Vol. 3, No. 1
Writers
Georgia Atkin – As Many Words
Meg Baird – the night
Russell Barton – The Lobster Blues
Janet Brush – Memories of Liana
Sarah Kester – The beauty of the crows
Benjamin MacDonald – When Science Fails Me
Cassie MacDonald – Guts are not pretty
Nicola Patterson – Body Recall
Megan Power – Messages from Tufts Cove
Laurel Rennie – one self in multiples
Nathaniel Rounds – So Much Glass.
László Szantor – Dear lady of my dreams
Justin Tan – aqua, acquiescence
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As Many Words
Poem by Georgia Atkin
As many words there ever were,
a few could use them well.
And always, I was never sure
quite how those poets tell-
Such stories, as were always there,
for they were Nature’s own.
And we, as Nature, had them too-
but buried deep, not known.
Long forgotten simple truths
whose sleep we could not break-
Until, at last, a poet spoke,
and we began to wake.
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take the night and hold it
closely wrapping in around
it is everyting and nothing
it is free
it is cool beneath the blankets
it’s been waiting there all day
stretch and roll and greet it warmly
melt into weightless density
play around and hold another
it reclines to lofty heights
you are everyting and nothing
to the vast and starry night
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The Lobster Blues
Lyrics by Russell Barton
It’s in the news.
I’ve blown a fuse,
I think I’ve caught the lobster blues.
I’m feelin’ brown,
But I’m goin’ down,
Sadly steamin’ in to town,
I gotta express my indignation,
On behalf of the crustacean nation,
Man it’s gettin’ hot in this ole shell,
Startin’ to feel, oh yeah, a bit like hell.
I’d love to swim another day,
I guess that’s all I have to say,
So here we go where it’s real hot,
Ahmm endin’ ma days in the lobster pot.
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fishing
Poem by Stephen Blacker
elusive, slippery, silvery inspiration
darting just out of reach
I flail and grasp
scrambling to focus
on the ghost of a notion
that refuses to materialize
just a spark in the murk
business as usual
I cast again and wait
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Cold/Relief
Poem by Sam Boomer
It was cold today
but my bones were too hot
and they could not take it.
They slowed and seized,
ached and burned,
sweet relief was in the distance.
It taunted me,
as I was thrown
back out to it.
Relief came again,
but I said ‘no.’
Left it standing in the cold,
the same cold,
to ache and burn,
as it had made me.
I sat in the warmth,
but I made sure to visit,
to remember,
as not to forget,
Relief.
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Memories of Liana
Poem by Janet Brush
Time dims memory, dulls pain –
…….Most of the time.
So many years of time
………..have passed
Since your small white coffin
………..was buried in the ground.
Today I heard a song on the radio –
………..‘Let It Be’ by the Beatles,
………..one of your favourite songs.
Instead of John and Paul
I heard you singing,
Your sweet child voice mingling with
………..my raspy smoker’s voice.
Holding you in my arms,
………..we danced around the kitchen.
At the end of the dance,
I dipped you
like Fred dipped Ginger.
You giggled with delight.
Across oceans of time
I saw you,
………..I heard you,
And I felt the dagger of pain
………..plunge into my heart,
As sharp, as killing,
………..as the day you died.
Time dims memory, dulls pain –
………..Not all of the time.
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The Poet
Poem by Marian Chisholm
I listened to the reader
of the most glorious word
written down in patterns
of rhyme schemes and stories.
Whoever would have known
the story’s song magnified.
The artistic nature of the writer.
My poetic songster.
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Baby-cakes
Haiku by Rowena Hopkins
Biscuity scented.
Wrapped in white tissue paper.
Soft and Warm. Your poo.
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The beauty of the crows
Poem by Sarah Kester
There’s beauty in the crows;
as their darkness brings me light
there’s sweetness in the oh-ing and awing
simply, the annoying caw-cawing
There’s beauty in the way they fly
as I sit, perched by my window, watching as they fly by
some nestle on trees, some just sink low to the ground
well others, fly by, without even making a sound
There’s beauty in the death they symbolize
as we’re all just waiting to die
in this life, maybe the next
what if life is governed as just a test?
There’s beauty in the crows
the sunset illuminates their darkness
the bright pinks, the peachy sorrows
the night sky chains their every move
yet,when morning comes, they’ll be back
There’s beauty in that; in their arrival,
their coming, and their going
Simply, there’s beauty in the crows.
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At night, I slept on a bed of down.
At morning, I gazed upon heaven.
I am exalted in this kingdom of snow.
Enveloped in clouds,
their moist breath pressing against me.
Cocooned by towering mountains
quietly protecting me.
They seem so close.
The sound of absolute stillness
a whispering roar in my ears,
the world below forgotten.
When my life has come full circle,
I will be here.
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When Science Fails Me
Poem by Benjamin Ray MacDonald
Why do I get hurt so bad by love?
Isn’t love just chemicals burning in our brains?
Are these chemicals burning off in the wrong place?
Or are the fumes just going to my heart?
Why do these chemicals hurt me so much?
It’s time like these, when science fails me,
I wish that I didn’t fail science.
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Guts are not pretty
Poem by Cassie MacDonald
blood and bones
make a mess when not kept
in their bodies.
guts are not pretty.
and brains are quite dumb
when your head’s screwed on wrong.
and once its inside,
god help you-
you better hope that he made you
stronger than all of your parts.
Because walking around
with your insides all out
and your heart beatin
“oh where fore art thou”
makes nobody proud
to have called you their gal
and you better hope
that your next man’s a doctor.
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Dialogue
A poem by Kevin McDonald
“F – you, F- you and F-you!”
