Vol. 1, No. 8
Writers:
Mary Ann Archibald – Mock Orange Evening
Elise Blacker – Music
Earl Bradford – October; Mardi Gras
Zoe Doucette – Let me tell you one:
Harry Garrison – O Trespass Sweetly Urged!
David B. Huebert – Murderer‟s Elegy
Craig MacEachern – Projections
John Wise McLeod – … The Title Insurance?
Whitney Moran – Diminutive Epithets
David Rimmington – We.Remember
Sara Saddington – I want to tell you
Christen Thomas – Lock stock and love
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Mock Orange Evening
Poem by Mary Ann Archibald
On being a girl who
loves enveloping my head
in the scent of the mock orange.
To close my eyes
and think about world peace
Until I am dizzy.
From its fragrance
and greenery of possibility
with those vibrant white petals.
That light up the night
eclipsing fireflies
on a hot July evening.
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A flute trills, a trumpet calls
Loud then softer music falls
Tumbling, trickling, notes go by
Misty eyes, it made you cry
But then it lifts, it soars so high
And suddenly you feel you could fly.
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October; Mardi Gras
Poem by Earl Bradford
Samhain Fire Ritual
Night and Fire, Drum Ceremony at Dusk
On rosy October Nocturnal Breezes –
Specters, ghouls, Abeyant Milky Harbingers
Hover in Treetops, Perennial Botany
Scent of Smoldering Cordwood Smoky
In Cauldrons in Rural Hearths –
Cerulean Tabernacle Skies…
Lunar Metamorphosis, Children Plunder
Streets in Masks, Harlequins of Mirth
& Foreboding – Vampiric Spirits Pillaging
Darkness; Obsidian Cemetery Shadowy
Talismans Brandished by Wiccans or
Suchlike Ogres & Goblins…
Souls, perhaps lost or departed
Pseudonymous Conscripts wandering
alone in Purgatory.
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I’m the one
…eating alone with a book open on the table.
I’m the one
…hanging around the periphery at a concert or rally.
I’m the one
…sitting in the one empty seat at the end of the row.
I’m the one
…dancing alone in the corner.
I’m the one
…who is the “third wheel” when friends take pity.
I’m the one
…who is always busy but always lonely.
I’m the one
…who always goes home alone.
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Let me tell you one:
Poem by Zoe Doucette
an old man gets into the line-up inside a mid-sized
supermarket express checkout (8-10 items)
and taps on the shoulder of the
college student in front of him and he says
excuse me, but does this SMELL like anything
to you? he’s holding a big curvy disnified Ferrari
red rose — a single red rose cellophane cloaked
the student smells the rose, bending her head
just slightly, her hair covering her eyes, her head
bent just slightly – a small crease between
her eyebrows, above the dent at the bridge of
her nose, pensive as she sips it
then she looks up and says to the old man
no, no it doesn’t ………..but
she doesn’t tell him that they are bred that way
to be all looks and no delivery of that rose thing
the real McCoy — they’re bred to be symmetrical
and uniformly colorful
this she doesn’t tell him
the old man practically he practically
leaks ‘it wasn’t like the good old days’
when he smells that rose
so this she leaves for him and only smiles
and then he smiles before they are quiet
milky eyed strangers only
anyway
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O Trespass Sweetly Urged!
Poem by Harry Garrison
“No Trespassing” is a phrase I don’t get.
You see it all over, but it makes
no sense, even though we all know
it means, “Don’t go in here.”
Now, a good way to tell
if something is a sound concept
is if it has a sensible opposite.
I see “No Trespassing”
and I think, “As opposed to what?”
“Yes Trespassing?” “Some Trespassing?”
“Please Trespass?”
“Go Ahead And Trespass?”
Okay, maybe the opposite
of “No Trespassing” would be
“Please Enter” or “Come On In!”
But that’s not the point. The point
is that the “No” in “No Trespassing”
is redundant. Trespassing is already
something bad you shouldn’t do.
“No Trespassing” is like the imaginary
word “irregardless” in that it is a freak
of logic, although you take its meaning.
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Murderer’s Elegy
Poem by David B. Huebert
I am a man
An ape, a clown
I built my house on a mountain
It‟s falling down
I walk on streets
They‟re paved with bones
I learned to fly
On wings of cadavers
I pray in cathedrals
The glass is stained
With blood
Bones will crumble
When time sits on them
Wings will fall
When you fly too close the sun
Glass will shatter
When the screams reach the right pitch
My gods have died
But I still pray
I made my bed out of ashes
And it’s blowing away
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Projections
Poem by Craig MacEachern
It’s witching hour, and
the muscular men on tv are
done fighting over purses.
There in the bar corner,
a hostile whiskey takeover
among the red-faced clerks
will take place.
