his fishing line drags up a body from the lake. It looks like the usual canoeing accident, but the police suspect murder, and Win is suspect number one (I mean, what are the chances of actually snagging a body with a fishing line?)But Win wants to know why the dead guy was hired as a guide by a couple of men who shouldn't really have needed help. And why everybody at the nearest lodge is so reluctant to talk about anything.Suddenly a remote little lake gets to be a very busy place.

Walk the streets of old London just before Christmas with a retired police inspector haunted by the mysterious death of Jacob Marley. Meet the people he investigates, including Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Fagin, and Bill Sikes.Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.Inspector Ian McFergus had not been satisfied; not in the least satisfied. He had inspected Marley's body using all the due processes and checklists upon which the police division insisted and in which he had been trained. And he was not satisfied.Marley's body had been found at the bottom of the stairs, dead as a doornail (McFergus wondered where that expression had come from). The inspector had walked around the body as required and had drawn a sketch as required. And however much it looked as if the old guy had simply tripped, Inspector McFergus had not been satisfied at the time and had been no more satisfied after the coroner had hauled the corpse, clothed in a shabby nightgown, away. The next day he was told by his superiors that there were other things he should be working on, so he tried to forget about the incident of Jacob Marley.Seven years later…. “Remember the Marley case?” Amy asked. “Nobody else seemed to think his death was suspicious. Just a careless man falling down a flight of stairs.”“Ah, my dear. Nobody else on the force was warned in advance.”“Pardon?”The former inspector smiled. “A week before his death, I was told by a snitch that someone was going to kill Jacob Marley. of Scrooge and Marley. It would probably look like an accident, the fellow said.”Retired police inspector Ian McFergus, haunted by the mysterious death of Jacob Marley, walks the streets and underworld of Victorian London looking for the truth, just before Christmas. He meets with a number of characters, including Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and Bill Sikes. And he consults with a youth who would, of course, deny any resemblance to a person named Sherlock.

Two guys canoe out among the 30,000 islands in Georgian Bay. It's supposed to be a guy weekend, but it turns out some of the locals don't want them there.Every woman knows an Adam. He's a "player," the type who professes true love, but with eyes that never stop wandering. He always has the perfect excuse when you find that long strand of blonde hair stuck to his collar, and fidgets whenever you get near his computer. Adam can't fool Bethany, who, despite her better judgment, falls head over heels him. Bethany is far more intelligent and strong-willed than Adam bargains for, and he finds himself smitten, too. Hilarious at times and poignant at others, Secrets of the Elusive Lover explores the age old challenge of obtaining the unattainable man, and the paradoxical issues surrounding monogamous relationships. As you turn the pages faster and faster to see if Adam and Bethany will ultimately get together, you will find this book another truly 'unputdownable' Mike Wells read. Excerpts from various reader reviews: 5 STARS! Bethany is a sweet character and honestly I think she deserves better than Adam but I’m not sure. I liked the ending!!! Very original writing, I must say. 5 STARS! I have met a guy just like this Adam and it was nice to see the man get what was coming! Yum-yum. This book was good, really! I would highly recommend this one if you like messy relationship stories about guys and gals. 5 STARS! Read this in one long sitting. Awesome! I would love to read a sequel to this—please write one, Mike! I want more Adam and Bethany.

A sequence of poems tells of a Toronto woman's search for her aboriginal and Métis roots.When she turns forty-five, and Lollie becomes a divorced casualty of the modern age, she takes a trip to northern Ontario and Manitoba to search for her aboriginal and Métis heritage. This set of poems is based on her trip and her vision of an imaginary ancestor, Heron Feathers, She knows a bit of the history of the Cree, their migration to the prairies from the forest of Ontario, the coming of the French, and the attempt to found a Métis nation.

Two short pieces of humor about sharing a pup tent. Sharing a pup tent is a really silly idea sometimes.The first story starts, "Hubby?" she said. "I'm sliding off the mattress again. And something's biting me on the neck." The second begins It was getting on past midnight, the wind had picked up, shaking the tent, and I knew I’d have to kill the guy in the next sleeping bag.If you've ever shared a pup tent with your wife or a friend, you'll recognize the situations in these two camping stories.

A short canoeing adventure set in Ontario's Massassauga Provincial Park. With canoes, a bear, a nuke, a B-52 and a guy with a gun.At less than 10,000 words, this is perfect for someone with limited time or a short attention span.Tony just wants to write another travel guide for canoeists. His plans to head into Massasauga Provincial Park alone begin to unravel at the dock when a good-looking woman talks him into taking her with him.He doesn't know about the hungry bear at the campsite, or the man with the rifle and the guy with the B-52 determined to interrupt his plans.

Sixteen poems about portages, thunderstorms, and long sunny days, the experience of canoeing in summer.These sixteen poems celebrate canoeing lakes and rivers in that brightest of all times. The include poems about sun and wind, afternoon thunderstorms, bugs, love, and dry, dry riverbeds. And, yes, that wonderful moment when the sun is high, you’re on the lake, and you get a tailwind.This is part of the series, Canoeing Poems: A Year in Four Volumes.

Lenny Everson offers his ten best short poems, for people with limited time and skeptical minds.After uncounted decades of writing poems, Lenny has sifted out his ten best short ones, so that readers won't have to spend more than fifteen minutes reading them.

This booklet contains seventeen poems about the joy, wistfulness, and danger inherent in canoeing in autumn.These seventeen poems celebrate canoeing lakes and rivers in a season of short, bright days that are tinged with a bit of wistfulness for another season past. They include poems about the peacefulness of September and the joy that is October, as well as the danger that is canoeing in November. This is part of the series, Canoeing Poems: A Year in Four Volumes.

The blue guitar, and the tunes played on it, are, in this collection of poems, symbolic of change. There are a myriad of changes in a person's life, and the blue guitar plays in the background to most of them. This is an interesting and reader-friendly collection, suitable for all ages."Things as they are," said poet Wallace Stevens in a poem called, "The Man With the Blue Guitar" (1937), "are changed upon the blue guitar." This is a book of changes. Changes to life, love, and our universe. Changes in war, religion, and truth. And in every one, a blue guitar is present, for the blue guitar is the symbol of changes. Good changes, bad changes, and just changes. Written in rhyme, the short poems in this book inspire both thought and laughter.

On an early spring canoe trip, our hero, Ted, finds the body of Hughie, drowned in a mudhole on the portage trail. Because the electronic organizer Hughie always carried is missing. Ted wonders if someone killed him.Ted figures there are three things you must not being on a canoe trip: electronic devices, pet anacondas, or people who will die on the trip. Just as well nobody brought an anaconda….Hughie apparently left the campsite in the middle of the night while everybody else was asleep. That wasn't surprising, considering how poorly he got along with the rest of the group the night before.What is surprising is his canoe, lying in a very large mud hole on the portage - with Hughie's body under it. And there's the question of what happened to the phone that's no longer with is body.