Vol. 2, No. 8
Writers:
Arlene Diepenbrock – Figure Drawing
Serena Gauthier – For a Friend
Scot Jamieson – Snowstorm Coming
Nicola Patterson – Closing the lid
Mary Ellen Sullivan – Stupid Moves
Christopher Trainor – If I were A butterfly
Kristine Webber – Finkle, Black Welsh Lamb
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Granite, symbol of strength,
………..of permanence.
I need to WALK
………..on the granite plateau of Peggy’s Cove.
I need to TOUCH
………..the grooves etched by passing glaciers.
I need to WRAP MY ARMS AROUND
………..a granite erratic.
I need to FEEL, to ABSORB
………..the emanations of strength,
………..the murmurs of permanence.
Even this granite monolith,
………..now bathed in my salt tears,
Will one day be dissolved
………..by the salt ocean.
But for now, it is my rock.
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caught in a causeless
caress of my hair
tied back,
your fingers falling
finding freckles and
fragility of composure,
a shiver of shoulders,
a tremble,
a breath.
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Figure Drawing
Haiku by Arlene Diepenbrock
Curve of skin and spine,
Life’s myst’ry etched in pastel;
Illuminated.
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We’re lucky to live in a world
where places have purposes:
home, school, office.
We’re lucky to live in a world
where objects have uses:
hammers, erasers, paperclips.
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For a Friend
Poem by Serena Gauthier
It seems to me the clouds fell from the sky
It looks like they’re residing just above your eyes
Their rain is slowly slipping down your cheek
I know that you feel heavy, I know you cannot speak
Their thunder makes you shake and the lightning makes you fall
This isn’t what you were looking for at all
I know the feelings that are coursing through your veins
Like all that they are holding is more pain
The thoughts that nothing for you will ever be the same
Realizing that “the maybe” was just a passing flame
There’s a lesson that you were meant to learn
Next time it will be someone else’s turn
Now if I could I’d make myself into the sun
I’d take the heat inside me and burn every one
Of those clouds, and the hurt and the tears
Make you realize you’re more than just your fears
I know, that out there, someone is waiting for you
And I know, you know that too
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Pregnancy Is
Poem by Rowena Hopkins
Pregnancy is a foreign country.
One where strangers congratulate you
from across the street,
smile and reach out in awe.
A place where girth is celebrated
and curvaceous is the new black.
Pregnancy is a world where you are
all powerful,
carrying hope within you,
as you lead the way with your belly.
Pregnancy is a foreign culture.
One where 35 is so old that your vessel
may be cracked,
but your disability breathes new life.
A place of bold stares, averted eyes
and unsolicited advice.
Pregnancy is a world of jellied probes
on full bladders,
where the love of your life
high fives you from a box on the wall.
Pregnancy is an overt statement.
One of ripeness, roundness
and anticipation;
of a seed planted in fertile soil.
A place without menstruation,
where contraception is too little, too late.
Pregnancy is a giant neon sign that says
“Yes! We have had sex”
and if you do, you could be like me too.
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Snowstorm Coming
Poem by Scot Jamieson
The weather people point to maps
and satellites track its slow advance.
The rain, ice, freezing winds and snow,
and (more or less) Full Winter’s going to show,
a month ahead of its season’s apportion,
as bullies take more than their share just for fun.
Still souls work on toward their freedom
in any weather, of the Earth, or from
the weather of the dollar, rat-infested,
hamster-wheeled, and its unresisted
bullies pushing around their cowardly
currency, giving us anything but stability.
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We will shout and be free
Limitless and the beautiful
Each will have a place to be
Each will be the dutiful
We will sing for newness
And a way out of the dark
We will get to selflessness
Share our bounty in the park
Let’s leave it all today
Take dreams out of our pockets
Let’s go on and run away
Turn our wishes into rockets
Soar them above our heads
Your hatred is not mine to share
Nor is it mine to spread
My courage is to love and care
We will shout and be free
Limitless and the beautiful
Each will have a place to be
Each will be the dutiful
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Joyful regret…
Poem by Robert Lee
A restless component walks the halls hinting
the absence of something essential.
The proverbial carrot dangles just out of reach.
Boldly proclaiming, “It will be OK when…”
Empty promises warn thin with the keeping
promise to try harder…to get it right.
Even when I am alone and afraid I will be strong.
Cold and shaking lungs, exploding ribs
cracking desperate for one more breath.
Collapsing sodden sheets dripping sweat.
Adrenalin screams the terror of I am dying.
This must be the heart of absolute ecstasy.
As unashamed the body takes one more breath.
As the cycle of fearful abandon loops one more time.
Joyful regret greets awareness with numb hesitation.
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A wild horse without reins,
I am riding.
And all around me,
other riders in this race.
Seven billion of them–
appearing,
disappearing,
overlapping like waves
as they’re born,
as they die.
There are no trap doors,
no secret portals,
no time machines,
no escape.
Just a dizzying myriad of consequences;
an inevitable thrust forward of life,
riding wild horses without reins.
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I am an aerial view onto thighs
discovering patterns of nature
new in me.
Like the earth,
liquids are breaking me down,
blood melt rivulets
erode flesh mountains,
latticing skin.
They meander there,
going about their inevitable way.
