View Issue vol. 11, no. 2
ISSN 2369-6516 (Print)
ISSN 2369-6524 (Online)
Select the author’s name to view a short biography (if supplied) and all poems by that author.
Georgia Atkin – Write On
Janet Brush – Reading on the Bus
Normand Carrey – The Show is Coming to an End
Rachel Cooke – Eighteen
David Du – A song of travelers
Harry Garrison – ❤ A Poem Made Out Of Hearts ❤
Greg Goubko – Bobo-Beebop-Scoo
Scot Jamieson – January
Ian Johnson – A List is Only a List
Logan Lawrence – Chris is a pseudonym
Scott Lynch – just an appetite for life
Mike McFetridge – People, What Cha Thinkin’
Elizabeth Myers – The Housing Dilemma
Chinenye ‘Zabrain’ Ndulue – Another Valentine
Matthew Rooney – Troilus
Nathaniel S. Rounds – When I’m Ready To Die
Devin Slawter – I Now Know What I Must Do
Rod Stewart – Having Read Your X’s
Blynn Teeft – Your Time
Gordon Young – Zoo
Your Time
Poem by Blynn Teeft
You’re truly an amazing person,
strong, smart and wise.
Your beauty comes from inside,
shining brightly on the outside
You are a conqueror
who passes strength to others
Stand tall and proud
you’ve made so much happen
you’ve inspired so many
Now it’s time for you to shine
Turn your fear into courage
and free the beast within
You made this happen
have a little faith in you,
like you have in all of us.
Reading on the Bus
Poem by Janet Brush
As the bus pulls away
I pull out my book.
Bright sunshine floods in,
Illumines the page.
We pass a tall building,
the page is plunged into shade.
Then sudden sunlight again,
then another building.
Again and again this happens.
The words blur and fade
with each transition.
These old tired eyes won’t travel
from light to shade back to light,
won’t focus in an instant.
How did people manage
with only candlelight?
Milton, a scholar and a poet,
read hundreds of books,
millions of words, gradually going blind.
It was then he wrote his greatest works,
Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.
He spent each morning dictating
the workings of his brain
to a willing scribe. He saw only shadow
but the light of genius shone bright.
I give up trying to read, close my book.
Bobo-Beebop-Scoo
Poem by Greg Goubko
The floral-patterned cushion
Is the last thing I see
The stained sheet grabs a hold
Depressed,
Decisive,
Bold.
But my pale feet hit the floor
Linen unravels from the door
So I search for synthetic rope
My mind so void of hope
I re-read the instructions
To make sure that it functions
Shit.
Here comes Bobo-Scoo
Prancing to without a clue
Instantly, I start to caress
Thoughts pour in
What a mess
Her pearly blue eyes
Would she have watched
As her daddy dies?
Chris is a pseudonym
Poem by Logan Lawrence
It was at the point in the night
Where people made polite exits
And the rest hung uncertain
That I went out alone for a toke and met Chris
Passing by and asking would I share
So we talked.
Cobblestoned, on Argyle,
about getting through in a rough time
and staying at a friends.
Crossleg’d and glowed I gently admonished
The violent suck and black-lung hacking
And asking for more something
In the burning end.
He told me about
What he learned from his brother-in-law
And his time in the Middle East
And the warmth in the rest
Of my joint.
Write On
Poem by Georgia Atkin
When your words
weigh more than a millennium
of discarded verse,
and the end of a sentence
ensnares you like the edge of an ink-welded cage,
remember that
in the long turning of seasons
the world moves
one word after another,
one chapter after the next,
one story after the last,
and just as sky-worn sparrows
in the dead of winter
must somehow
imagine
the possibility of spring,
we can dare to imagine
that this is not the end –
turn the page,
start anew,
write on.
Another Valentine
Poem by Chinenye ‘Zabrain’ Ndulue
Another Valentine’s day is Near.
But you are still not Here.
In East, south, I Checked.
No sign of you, oh Dear.
.
Rhythms of love in my ear,
Heralds of affection, I hear.
I waited years and years,
But you still not here, nowhere.
.
Loads of love to share.
Loads of loneliness, I Bear.
Piles of affection to Spare.
Piles of emptiness Impels.
.
My Valentine’s day is a Theory.
Because you are still a Mystery.
In my head and heart, is Misery,
And love for me is History.
I Now Know What I Must Do
Poem by Devin Slawter
As I was out on my parents’ deck.
Something almost broke my neck.
For as I looked up and saw.
A bald eagle saying shawl.
I had to figure it was a sign.
Telling me it’s almost time.
For my life to change.
And to stop playing games.
For like the eagle to be able to see.
It is time to reconnect with my family.
So as I stand here on this stage.
Just know I’m not filled with rage.
Even though I have inner childhood wounds.
I finally figured out what I must do.
Take time out to work on myself.
That is why I joined Mental Health.
As a kid I was not allowed to express my pain.