A spreadsheet squabble
will spill out onto the street;
hands will be thrown wildly
like drowning children,
until one will accidentally
meet its projection;
the crash will sober the man,
and send him scurrying home
at four a.m. to tap out
litigious emails.
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If one day I waken
to find my eyelids
have flown away,
my eyes
turned to sand,
I will climb
with a spider’s
mechanical legs
to the top
of this hill –
I will stand
in the centre
of this baking wind,
and in a wide circle
fling my voice,
and travel
on the invisible current
of my song.
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Who Will Aestheticize The Title Insurance?
Poem by John Wise McLeod
You bore stamps and pens,
O army of the Inland Empire hour
between coffee break and lunch,
where every stroke, every blind lie
removed another family from its home.
Why did it come to this,
greeter, hair stylist, barista rolling
ball ink against your own?
Not even servant to the Trusts
(those funny words) but mercenary
dealing fate at ten million dollars a day
for a contractor warning you
against repetitive strain injury.
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Diminutive Epithets
Poem by Whitney Moran
I am told that in most languages, the objects of love
are spoken of under diminutive epithets – Edmund Burke
I have been called
“babe”, “dear”, other
delicacies.
curled myself
into an unthreatening thing
burrowed
into any hole that would have me.
I’ve lingered over scents
shallow leftovers of
still-warm skin
all the chemicals seeping in,
my hair a dry cough of cigarettes billowing
up from the chest cavity.
I have been seduced by sonorous fingernail wounds
on records, love songs for the dead.
That easy strumming, fingers plucking all the strings,
playing nothing
but it was mine.
I’ve crept into beds
in search of hands to clasp,
admitted my addiction to that folding
of fingers.
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Warships are the colour of brains,
Without their convoluted beauty
Their decks are gritty as asphalt
Washed grey as cloud-covered sea
Nothing sticks. Not life, not dirt
Not death. Nothing here
Is made for people; even blood
Disappears, even sunlight..
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We Remember
Poem by David Rimmington
We remember the day.
The neighbour’s teenage cat
(a little older than us)
was doing its bit for recycling:
hooking its front paws in soil,
shuddering its hind quarters,
squatting near some rose bushes.
This was years before
we knew what recycling was.
We remember that day because
Mr. Good, M.P.,
ran out of his house shouting,
kicked his cat like a home goal;
jerked his boot under its belly,
arched it like a football across the lawn,
yelling “You filthy scumbag!”
We kids witnessed all from
the steps of an opposite house.
Later that day we told our parents:
Never would we vote for Mr. Good, M.P.
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Bread Crumbs
Poem by Dan Robinson
Emerge from a fan of sheets, chalk and china clay,
spine broke and beautifully worn
with my hand spread in the bow-curve of your back,
pressing you down, stretching, folding you close
as if this were the end of our world.
Fingers laced together like clever roots,
one being; tall, naked, wrapped in ourself.
In the quiet you cling to me like Ipomoea.
You feed me sweet potato and water spinach
and I suck wine from your lips.
Drunk, we lapse back into the leaves,
bruising them red with our footprints
so we will always find our way back
to the beginning.
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I want to tell you
Poem by Sara Saddington
I want to tell you
about how the dead pine needles
that cling to the roof beside my window
make me feel.
But I don‟t know what that is.
They have been dead nearly a year.
In death they survived the snow:
clung to their perch
as the moss thickened
in the lines of the shingles.
Shoved by the rain and wind
forced to submit
and yet defiant.
A hundred thousand tragic heroes.
More valiant than I
who is always tragic
and never a hero.
And how I feel about the pine needles
is not at all.
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Lock stock and love
Poem by Christen Thomas
You uncover the hidden door to the chamber
of my heart: an unbroken wall of mock
books, false volumes of Gunpowder Magazine.
Pulse arrhythmic, plosive by your
palpation, casual effleurage
of fingers sketching skin.
Skim over me, avidly read, thumb
to last fluttering page, glimpse
denouement without knowing yet
what foreshock enkindles climax.
Read all between lines as all between
sheets, akimbo and unholstered,
a steady draw ungunshy
to the lock stock and barrel of love.
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Pass it on
Poem by David Williams
Rub the soles of their feet
touch, feel and caress
sit close with flesh touching flesh
and beam your smile upon them
speak well of them
say loving words
announce their best qualities
save them when you can
and feed them often
serve them cool draughts
attend to their talk and thought
make them feel safe
cry love upon the world
this do in remembrance of yourself
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Near Scotia Square today I found an old penny
A wish! A wish! And there are many!
Should I wish for a mansion and wealth?
Or for happiness and health?
And then walking down on Water Street
An old rich friend I happened to meet
His eyes were sad as he told me he was sick
So happiness and health I wished for in a tick!
Open Heart Forgery 