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Vol. 4, No. 5
Writers:
Richard Collins – At Times off
Brian Downey – Shapes in Smoke
Harry Garrison – Conversation Rule
Scot Jamieson – Poets, emperors of time
David R. MacLean – HouseCats with Party Hats
John Wise McLeod – Necessary Allusions-Prologue
Nicole D. Myers – Hello, stars.
Elzy Taramangalam – Another Atlantis
Ryan Taylor – A Wish for Blackout
Tamara Williams – Death of Muse, Birth of Artist
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A Wish for Blackout
Ryan Taylor
The sun has been coming up at 5:30
I went to greet her, but
she hid! behind the clouds smog
and fog, as all the rest have.
I went anyways
and I was drunk
carrying a bottle of deep red
the kind that doesn’t come with
a cork.
I felt cheap
as my bottle.
had as much food in me
as my bottle.
Had the stench
of bottle and that of
the brown paper bag
stained by blood spilt.
not even a leaf accompanied me.
not even the rain touched me.
I was alone and wished it
dark and not mourning.
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Made to feel less than
But I am not the same as
Your peacock feathers
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Dandelion the most dreaded
hated and misunderstood
of all urban plants,
I love you for what you are
Every spring I await your arrival.
Love your leaves that flavour my salads.
Love your flowers that decorate my lawn
and make my intoxicating delicious wine.
Seed heads replace the flowers
which look like white wigs.
Wind blows away white hair.
Fun thing and entertaining for kids.
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There’s a heap of fresh red berries,
In the grocery foyer
But they’re not from Nova Scotia
They’ve all come from away
And they’re no longer selling Speerville,
Flour, oats or grains.
They tell me they’re too pricey
And the customer won’t pay.
Then they tell me they #lovelocal
But they carry Maple Leaf
So please tell me Mr Sobeys
Where’s the Nova Scotia beef?
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A fading memory
Is all that remains
Slowly drifting away
Day after endless day
My mind going astray
Sign of mental decay
What once was
Gone, goodbye, forgotten…
Lost in my thoughts
Feel like I’m caught
I try to climb
From the abyss in my mind
But try as I may
This hell has been brought
Left to die in my mind alone
This brain, my body
My home, my tomb…
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HouseCats with Party Hats
David R. MacLean
Hotels and HouseCats ~
preoccupied with routines,
…..mesmerized by doormats.
Do their own thing by stereotype;
…..only swing to their own Hype.
When Hotels smile, they bare their teeth.
…..PR on top, naked beneath.
HouseCats strut,
…..personality on the hoof,
…..are proud of being aloof.
Hotels welcome all and sundry.
How may we serve?
…..Your food, your laundry?
HouseCats ignore their supplicant hosts,
…..appear to favour unseen ghosts.
Hotels should add emotional depth,
…..should emulate the noble Cats.
The Cats, though nearly perfect,
…..should lighten up with party hats.
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Tolstoy, I adore your company
But there are times when
I think that good wine of good vintage
Selected for its single bottle offering
Is better than pouring
Fevered intoxication over grain in the table’s surface
For highlighted detail and accentuation
I can’t cut through your sulfur and God-like thump of boot
Over dry earth praying for rain
And that is why I despise
Clear deception through hammer on the head
Water gone evil
Through the humble potato and its alchemy
I need your summation without aftermath
No trap will interrupt your walk
Through the forest of thought and history
Through the social botany lesson
Through the lecture and Genesis and Exodus of Man
And woman left forgotten and betrayed
Like a matryoshka doll birthing its own fears
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We walk in heavy rain,
holding hands against the sky…
You turn and hold my arm around you
for no reason you can say,
and put your head beneath my chin.
It’s a dream I have.
I see you leap in the air,
a smile across the ocean behind you,
hair streaming toward the blue sky,
joy between your heels…
I have that photograph, too.
Sadness bursting into your pillow,
shoulders shaking my hand away,
and I’m a clown that can do no smiles…
I’ve seen that. It hangs somewhere.
You asleep, and who knows where,
and me, with little messages
beating on your window,
seeing you inside,
the rain on your face,
in the air with your heels,
in the pillow with your tears,
walking and leaping and bursting
in oceans and skies, and never near enough.
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Necessary Allusions – Prologue
John Wise McLeod
Little devil Jane waddles down
the sidewalk by the road
dividing Heaven from Hell;
Heaven so high, Hell so strong
mid-town Manhattan
traffic inbetween.
Flaming swords to the right
maw to the left wink
at the door angels wait
for the traffic cop run
like hell among the shoes
between the boots
before the cars roll again.
Jane in the lobby
by the artificial Tree,
gasping in the lobby
by the Mortals Only stairs.
In to the lobby from their mansions
in the Hamptons stream the rulers,
flunkies, Mortals up the stairs.
