Vol. 2, No. 3
Writers:
Sara Asyyed – The Tree Of Life
Scot Jamieson – Avian Samaritan
Robert Lee – It’s the least I can do…
Ayesha Mushtaq – Graveyard Within.
Matt Robinson – Harbour Sleeps These Shores
Dan Robinson – Red River Drowning
Christen Thomas – Cirsium vulgare
Christine Beevis Trickett – breakfast at the Armview
David Williams – It‘s loud across the forest
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Fudge
Poem by Mary Ann Archibald
I see my mother in a pot of fudge,
the hot, heavy pan and rhythmic, wooden spoon.
Smiling and winking in the thickening sweetness
that sucks the air as the spoon comes up for breath
then back again into the heat for another beating.
The round music of anticipation when you dig
your bottom teeth into the hardening sugar
and lick the spoon with your prickly burnt tongue.
It lasts two lifetimes
One for you. The other for when she is gone.
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The Tree Of Life
Poem by Sara Asyyed
Sorry hun, I can’t afford your dreams.
You hate me now,
But soon you will grow up and see how,
Money does not grow on trees.
That dollar-
Comes from more than lumber
It may have been cut, flattened and dyed.
It was not enough
It needed sweat from desperate pride
Desperate to live
Desperate to survive
Desperate to breathe air
Once upon a time
Came from a tree
The tree of life.
So next time hun,
When you see something pretty and shiny
Remember, it’s not only money.
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Icicles
Poem by Meg Baird
long
skinny
poem
for
spring
in
icicles
dripping
from
quince
branches
spring
spigots
!
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Knowledge
Poem by Brett Campaigne
Knowledge is something you can grasp onto…
..For when you take liberties with knowledge,
……a judo grip on its coarse hide,
…….it responds by reluctantly giving itself out to you
but Knowledge has nerves
..and lashes back with fangs when you dig your fingernails in
..if you withdrawal for too long, stung by its strike
Knowledge will seek you out,
………..bump against you,
…..brush amorously across your skin,
….jump beneath your feet when you’re walking haplessly
You have become quick on your feet with Knowledge
…………………………….when it startles you so
If you stab at Knowledge, it bleeds but never dies
……Ever drown in blood?
If you cage or aim to dominate Knowledge
…………………….it always escapes
………………..making you look ridiculous to those you revere
It is said that Knowledge is power, but Knowledge has power
If you ask of Knowledge, It is overjoyed to patronize you.
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Selected Works (Chris Burden Haiku)
Poem by Zoe Doucette
American Myth
Assembled mid-century
Pomona Jesus
Quick explorations.
Danger: his ingredient.
220 volt high
Hit me. Your best shot.
Nov 19th, ‘71
Take it away, Bruce
“Hey Man, I don’t know.
Classic or atrocity;
What should hurt be named?”
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Pub Girl
Poem by Nicholas Fraser
I sit on the steps, wearing my coat of blue.
You can’t see me, but I can see you.
Walking down the street, who’s that on your arm?
Are his intentions noble, or does he mean you harm?
It’s early Fall, and your dress blows in the night.
There’s a slight chill, surely you feel the bite?
This matters not to you, you’re not worried.
You only care about him, take him and hurry.
It’s now the winter, and here again we sit.
Its deadly cold and snowing, your dress isn’t fit.
We laugh, and wonder and can’t comprehend.
With the weather that’s about, your outfit you can’t defend.
Watch out for that ice, you notice much too late.
I don’t know who’s laughing harder, us or your date.
You hear us laugh, and finally are aware.
but at that moment I feel sad, your sadness is hard to bear.
It’s now early Spring, once again I sit upon the stair.
I haven’t seen you in a while, are you still there?
And then I see you coming down the street.
You look up and see me, my jaw drops to my feet.
The girl that was once is now no more.
You are beautiful and elegant, you will no longer be called whore.
I can’t believe what I see before my eyes.
You look and smile, any man would be lucky to have such a prize.
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A gift is a hard copy,
Of one’s most intimate feelings;
An extension of the heart,
A piece of the soul,
The unspoken word-
Voiced loud and clear.
But between two friends,
An expression to be treasured…
Always.
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Avian Samaritan
Poem by Scot Jamieson
Compassion – felt it, once I saw the toy robot
was alive, on that sidewalk one Spring evening.
The plastic bright yellow, or rubbery foam purple
parts – like a Gonzo – all snapped into Real
when it sighed a face down sigh, and gurgled.
Hot and helpless in the hands, it could bring
but a frail and piteous voice against its lot.
Heated cat food twixt twig chopsticks
its cartoon trap would wrestle down.
I whistle, trap opens like a lid-flip
answering a trashcan treadle step.
And it could mess its nest oh yes. A blip
on no one’s radar but my own.
So would it live the night in my heated fix?
One dream: coasting over a huge, hazy sandbar,
floating above adjacent fields’ green, undulating heat…
A shoebox nest of rags with a lightbulb nearby
under – I lift its lid the morning next. And closely
look down: breath or death for breakfast?
He notices me, spasms over.
I change his poopy cloth and put his box
in the front seat. There’s a B.S.R.P.* in town.
Rehab – the fate of many a star.
