Vol. 1, No. 2
Writers:
Chris Benjamin – Let us reinvent the wheel
Aditya Bhadra – In Your Paradise
Russ Brennan – It’s Setting Up
Amanda Johnson – This place was once loved
Maureen Larkin – Village Tree, Great Village
Craig MacEachern – The Pulp Mill
Carmel Mikol – Make Yourself at Home
Nicole Myers – Sobriquet (for JW)
Will Tilleczek – From a sinking island
Jordan Walters – Two Celestial Bodies
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Song Rambles (All in shambles)
Poem by Neil Bailey
So many books to pour in me
But which makes me the better man?
While striving thinking all for grace
My graceless gait lays waste the land
Invert my heart and pour it out!!
For gains accrued have little done
To find my voice and let it shout
In unison with everyone
Of all the times and places past
We’re surely handed everything
Let’s build it strong – and make it last!
Creating joyous hammer-swing
If love be lovely to behold
It’s twice as lovely free again
And looking back with young eyes old
We’ll thank ourselves for being men
Of Quality!! With fingers crossed
We hope to be remembered well
With scars and callouses embossed
Reciting tales we didn’t tell
For at the end we hope to dream
That after we have carried on
The dissipating ripples seem
To propagate our marathon
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Let us reinvent the wheel
Poem by Chris Benjamin
Let us reinvent the wheel.
The old one takes us nowhere, fast.
Let us forget its existence;
let us strip its ill-gotten rubber
and beat it until its flatness engulfs
our hammers.
Let us kick its metal rims
as the rappers’ gab is open-mouth muted
and they’ve only politics left to rhyme about.
Let our steel toes outlast it.
Let its nuts be eaten by spring’s ravenous squirrels,
and its bolts be corroded by vinegar blasted from
our super-soakers.
Let there be no remnants of its perfection,
its blind efficient roll into oblivion.
Let us start anew with a wooden block,
balanced by its corner on a sealskin dome
as we drum like malnourished apes with
broken sticks.
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In Your Paradise…
Poem by Aditya Bhadra
I am in your paradise,
a feeling that’s within.
Naked to your doting eyes,
caress me with sin.
I am in your paradise,
let our bodies meet.
As the trickle of algid rain,
showers us with heat.
I am in your paradise,
a whisper of desire.
I long to feel your prurient kiss,
my soul is now on fire.
I am in your paradise,
a brief moment of shame.
Tomorrow will bring sorrow,
let passion burn the flame.
I am in your paradise,
so hungry under my skin,
I know I am your fantasy,
let the magic begin.
I am in your paradise,
a feeling that’s within…
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It’s Setting Up
Poem by Russ Brennan
It’s setting up
Means it’s too late
Just watch it dry now
Liquid to solid
Dream to real
Taste to touch
It’s not failure, per se
Perce…comme maintenant
It’s an outcome
An ending.
Seized up and unmoving
Like watching a youtube plane crash
Let’s work with it
No.
Let’s not
That plane crash is fake
From a Dutch commercial
Planes don’t do that
Seized? Hit it with a wrench
An outcome, never an ending
It isn’t failure, you fucking douche
It’s now
And it’s gone
And we start again
Heat it up
Add some oil
Told you it’d work
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Not Just A Tree
Poem by Jayne Cook
Springtime tree,
strong and proud
waiting patiently in the sun
for spring to have sprung,
and your return to glory
when all of your fingers
boast beautiful green tips.
But you still look glorious to me
without all that.
You glow in the sun all year long
the ocean your view
your friends all near
I can see faces in your bark
they smile at me
I feel at ease, at home.
With all of you surrounding me
I’m never alone.
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Blind Love
Poem by Dominic Gauthier
I welcome my eyes
They are two ponies picked out
By a satellite
And tinged with you
They evacuate knowledge
And swallow the grain
Of passport photographs
I welcome them like two ambassadors
And when they outfit me with the news
I cry sometimes but I welcome them
Even though their country is exploding
Because they are innocent dignitaries
Precious pucelles
Shiny human pupas
And my face will tiresome become
Its old mask but my eyes
Will forever fresh be welcome
Always to them I pledge
Most sumptuous lodgings
And when the mask peels and falls
My eyes will be exactly another’s
Among other billions of eyes
Welcome by their tender
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This place was once loved
Poem by Amanda Johnson
‘This place was once loved’
I said to myself assuredly, as the light peered in.
I remembered that day as ’twere yesterday
When two mattresses joined
To create one place for our sleeping,
and other nocturnal activities.
Now my fingers crave to reach out,
For upon these soft casings there lay
Silken scarves seemingly laid gently, undisturbed.
There too is a desk in this abandoned place
Its many uses long forgotten, save for the fruit on top.
But I remember long nights spent at that desk
Toiling over this and that and bits and bobs.
This was our home so long ago
Where two lives shared one existence.
My, how things change with time
Our lives moved on in separate ways,
And this place it seems has stayed the same
Yet subtle differences tell me
All things change eventually.
One thing is certain,
This place was once loved.
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Village Tree, Great Village
Poem by Maureen Larkin
The tree stands naked against bald winter.
Molted, maintaining its burly husked greatcoat
against the winter fray, it leans stalwartly, unrivalled.
Blatantly heard to the bucolic dead air, lamentably,
motherly, its fingers pour from its gust of growth;
thickly timbered, woody with its ophidian sinews
forked skywards to its archaic crowned sun.
Seen from our pushing car: a mummified silence
fountaining upwards toward a noon moon, rooted
strongly on its fleeing land.