Now I’m being followed by a cloud with rain.
Until I can bring the sun out again,
I will never be the same.
January
Poem by Scot Jamieson
The sun’s rays tickle
the first few trickles
from the icicles on the eaves,
and the shirt flaps
on the clothesline
as if to free its sleeves,
and the dogs bark
in the back yards
of this composite deck
of suburban cards
beneath the bright skyshine
– and you be yours
and I’ll be mine.
If even winter,
so inclined to hinder,
as warm as this icicle’s tear,
can loosen its grip,
I’ll let mine slip, on
my resolution (& fear).
I lived in the judgments
of someone else,
and missed this glowing
here in my cells,
at frigidity’s end;
and found I had
a heart to mend.
Zoo
Poem by Gordon Young
I was born in captivity…
I have grown into humanity.
Buried deep inside me,
Is some savage nobility;
Or perhaps it’s simply latent rage
That wanders in a cage.
I do not feel
Nor have to yield
To hunger or to fear
– For I have great Medicare.
But then without some wild to call
Don’t we all
Just eat,
And sleep,
And stare.
❤ A Poem Made Out Of Hearts ❤
Rectangle Poem by Harry Garrison
just an appetite for life
(and a sense of humour)
Poem by Scott Lynch
six hours and still falling
everything buried to varying degrees
accosted as if by dander
or dandelion spawn
white assertion a foot deep
drifting more by the hour
schools businesses and roads closed
insistent this peril of white
to our shovels and snow blowers
tongues out eyes closed
as if receiving the host
to childhood transported
flake upon flake
like the evergreen we yield and pause
in wonder again
all is splendid unsullied and new
transformed by a relentless and gleeful army
in white
smiles assured snow angels an inevitable
consequence
of our fall
People, What Cha Thinkin’
Poem by Mike McFetridge
People, what cha thinkin’?
We’re not all alike;
Some of us are black and brown,
And some of us are white;
Why make it a bone of contention?
Why make it such a plight?
We are all just human beings,
Does that not make it right?
Today we face much bigger threats
Than colour, creed or race;
Without environmental health
Extinction is our fate;
Bickering among ourselves
Is not the way to live;
Love and understanding is
Something we all must give!
A List is Only a List
Poem by Ian Johnson
Just remember a list is only a list
To make sure nothing is missed,
What is key is what is in your head
It doesn’t even matter what you said.
Just when you think you have it all
The list could get lost down the hall,
As long as you know what you need
It’s enough that you take heed.
The Housing Dilemma
Poem by Elizabeth Myers
Some people and animals,
move across time and space;
The housing dilemma
may carry us across the miles.
The dwellers end up
moving into a garage or tent,
because they are unable
to afford the neighbourhood rent!
When I’m Ready To Die
Poem by Nathaniel S. Rounds
I’ll cross the stream back to my home
Where the trees grow singly
Not clinging to and choking each other
And I will not wait for men to sing songs in thin voices
or to say falsehoods or to smile closed-lipped.
I will close my eyes so no strange fingers will have to for me
and I will breathe air that, while my last, is mine.
The Show is Coming to an End
Poem by Normand Carrey
I stop the car on the beach road and walk out
Like my uncle before me, I smoke the same cigars
The wind hums like chatter on telephone lines
It’s nowhere here, Cape Paliser staring out at the south pole
The family secret, two sisters with schizophrenia
The land flat; the engine sound scares the sheep away
The ocean nibbling away at the shore’s garden (of delights)
And this, smack in the middle of lambing season!
A heron flaps frantically against a powerful southerly
A fishing boat crests up and down with the waves
Do you want to see? Here’s a picture
The sheep with their thick coats
Have grazed the hilltop bare.
Eighteen
Poem by Rachel Cooke
Lately it’s felt a lot like
Surrounded loneliness
and
Congested solitude
and
Open screams in empty fields
like,
I look down at my hand in yours
and
Ask myself,
Why.
A song of travelers
Haiku by David Du
A cloud drifting
From a remote place so quietly
Tears running, trickling.
Troilus
Poem by Matthew Rooney
What, love?
I too used
To laugh—
Sloshing bravado
In the streets.
How I see myself
In Troilus now.
What love,
My Criseyde.
What love.
Having Read Your X’s
Poem by Rod Stewart
Are you carving those X’s
Upon your calendar?
With grumbling grey,
Having tenuously endured
The bitter howl of winter,
Being denied the pleasure
Of hibernation.
Or perhaps those X’s
Were scribbled in haste?
Signed as hungry kisses
Either past or anticipated
Upon blushed youthful cheeks,
Like a parting Morse code,
Of sweet moments sewn
Between lovers.
Or yet again,
Could those X’s be drawn
Into corner trenches?
Among the battle lines
Of a hopscotch battlefield.
Soldiering forth against the O’s,
Either in victory or defeat,
Like a coin toss, and all arguments
Best easily forgotten.
Open Heart Forgery 