Vol. 2, No. 9
Writers:
Chris Benjamin – Stuck in a Mall
Arlene Diepenbrock – Fresh Figs
Harry Garrison – Breakfast Perspectives
Scot Jamieson – Despite Politics, Democracy
Heddy Johannesen – A winter scene
Robert Lee – Embracing the Child
Tiffany Morris – wolfville 2010
Nicole D. Myers – His Eyes Rhyme
Beverley Rach – Don’t have a daughter
Molly J. Spinney – Butterflies
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Stuck in a Mall
Poem by Chris Benjamin
Instrumental Christmas carols
looping ear to ear.
Dazzling white light displays
flashing eye to eye.
Fat broiler boiling over
wafting nostril to nostril.
Snow-proof warehouse boots dragging.
The heat.
It weights my breath,
slows my blink –
lethargic pacing
of the eyelids,
glazing
at product kaleidoscopes.
There is a list in my pocket,
a clock ticking to 5:00 –
my plastic deadline.
The list must be ticked on time
or my in-laws won’t love me.
No time
for nagging questions.
No time
to wonder what it’s all for,
where it was made,
where it goes when novelty fades
like a catalogue model’s allure.
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Treasure
Poem by Earl Bradford
Sordid, vacant heart sometimes,
facing impending middleage
childless… lonely commute on Buses
Face solitary dinners in Restaurants,
Oriental buffets, occasionally…
Newspaper, evening Television –
Then of course, madness of Internet
shoved aside… we have Treasures
of Human library chronicles
Endless myriad of personal histories
committed to print on pressed wood
pulp, mountains upon mountains
written word rivers available at arms
reach in thousands upon thousands
treasures for plunder, so we rejoice.
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Saturday night, downtown.
Stores shuttered and silent.
Darkness broken
only by light from street lamps.
But wait! Look!
The streets are alive,
Teeming with revellers!
Motorists beware
of pedestrians cavorting
down the middle of the street!
Laughing, shouting, singing,
they move from bar to bar.
An endless stream,
like salmon swimming upriver
to spawn.
What is this?
Mardi Gras?
New Year’s Eve?
No, none of these.
Just Saturday night, downtown.
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Cauliflower
Poem by Brett Campaigne
The ants in the garden
one day beheld
cauliflower flourishing against the
stratosphere
They never made the connection
that that cargo they had dropped
along the way
were cauliflower seeds.
No gardener found anywhere.
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Cabin Fever
Poem by Jayne Cook
5pm and it’s dark.
I’m alone. Not another soul for miles.
Alone.
The sound of the radio is all I hear,
Turned on to distract me from all I fear….
The sound of my heart, the thoughts in my head.
Solitude-a nice concept, easier said than done
Fears creep in with the setting sun.
My imagination runs wild for a bit….
Creating ideas of wild animals waiting to attack me,
And serial killers hiding behind snow-covered trees.
Shake my head and forget those fears,
I try to remember that I brought myself here.
There’s a reason, a purpose, as to why I’ve come
Having nothing to do with those fears of
The setting sun.
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Fresh Figs
Haiku by Arlene Diepenbrock
Bizarre fruit, fresh figs:
Purple uterine capsules
Host waspish offspring.
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Breakfast Perspectives
Poem by Harry Garrison
The kitchen clock is set to 6:47
in the morning, the same time
as the whole rest of the time zone.
..My stomach rumblings
..are small-scale thunder.
A waffle goes
from the polar region of the freezer
into the desert of the toaster,
and then to the prairie of the table.
..In my coffee cup,
..a galaxy I stir up.
Then my cup knocketh over,
making a small, muddy lake.
..After I wash the dishes,
..I let the soapy water go down the drain,
..making a small hurricane
..that has no name.
I write a to-do list for the day,
and remember from High School
science class, that, under the microscope,
pencil lines look like gravel roads.
..Then I look out the window,
..and see, in the moonlight,
..white spots in the clover in the lawn,
..looking like stars in the sky.
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Assigned,
Maligned,
Resigned.
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Despite Politics, Democracy
Poem by Scot Jamieson
Sometimes blocking out the sun,
huge bank buildings loomed, one’s
logo a golden beast, claws around
a globe, its fiery tongue
licking out and around.
One monument for dead soldiers
faced another for dead police,
all having become unknowing
servants of the rotten richest, who
everything seem to need to own.
Our own apathy-breakers
sat around the monuments,
the living future carried within
their cold warm bodies, open minds
and questing community,
not looking for answers so much
as being the answer.
Then “our” leaders, those meaty
morlocks, with their exclusive
right to violence, unable to create
change, create their one specialty,
violence. Remembrance Day, yeah.
Support OCCUPY.
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A winter scene
Poem by Heddy Johannesen
A winter scene
seems like one from a stately dream
white and pure.
The frosty trees resemble anxious mothers
reaching to the listless gray sky,
ecstatic children glide on
their nimble skates,
inscribe figure eights.
Inviting cottages promise hot cocoa
sleighs buried under a blanket of snow
nature’s seeds slumber under a snowy quilt.