Little devil Jane
siddles down the ramp,
away from the lobby
past the three-headed dog.
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Conversation Rule
Harry Garrison
Assume those you talk
with are more interesting,
and smarter, than you.
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Totality to total antemortem
..Dram in sorghum sward’s
Sweet and sweeping stems
..Rivet nerve in brain stem jams
The blending phlegm
Or dancing sham
..The gems in under hands
Transparent in totality’s
The lea’s of jellied men
And smabbled lamb bambinos
Disabused by God and man
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Death of Muse, Birth of an Artist
Tamara Williams
Bohemia calls her name
Becoming an auditory consciousness
Like the charms of Gypsies
Beckoning the transformation and
metamorphosis of life unto life.
The artist; confused by the flurry of movement
that always precedes,
likened to that of caterpillar to butterfly.
The illustrious illusion of a muse spinning within
the walls of her cocoon.
The artist craves for the old while,
fully embracing the now contemporary and
unfamiliar aura of his muse.
Artist and muse echo in unison,
Not a single word spoken but all is understood.
The artistry of the Muse’s growth shines through;
breaking free from the encasement with wings spread
and thus completing the process of — life unto life
The muse becomes the artist
The artist becomes the muse
..Death of a muse…birth of an artist.
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It may be sunny out but I feel a cloud
..that is looming over my head it comes and
goes so I take the sunny opportunities
..when the cloud decides to give me a break
the cloud causes pain both mental and physical
..sometimes it goes away quick
other times it stays awhile sometimes the cloud
causes panic or anxiety other times
it just sits there with rain drops like the one Eyeore
from Winnie the Pooh has over
his head the cloud has a name – its name is depression
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There you and I traverse that road
where castles float amidst the clouds;
of silence heard as empty shrouds
across sweet masterpiece of ode.
Your smile emits a glow of gold
as snowflakes fall upon your face;
they melt with touch of whitest grace
turned into tears of bitter cold.
As angel frozen, I am stone,
a captive of the poems you wrote;
my heart and mind, I must devote
to this, my fate that is unknown.
From verse you wrote, I aptly chose
a poet’s heart that you have bled;
to count the tears that I have shed,
and offer you a hidden rose.
Your voice, a memory I will hold;
for you, my laughter did enchant;
on roads between us we recant,
and dream of castles made of gold.
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If you wish it so
I will shape every
lovely word
quietly congregating
in your warm heart
set them into the stars
so that the keenness
of their true meaning
might whisper
……….in your ear
whenever darkness falls.
Only if you wish it so.
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A city full of artistic happenings,
With a small town feel to it that sits by the ocean.
The capital of Nova Scotia I feel
is enchanting and bewitching
for when folks visit the east coast they fall in love
with the surroundings and want to stay forever.
I have a love for the houses,
the ocean, the friendly people
and am excited to have travel adventures
to last a life time and I am also proud
to call myself a Haligonian.
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As fire roars and winds howl
The abyss in her soul licks its jowls
Indifference given sanctity in silvery frost
A soft silky cover providing safe haven
from misplaced intentions and moral exemptions.
The dying embers of a love lost smoulder
Sacred and scorched remnants
Its ashes float softly down to the ground
Dissolving with frost into damp soot,
The night pirate’s loot
Absorbing into dirt as one,
Anointed and perpetuated
By more than pure circumstance
The burnt and licked cinders
Now part of earth’s sustenance
Granting safe passage of wood’s grain
Etched deep with one man’s name
Blackened and charred,
This permanently scarred chasm
Eternally destined to endure.
Night works its magic and darkens the sky
Covered by a veil of doomed passion
Cloaked in obscurity and determined to linger
A memory seared in the singed brick of desire
Burns now and forever in the flame of loves fire
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Poets, emperors of time
Scot Jamieson
Well, I work 20 or
30 hours a week, for
I’m my own boss. And
I love my clients and
my creativity has lots
of room to swing its cats
but
I could use more,
even MUCH more,
free time,
as poems, you see, for me,
best bloom in the midst
of vistas of immense width
of bayous, of bogs, of time.
A poem you read in
two minutes or one
may have bloomed in the stew
of a 20 or 30 year bayou.
Give me a week or
a month or
ten years, off,
I don’t care –
eternity only (cough)
is my fair share.
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Another Atlantis
Elzy Taramangalam
Time to rise
Raise your voice.
Sable island is no folk tale
It’s a pile of shifting land
Crescent shaped
Held in place
By two great ocean currents
In the sea of Atlas.
Drilling the acres will kill
The windswept bar of sand
Our barometer of earth’s health;
Why bury the beauty and her beasts
Erase the ground, efface the loam
Bartering the rugged length to legend
Lost to mankind?
Time to rise
Raise your voice.
Open Heart Forgery 