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Category: Poetry

Where You Are by Eileen Sheehan

You lie down in whatever bed

you lie down in, the pillow accepting

the weight of your head, the mattress

receiving your body like a longed-for guest.

You move in your sleep and the sheets

react to your turnings, the blankets adjust,

shaping themselves to your outline. The air

in the room keeps time with your breathing,

accepts being displaced while I circle the walls

of the city you dream. My papers

are worn, frayed at the edges; that picture

I have of myself, clouding-over and spotted

with rain: my face is dissolving before me. The night

holds you in sleep, you are stilled by its comforts;

by the fabrics absorbing the sweat you expel.

My cries go unheeded as I stand at the gate

pleading admittance. There is no one to turn to

as you shed a layer of your skin while you lie there,

dead to the world; my one reliable witness.

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The moon by Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews

I am the moon

round

distant

cold light

reflecting the sun’s warmth

back to a blue planet

a lover’s smile

forever light years away

black space

gravity pulling

tidal waves of emotion

forever love

on shores of childhood dreams.

I am the moon

pale maiden in the morning sky

large orange crone at dusk.

Alone

I ignite the dark

for moonlight kisses.

Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews has two collections of poetry: “The Whispers of Stones” and “Sea Glass”. Nature and one’s place in it, is her muse. In 2013, she was shortlisted for Descant’s Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem Prize. She lives, teaches and writes in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.

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December 15, 2013

Laundromat: July 10, 9:47 AM

I’m in the

laundromat

because my dryer broke

and this radio is too loud

and every song sounds insincere –

finally Annie Lennox and

the Eurythmics are singing

Talk to Me.

I wonder when I’ll ever

get around to reading

Ulysses.

The radiator is painted

an almost indescribable

shade of turquoise.

Lively but dead serious –

mechanical.

The top of each rib protrudes

thin, flat and sharp.

I can imagine these edges

pressing into my face

after they arrest me in the

grand sweep.

Harnesses and 19th century

contraptions hoisting the radiator

above prisoners strapped to beds.

Thirty full seconds for each

inmate.

What if they decide to heat them?

Loud sirens nearby.

A city wind blowing

through the open door.

A guy reading a

book asks me

if I smell

cigarette smoke.

“No.”

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November 15, 2013

My Story Is Not My Own (a film poem concerning Nov. 22, 1963)

The same film with subtitles:

In 2009 I created My Story Is Not My Own, a metaphysical & surreal film poem concerning the Kennedy assassination. My statement concerning this project is beneath the video on the YouTube page.

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November 3, 2013

 Adamant on the Edge of Dreams by Lisa Marguerite Mora

I don’t know what God is doing.

He sears me with the palm of his hand,

hollows me out with light

so that I can’t feel my bones anymore.

And my grief—

not that gut wrenching stuff,

is just water that flows and flows, flows unimpeded now—

I am open,

undammed and not drowning,

not fighting for my life.

Why is it I can see your face so clearly?

I am floating (90% water, they say),

my ribcage, fluid, caging and releasing.

I have become amphibian.

I do not know whether to walk or swim.

I miss the bones

of the earth, dark stones, polished pain hard beneath my feet.

Gravel and grit I need. Dust. Dirt.

Black and pungent.

Please.

But there is just light split

over water

that spills

and your face

adamant on the edge of dreams.

And I wake

as if you were really here.

Lisa Marguerite Mora is a prize winning poet and a freelance editor. She conducts creative writing workshops, and this year has completed a poetry manuscript and a first novel.

She lives in Los Angeles, California.

I was influenced by the idea of an edge while depicting the figure – who fluctuates between pictorial and pictographic. The waking in the poem seems to be another edge, or a disappearing edge, delineating realms of water & light, idea & memory, as well as the all encompassing natural, visceral world.

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October 21, 2013

The Sorrow of a Brown Hat by Steven McCabe

Crumpled fading newsprint

As yesterday’s armies march

Into tomorrow

A future we predicted

We accepted sleep standing upright

Sleep never understood;

A chapter of blank pages: my darling, your wrist hanging

Over the bed

Your blood a confusion

Your heartbeat the black window

Swallowing my hands

Fingers forming a circle

Bottom of a fleet casting shadows across the seabed

I toss my hat overboard

from my book Hierarchy of Loss (2007) Ekstasis Editions

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October 11, 2013

An erasure poem created from ‘The Last of the Knights Templar. A Poem, With historical notes.’ by Thomas Billington (1866)

Memory scorns the hand

In sweet response to heaven

6.Amber Curtains

Fame outlives

Mighty hearts

Earth and sea obey

The blood of many a son

Tarnished in liberty

An offended sky

Hoarsely sung,

Shadows wear the crowns

The conquering sons of

Neptune’s vaunted eye,

His dinted blade

The echoes sing,

Your faith of obedience

Like snow flakes

11. Moon Over Knight

Comets of heaven

March on to glory,

No tongue shall number

A calm blue ocean

The glorious dead

Came upon the sea

Omen’d

The tide of that deep abyss

Struck by the Templars’ sword

Each vaunted knight

An inspiring heaven

One vast clay sun

Now morning emerald

Enchantment’s radiant form

In desolation’s train –

Her last revenge

The cherished isle of steel

A soldier’s bed –

Paradise

Goes terribly forth

17. Your Arrival Changes Everything

The black herald of sorrow

Reeking in dying cadence

Linger on the carnival

Look on the headless brothers

Your work of hate

Maddening

A whirlwind’s Autumn on helmets clashing

Deaden the pangs of a soldier’s doom

15. Taken Aback

Onward Templars press

A frenzied rite

On condor’s wing a cold embrace

Thunder blackening the lament

A winding sheet

Like seafroth

His swollen veins darkening

Hail our Queen!

The edge upon our lips

Mockeries

Wading in a fiery grave

Each convent bell

Joy

No seabird to warn the boatman

A fairy thing –

The whiteness of her sail

Raptures your lonely shore

Whispery the void

Nature a weary scene

Not a sigh escaped

Laugh of vacancy

Babylon’s lustful day

The night grown weary

All was still

The chains savage

The (original) 56 page poem is a retelling of history & loaded with glorification of battle & cultural/religious point of view, details of woe and foe, and the ecstasy of triumphs. It’s really quite the technicolour blockbuster epic. Followed by almost 30 pages of historical text. I found it when I was looking for a connection between the Knights Templar and limestone (believe it or not). Two things happened simultaneously: I was skimming an old Canadian educational book called ‘Pioneer Arts and Crafts’ written by Edwin G. Guillet, M.A. (dedicated to Marguerite Guillet Brooks – Designer, Thread Workers Guild of America) and reading a fascinating section about ‘Lime – Burning.’ At the same time I had a digital image, rather ‘knight-ish,’ which I wanted to use with a poem. I began to imagine Marguerite sewing silk tassels for a knight’s helmet. And somehow, well, it all came together. My ‘erasing’ was done fairly quickly, like snapshots, grabbing a few impressions.

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September 26, 2013

OPEN STUDIO AT THE ARTISTS COLONY by Nancy Kline

VCCA, February 14, 2009

The visual artist in the studio next door is knitting stainless steel and silk. She’s disabused now, she makes prints of clothes unraveling. A dark skein stained. She’s knitting up the sleeve of care.

Electric ukelele down the hall! A white piano plays itself (we all do, here). It has no hands. The trombone-player has composed a piece starring an interstellar Po’ Boy. He slides us along. He sings us a valentine.