Shovels fly
mountains are born
fortresses are molded
battles are won and lost.
When a winter scene fades,
so the sadness lingers
memories of a winter scene
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Embracing the Child
Poem by Robert Lee
My internal process is projected,
Into what becomes my physical environment.
Self-conscious shame drags guilt by the ear.
Screaming…can’t you ever get it right?
Looking back with a critical eye
Leaves me blind to what is present.
Expectation can be demanding…always wanting
It to be this way or that.
Opening the door I find no end in sight.
Best I keep my attention on what is present.
What is the intention of my heart?
It is to provide support free of condition
To the child who emerged from the womb.
Could it be possible that all my thoughts and actions
Have their basis in the wish for the child
To be happy and feel safe?
If I focus my attention directly upon my thoughts and actions.
I can touch the basically good intention of the heart.
Just as the child begins to feel safe,
The pain and suffering of existence…ceases to exist
Go figure…!
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The Vision
Poem by Erica Lewis
From the utter silence
of the blackness above,
the stars suddenly merge,
pull away from their suspension,
rush towards me,
the metered white lines
of the empty bridge I am standing upon,
bearing their path.
The entire universe
has just passed through my head.
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Mom is washing away,
a pebble slipping,
unhinged from the shore;
one of these waves will take her out.
Yet she hangs on.
Wedged in a deep crevice
water refines her further—smooth
for smooth water ahead.
It might take a rogue one
to pull her free.
I know she’s scared, angry
as a diminishing dot.
Her worn mountain heart
clinging to its birth in love
when it was tall and young
with its fire and deep tree roots
entering.
Her?
I’m the one hanging on.
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wolfville 2010
Poem by Tiffany Morris
the robin-carried wind
& apple blossoms strain
to touch wintry cloud,
interrupted by the barebranch
trees and blue-glistened crows,
its soft cumulus fog
golden in white-cold sun,
the gifts of flower, bird and breeze
shied away by the memory
of the thousand frozen plains
of its birth
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His Eyes Rhyme
Poem by Nicole D. Myers
with all of his
loveliness considered
his percussive stare
taught me
how to read faces
his eyes rhyme
deep-set
two beautiful stars
devoted to their orbit
mesmeric enough that
I cannot train my own
to look into them
his eyes rhyme
the song of all songs
perfectly merged words
assonant
they make me feel
like one of the hunted
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In The Storm
Poem by Angela Naugle
Snow falls all around us,
like butterflies from
cold white skies,
settling into silence,
building homes.
Standing, breathing in
this quiet storm,
cold lungs,
flakes like falling stars,
sparkle on my skin.
They touch your warmth,
they melt to rain.
A beautiful storm
we are trapped in.
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sun speck on the tip
my nose
is hard to see
without going cross
-eyed
the snail’s stories speak
in its milk trails
all over the wall opposite
all over the wall in silence
it could be screaming
screaming in sunlight
I squint
your stories could be screams
but I’m barely listening
they’ve made me think of snails
they’re small
celery whispers
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Don’t have a daughter
Poem by Beverley Rach
Don’t have a daughter
if you don’t want to relive
unresolved teenage angst
Each disappointment
Each insecurity
Each time you felt left out
or not good enough
Don’t have a daughter
if you don’t want to remember
what its like to be fat or too skinny
Too tall or too short
Hair straight or too curly
A body that just never looks
like the cover of Seventeen
Don’t have a daughter
if you don’t want to snuggle in bed
with a good movie
Giggle together
till you pee just a bit
Walk arm in arm
And cook feasts made of nothing
Don’t have a daughter
if you don’t want your heart broken
When she moves on with her life
Across miles and miles
And your tears wash the road
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cave song
Poem by Laurel Rennie
the caves are burning secret truth
in the depths stalagmites build in circles,
dripping mucous memory in my open ear
it is the caves calm wetness that i hear.
such expansive lovingness
the dribble scape,
the coated rock pores.
to hold my body to the surface
like a stethoscope
a floating vapourous euphony
falling apart and
forming in me
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Butterflies
Poem by Molly J. Spinney
it’s that smile
and I’m lost
butterflies carry me away
the sparkle in her eyes
and I’ll never be the same
I shake, stutter, stumble
my words crash
but she
She is everything
I thought the world hid from me
It’s scary
So I’ll hold on tight, just hold on
Shaking stuttering
but butterflies can’t
be wrong.
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The horizon that bisects you perfectly
Sends your laughter to me in diminished halves
I lie still, equidistant from both zenith and nadir
Yet somehow I am celestially beside you
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Tuurtel Turtel Turtle
clip clop clip clop clip
drip-drip dry
Sand more rock dry solid towel; Snake
Water flows and stops and,
rivers run the dune-sands-crisp
Frosty rolling blowing windy
greens in sandy spirals stopping
Turtle dropping tucking; slide
Dryness water shell
White and green and
sand and blue –
yellow warmness, painted bridge
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Open Heart Forgery 