A fertile, quiet machinery, it drills its buds for
their April burgeoning, thoroughly self-sufficient
in its family of limb.
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The Pulp Mill Re-Imagined
Poem by Craig MacEachern
Yellow-flaked clouds haunt the town,
catch in the lungs,
like gold in a shallow pan;
the prospectors have long since gone.
We were told the smell of sulphur
was the scent of comfort and money.
The smell ceased by inches
late in the fall that year,
during our street hockey scrums.
The smoke stacks smouldered
like unpuffed cigarettes,
burning themselves out.
I have speckled-yellow-dust nightmares where
clouds of acrid sulfur smother us.
It was not the smell of money,
but of a burning match–
something about to go down in flames
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Make Yourself At Home
Poem by Carmel Mikol
i cherished this address
like a holy place
carved the numbers in that tree, scarred in sap
the pressure of the blade
leaving blood blisters on my young woman’s hands
unworked unteathered unbound
understood underloved undermade
but i loved the evidence of my lack
and the house peaking through
the bare branches of the birch trees
reminding me of your portrait
please come home.
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Guy Types
Poem by Martha Mutale
I once dated a guy with your type of attitude
He really thought he was the slickest dude
Now don’t get me wrong
He had his swagger, his strut
His look, his diamond cuts
Out of the two of us, HE made more of a fuss
He offered me uniqueness
I offered him reality
I shared my ambitions
He tried to make me happy
Even though he was a little unsure
That didn’t mean I had to relieve the pressure
I told him straight up “What are your intentions?”
He said he wasn’t ready for such a commitment
I said hold up, you mean you been playing me all this time?
I looked at him, and told him what was on my mind
I am more than just a play toy, more than just a bet
I am more than just a one-night stand you would eventually forget
I don’t liked being screwed with, or told I need to chill
And last but not least I’m so tired of going downhill
You don’t make me feel good, I always feel like crap
Your lack of money, lack of love, has definitely lapsed
I know you say you are “trying”, but trying is not enough
I really need you to get over yourself and seriously just man up! I’m not saying you haven’t been great company
Yes of course there were days you made me laugh
But this heart of mine is tired of being split in half
Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure you’ll make a woman smile
Just do yourself a favour and quit acting like such a child
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Sobriquet (for JW)
Poem by Nicole D. Myers
they aren’t contagious
……….my good accord
……….my bold pronouncements
think of them like
……….opening statements
……….leading paragraphs
at peak season
when you are at your full strength
……….and all of your
……….hard bits and sharp pieces
tenderize
they aren’t transmittable
……….my benevolence
……….my subterranean need
regard them as
……….minor notes
……….tiny songs
sobriquets
……….for all the ways
……….for all the reasons
there is no replacement for
you
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Ravenous Tears
Poem by Felix Perry
Black tears of ebon dark the broken angel wept
For love of Raven mate she’d no more know
Protectively her minions swept muted skies of grey
Keeping watch on icy air currents ebb and flow
‘Twas the year the spring thaw forgot to come
Perhaps because winter past had claimed the one
who once flew with her to the land of dreams
Where hearts and souls absorb the sun
Two loving entities devoid of law of land
Sharing energizing lover’s kisses in mid-flight
To make love where moonbeams danced
Warm enfolding wings around each other tight
But when one tempts fate one cannot win
Transgression’s price comes much too high
For the broken heart of the Ravenous
That day The Raven tumbled from the sky…
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March
Poem by Richard G. Schaller
With broken words and shattered ties
This existence passes by
Awake again to conquer fate
Unencumbered by the weight
As the bridges blaze behind us
Lighting the way for the next obstacle
Reborn
Knowing no boundaries
No present limit
No top speed
We tread on
Marching
Defeating all resistance
With intelligence and force
Strategy and strength
Trusting in each other
Forgetting the words of mother
Wrongly marching
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The Flood
Poem by Sean Terrell
a river carves a valley in the land
something modern man can never understand
how is it something burning shines so bright
if there is a man above we are his kite
rollerskates and ritalin
………drive the drills of our demise
..my lungs they like the taste
………………of burnt tobacco in their eyes
our greatest grandads fathers
….were all gurus in disguise
…they knew one day all our truths
………..would be no more than silly lies
snow capped mountains melt beneath the sea
is it true a seat in heaven waits for me,
seems all our shepherds tend to lose their sight
us sheep we are too lost to find the light
….how will our children till the soil
..of our land of greed and stain
if only rights and wrongs
………could be washed off by the rains
there was an angel in his eyes
….it told us not to be surprised
………when the flood does storm our shores
…..and take us to the other shore
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From a sinking island
Poem by Will Tilleczek
Last night I rode with 3 from the
heart of a sinking island
we yelled and drank, burning
bridges ‘till dawn
And while they slept
by the warmth of a dying fire,
I lay awake, burnt by the empty
space beside me
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Secrets
Poem by Ken Wallingford
Look in the water.
Watch the sand shift to reveal
What glows in the sun.
Hidden deep within the sand,
Lay secrets of long ago.
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Two Celestial Bodies
Poem by Jordan Walters
The crisp air piercing the silence this night
our skin chilled with a brisk peaceful pleasure
with just the illuminating moonlight
our bodily warmth heating the other.
As the moonlight soaks into our pupils
I see the two stars that make my world
so while the celestial body culls
we rest on each other, emotions unfurled.
As sounds reverberate around the trees
our senses become daft and our minds calm
the world turns sheer without any worries
while treating each other with a soothing balm
I feel the only presence that matters
so we forget the time as two dreamers.
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Open Heart Forgery 