Wisps of corpuscular language:
the fine net of entropy
with me in it.
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Closing the lid
Poem by Nicola Patterson
I’m saying goodbye to Auden’s song.
I’m closing the lid on the Pickle jar.
The light above me is now descending,
cold compress for those wounds of love.
Through my feet the cool light enters,
Shooting through each waiting limb.
Around my heart it’s now embracing,
shining through my rib caged lungs.
Heal me light so long in waiting.
Under clouds I will not hide.
I did not know it was you around me,
forgive my eyes for being so blind.
I’ll swallow my eyes so they’re deep in my belly.
I’ll look at the world through the panes of my heart.
From there I will see without the grey matter,
Be clear in my mind without altering talk.
I’m curled on the sofa,
I’m deep in the curve,
Twilight has fallen on the song of the bird.
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but a bundle of limbs
in burlap, flung about,
like doorknobs
and oranges,
we are thickest at night,
..most significant
….in our girth,
……and dead
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Echoes of Sad
Poem by Felix Perry
A Sunday morning kind of quiet
Lingered through his dreary day
He knows now he may have lost her
Couldn’t find the right words to say
He thinks of looking for redemption
In a forty-ouncer of old Jim Beam
He’s not the devil nor an Angel
Just a man lost somewhere in between
He sits staring vacantly at her picture
Maybe all that’s left of him and her
Wonders if she’s thinking of him
Or has she finally slammed the door
He really tried to do the best he could
Maybe his best just wasn’t all that great
Somehow the kisses turned to hurting
How could such sweet love turn to hate
Brushes teardrops from his weary eyes
Turns off the lights and goes to bed
He knows sleep won’t come easy
Too many painful echoes in his head
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Trench Show
Poem by Matt Robinson
………..it’s all a rough magic, this
rifleman’s trick. this cool stepping
down behind curtained clay, shoulders
coated in folds, momentarily. it’s a false
ducking, of course; a coarse
duck-boarded crouch. a dank, tailored
mess; a consumption, for show.
…………so: close up: camera one…
cue the lights, hold your breath :
appearing now at stage centre, or right,
and/or left: the overhead antics of
near-human confetti that’s utterly
peerless. (save the ticker-taped encores
they’ll stand for at home, while
we houdinis lie khakied – plank still, all
decked out – and wait to out-do ourselves,
once more, yet again; to shed these,
our boxes. to emerge, wholly men.)
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Harmony
Poem by Sara Saddington
Even though
I know I’ll never be able to write it,
I want to hear the sound
that sets God free.
But not your stuffy God.
The real one.
Who put this hot blood in my veins
and wrote your annihilation
like a tragedy.
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Like Rain
Poem by Molly Spinney
If I keep myself busy
I won’t think about you
I won’t think about love;
Dreams that won’t come true
I won’t think of the memories
That I’ll never relive
Never think of the love
That I’ve left to give
If I keep myself busy
Maybe I won’t feel pain
’cause alone to think
My tears fall like rain.
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Stupid Moves
Poem by Mary Ellen Sullivan
There are fables about toes
severed by sputtering lawnmowers.
Nightmarish images bellow at me,
Never cut the grass with flip-flops on!
I am very cautious,
wear orthotic shoes, for God’s sake.
My eyes watch the sidewalk.
Lift toe, place foot carefully.
It was one of those moments
When you feel omnipotent.
I was vacuuming in bare feet
and the sucker got my big toe, man it hurt.
As if my foot was a pulsing light
people stopped, asking
What did you do to your toe?!
My face turned almost as purple.
There are things you don’t want
the media to hear about.
Times when stupidity leaves a physical scar
and beats up your brain.
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If I were a Butterfly
Poem by Christopher Trainor
Butterflies,
Colouful, Pretty,
Flying, Fluttering, Laying,
Something that Flies,
Beautiful.
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Finkle the Black Welsh Lamb
Poem by Kristine Webber
Sitting in a hot-tub-like spring
overlooking a peaceful panorama,
I felt irritated; my solitude was disturbed.
You came up the hill
and sat near the pool.
You didn’t recognize me.
I asked, “do you want to jump in?”
You exclaimed “NO!”
“Sorry, I forgot about that time
your bellybutton got infected.”
You said, “How did you know?”
I paused and said,
“I think your name now rhymes with Twinkle…
Is it something like Finkle?”
You answered
“Ah yes, you have discovered my secret.
Finkle is my Real Name…
I’m a Black Welsh now.”
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La Repentir
Poem by David Williams
In this cemetery Able is buried, interred,
sleeping, decayed, and awaiting memory
The name of this cemetery is La Repentir.
Below sea level all graves are above ground
in granite tombs of fanciful design.
A place of monuments, a valley of the kings.
La Repentir, an olde burial ground in Guyana.
Gift of stone to the steamboat wooden fantasy of Georgetown
The giver – a slave time planter of sugar cane.
He killed his brother in a fit of rage, or obsession.
He didn’t donate the stone city with a sense of triumph,
the name he gave the this weighty place is La Repentir
Was he repenting the way he treated his slaves?
He didn’t mention dead slaves in his donation.
He regretted that he killed one brother,
But not all of them.
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Open Heart Forgery 