………………….*Baby Starling Rehabilitation Program
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It’s the least I can do…
Poem by Robert Lee
This morning standing for the bus,
my thoughts clearly critical,
teaming with judgement.
This is so often the case,
that it is not clearly heard,
becoming the drone of background buzz.
It was clear this morning
that every thought, word, action, and feeling
were found to be less than adequate.
This level of unease takes the prize.
Number one in every book.
Don’t miss the movie debut—April 2013.
A tip for my listener.
If you find yourself critical of others.
It’s a real good chance it’s a projection
of the litany of voices you don’t hear so well.
And the room goes silent.
Ain’t nobody gonna throw the first stone.
OK……then I want to make friends
with the heart of that which is critical
and offer my love and support without condition.
Given the circumstance….it’s the least I can do.
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Graveyard Within…
Poem by Ayesha Mushtaq
A dried up spider’s web
Minerva’s home ~and my soul
Designed a grave within…
The graveyard lay barren,
Almost ethereally lifeless,
With dried up streams of misery,
Which had once blossomed
With sanguine wine ripened by his presence
The stony graveyard jolted with indifference
Tossing and turning in yearning pain, Till
Bluto in his kindness prime,
Told me to dig up a grave within.
And in those chambers I bury him,
Where no Godforsaken will ever set foot,
It was his forever,
And he abused it well…
Let me build him a shrine
Let me make it rocky hard
Let me soothe his pillow stones
So they hurt for ever more
Rest in that restless, unfeeling heart of mine!
I have buried him with a faceless epitaph,
Because Minerva could not suggest a single line….
His cruel faulty thread slashed Athena’s web,
And the displeased goddess’s wrath,
Is his to embrace in the grave within.
The grave within the rocky chambers
Of my cupid’s anthropoid…
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The Harbour Sleeps These Shores
Poem by Matt Robinson
This late, wet winter’s near dusk, from
the Dartmouth side of the harbour, the bridge
is not some cocktail party’s belched boast,
is not gin-fuelled and all red-cheeked and
breathless. …….No, it is instead that sly killing
bit of mid-day office gossip. A near-rote
second cup of what’s barely-morning-anymore
insinuation; one that everyone’s sure they’ve heard
(Once more! Oh, tell me anyway!), but no one
can quite articulate or source.
…….You know: if eyes had tips like tongues,
it could lie right there, the bridge. …….Lie
on, it might. ……Or so they’d have us believe.
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Red River Drowning
Poem by Dan Robinson
This polished finger
can’t get it right, fingering
the years, greased underneath and
slipping like a slippery fish
into the river.
One finger joins many, a phalanx
laced to the knuckle
yet remaining indistinguishable.
Drowned by each other;
grappling down the muddy banks of the Red,
in our hometown.
Next fall – Found!
The tip of a finger bone, the forefinger
perfectly preserved in the river bank and
mistaken for an arrowhead
showing east.
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The Words
Poem by Molly Spinney
Tell me what you want to hear
-the words I’m ‘spose to use
I’ll spare us both the heartbreak
I’m not broken, I’m just bruised.
rain falls daily, all day
like the weather reads my mind
someday will be a sunrise
’til then I’ll close the blinds
Darken the room
-the path to my heart
’til I can start again
or tell me what you want to hear
those words, for you, I’ll say them
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Cirsium vulgare (bull thistle)
Poem by Christen Thomas
You transmuted my love — thistledown,
spires of rough blazing stars,
ragged-headed pastures,
thick-stemmed and uncared for,
rose-purpled beauty in waste places,
along roadsides — tempered by you,
turned bristleless
and into fine, wild honey.
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breakfast at the Armview
Poem by Christine Beevis Trickett
ding ding of kitchen bell as a plate is slid out on the pass
flap flap flap of door on hinges,
fanning cooking smells into the dining room
Lenny Kravitz singing to a cab driver on the radio
slurp and burble of straw at the bottom of a young girl’s
glass of milk
outside, the traffic on the Rotary never stops
round and around and around it goes
at the next booth,
family having an early lunch
easy chuckles and chatter on morning off from school
dull gleam of Formica
cracked pleather banquettes
chink of spoon in coffee mug
slow ooze of syrup
melting butter over pancakes
hot burst of purple on tongue
starting to see the world through writing again
a whole poem in a blueberry
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Red Sky
Lyrics by Wendy Watkinson
Catch me save me
The next wave may be
The one I am afraid of
My tough fella
My warm umbrella
The rain that fell on us is gone
Once in the shade
Now in the sun
Clouds that were gray
Don’t belong
And now and now
All the clouds are gone
My heartfelt man
My steady homeland
The rock who understands me
Hold me save me
Then you forgave me
The red sky I braved at dawn
Once lost at sea
Now back on shore
The storm that raged
Is no more
And now and now
We stand before the calm
Catch me save me
The love you gave me
Is what I depend on
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It‘s loud across the forest
Poem by David Williams
It‘s loud across the forest
And across the farm fields
Loud as New York traffic
Loud as the surging ocean
On this windworn April
The uprising of the wind
Throws down the forest kings
And raises up the voices of the shrubs
The grasses struggle
To upthrust and participate
In the wave
It is the old sticks
Of last years stubby trunks
That are the orchestral strings
The Aeolian harp of the world
they vibrate in anticipation
of living again
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Open Heart Forgery 