He startled us with loud, sudden curses.
He glared, He glared, He glared
With his wild young eyes.
He strode, he strode, and he strode
fast and angrily by.
Carrying his groceries, snarling,
ensconced in large headphones
ignoring us, ignoring us, vicious, contemptuous and mean.
Rosaries versus rage, civility versus power,
we watched him carefully;
we prayed for him in silent petition
one cold day before the abortuary.
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Body Recall
Poem by Nicola Patterson
7am and the sun is rising.
Light rolls out…a strip of crinkled foil.
Hull meets wave and we’re riding,
A body remembers the rhythm of a horse.
My mind wanders back and I’m sat down at Whiskies,
Your voice feels like balm on my dehydrated self.
The punters sad faces, swim by on a sea of sin,
and the songs from the nervous guitar player,
strip me down till I’m swimming with them.
Back on the boat and I’m riding,
head thrown back and the sea is my ceiling.
Memory shifts and the rhythm is Blue.
My hips remember a different song,
I’m a fish out of water, I’m those guts on the floor.
Back to the night and you won’t let me leave,
till I’ve heard the message that’s making me bleed.
You say it again and over and over,
till it enters my soul…settles in the corner.
I have to believe you, no reason to fight.
I watch as your boots take you off through the night.
I turn and I stumble across the 2am road,
The wind blows the leaves, silver underbellies exposed.
I swear I saw fairies in the moonlight that night.
I swear they were dancing in the streets pale lamp light
Back on the boat, the motor thrums out its song,
A cormorant flies, back towards the dawn.
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Messages from Tufts Cove
Poem by Megan Power
In January’s severity
White smoke rising from
The candy cane triplets
Drifts and stretches into
What looks like
Arabic calligraphy
Slowed by the cold
Secret edicts crawl far
Above the black harbor water
Across the equally black night sky
Thicker than my own smoke
Which dissolves before reaching
Yellow condos which abut
Our slummy apartments
If only I could parse
These lazy poison-clouds messages
Unlock their warnings
Decode their admonitions
Maybe then
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one self in multiples
Poem by Laurel Rennie
holy heart haunting
of bruised feet boy and apple-cheek girl
in dreams where my soul is parted away with
what place does my self belong to?
in miniature cupboards, in the pits of the earth
in the cherry pie baked with home-print hands.
one can be split apart into multiples
but it isn’t easy,
there are grey dreams and real life words.
still there is a singing, deep throat singers
that cure doubt in the stomach
where the crazed fat bird hibernates.
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I Saw
Poem by David Rimmington
I saw tree cities felled to fields of stumps,
mountain tops blown to smithereens.
I saw the ocean silenced by the dragnet,
its floor scraped into a desert.
I saw rockets ripping up the darkened sky,
villages clear-cut, their resistance a pile of rocks.
I saw death encouraged like a business.
Even funeral directors wept.
I held a dollar up, up towards the sun.
I saw that it had no mercy
and that its shadow was long.
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So Much Glass to So Much Steel
Poem by Nathaniel S. Rounds
Behind a clear, glass veil
Facing a snarling, spitting sea
And the dim shadow of Georges Island
I spent nine dollars
From Mother’s retirement cheque
On gelato down at the bay
Birra Moretti in a coffee cup
And for a frat boy twist
Greek fries with chopsticks
Outside this farmer’s market
A distant cousin with payot and a suit of sky-by-night
Nods his head and fedora in a courtly fashion
To the bag boy and his toil
And the train enters and do-si-dos
With kindred spirit trains
To the strain of whistles blown
For dream time
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Avatism
Poem by Richard Schaller
Black crow silent and true
you do not hide what you are
nor do you wish to;
unlike me, so chained,
so caged
unlike me, so loud,
so vain
unlike me, so broken,
so shamed
unlike me, so false,
so tamed
black crow silent and true
you make no excuse for what you do
black crow silent and true
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A Longing
Poem by Ashita Sharma
A little girl there was
Feeling lost and sad-alas!
She wanted to run and jump and play,
Be merry and gay all day….
Sing songs of childhood freedom
Consider the beauteous nature her kingdom…
Have eyes only for the pretty flowers…
Watch little creatures running among the grass
Count the dew drops on the waxy leaves…
Laugh in joy at the colours to them the sun gives
Be bathed in the mirth of innocence…
Radiate the pure heart’s radiance….
Know no joys that did not last
Have no regrets of the past…
Alas! She could not- a woman she was-
The ‘little girl’, the past, her yester years!
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Dear lady of my dreams
Poem by László Szantor
Full of words….heaped up
dumped into me to the brim.
To select a channel for pouring out on a whim
is the task
The embracing,the loving of her shape
the choosing of fact or fiction
Dear lady of my dreams
a supple dancer
A verse of tango rhymes
or flirting diction
I am in love again
or endlessly still with your
suggestive shifting form
Catching a glimpse of your eyes
piercing me through
speeding my breath
Without hope for you
I would be forlorn
Give me more words,
bury me, cover me
with your spinning veils
Smile at me as I search
digging through all your gifts
Invite me, dear lady
to visit your secret lairs
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aqua, acquiescence
Poem by Justin Tan
I want to break you
with the
patience
and
persuasion
water has when it chooses to destroy, over time,
each fragment
and all testimony
to civilization.
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Trail
Poem by Elzy Taramangalam
I live in sins a.k.a.
Sometimes in Nova Scotia
Land of drifting fog
And bracing distances
Tied up with strings
Making lines in sand
Unadorned sentences
In the smithy of my mind
May be they will stand
The shape and the words
Across the gulf
On a breath of wind.
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Open Heart Forgery 