What follows is a poem that incorporated history of the area with creative flair. I would like to encourage the writers, poets and musicians out there to send their historic creative pieces in for publishing. If it is music I ask for a link to a YouTube video we can reference too, otherwise make submissions in word.
Thank you…and now onto the Ballad of Countess:One may catch a glimpse
Of the whisp of spectral light
As she walks down the abandoned ghostly street
In the alien’s glow a nightly
As the cows serenade the gophers
Through a thrumming mooo
Of a hamlet built on capitalist’s spikes
And Royal Line Rail Road pennies
The name bought by the Marquis,
She is the lovely wife of Bassano,
A Countess, whose money CP used to build a town.
From stage coaches
To Calgary Stampedes
To a century later,
Rolling through towns
Granting Children’s wishes
And healing sick kids
Mennonites, Buddhists, Mormons and more
Paid to settle
To farm and build
A Community…
No more
Reborn,
As the wind cleanses
The spectral soil of sludge
From old gas station tanks
Main Street comes alive
With Guns of the Golden West
A Cock crows
Llamas dance
Horses race
As a gator roars to life
Barn cats purr
As Dogs saunter through Tee Pee’s
And Cabins sprout from the land
One calls through ancient flames given by Prometheus
To Man
For the Fire Department of her husband’s name to rescue
Them…
As a historic Pumper Truck
Rolls through bringing cheers
From kids of all ages
For on a quiet country night
As you roll by the Caboose
Of the ol’ Royal Line
You can still see her shine
In the night light
Calling for adventure
Anew.
They are the saloon doors to Frank Sisson’s Silver Dollar Action Centre (now the Century Casino) which was once part of the landscape in Calgary, AB. As a kid, I knew of it, due to bowling and, like I said, wrasslin’ (the kind of Stampede, not WWE). Stampede Wrestling had just been bought out but the local 2&7 television station still had a Saturday afternoon contract open for a show, and Mr. Sisson was a fan…enter Canadian Wrestling Alliance which ran out of the Silver Dollar in 1990 on Friday Nights live (it concluded it’s run in 2013 through other venues), with the edited show on Saturday’ at 1 p.m. Later in the 1990’s the saloon would be open to all ages during WWF (now WWE) pay-per-view events.
Soul Ripples
Countess Chronicle 