On childhood wallpaper
a deep-sea diver wrestled monsters
in a turquoise underworld.
When I grew up, I would be a diver.
Instead I am wallpaper.
by Vincent McGillivray of Halifax
Drydock
Street Fight
From a balcony
I see a man in high-tops
dropkick the homeless mime.
As I’m about to dial 911
they begin singing Auld Lang Syne
in mid September.
by Vincent McGillivray of Halifax
Jack
Angry keys
swing back and forth
in the ignition
as a half-empty bottle
of Jack Daniels
catapults through
the windshield.
by Fern G. Z. Carr of Kelowna
Beauty in a Bus Strike
People bristle the sidewalks all over the city. Nobody told them a thing. Life happens in the time between inconveniences. Like the night the bus slid sideways down the hill and the child watching out his bedroom window believed he saw a giant aquarium speeding along filled with glittering lionfish and swollen box puffers. The night he dreamed everything was actually something else and woke finally able to see it.
by Grant Loveys of St. John's
Labor
Shapes around flame in an oil drum. A gun-barrel frozen mid-shot. Pick a catchphrase from a stack piled in the back of a pickup truck and walk it around for a while. Gut-punch hopelessness when the kids have to wash their hair without soap again. How do you put that on a plastic sign nailed to a two by four?
by Grant Loveys of St. John's
Pairings
She was a vibrant ‘87 French White from Chablis. Not sophisticated but approachable, lively and a great pairing for parties, the after-party kebabs and more. He was a aged, woody Californian and found her palatable, but her financial cost--an acrimonious divorce--was simply too high a price to pay. So, he stuck with drinking from the cup of a mature, complex Chilean. Still, he often closed his eyes and imagined.
by Michael Donoghue of Vancouver
Spending Time with the Kids
She flips her buzzing Blackberry out of its hip holster, holds in front of her laptop and reads the email. It says, "Excuse me Mommy, I'm bored."
She looks at her son, beside her on the sofa and one handed rapidly keys out a reply, "Mommy’s working. If you’re done on the iPad, why don’t you play Xbox?"
by Michael Donoghue of Vancouver
Habitating With Women
my mess
was perfectly
organized
but now
it is clean
and I can't find
a damn thing.
by Matt E. Smith of Toronto
Running From Your Situation
Em wrote the book on trail running, it was now in its 12th edition, even though she had given it up. Em’s Achilles’ heel was her Achilles’ heel, so now she was married to the idea of being married. Still, as she opened the dishwasher and saw the spoons spooning, she craved the trail run. For grisly encounters with grisly bears and firing up the fire. Now there was no more running. She sighed and reached for a spoon.
by Michael Donoghue of Vancouver
Litter
Under the highway overpass
caught on the slope of concrete
lies a naked baby doll,
all head and limbs, stuffing
ripped out, upside down.
by Mark L. O. Kempf of Ontario
caught on the slope of concrete
lies a naked baby doll,
all head and limbs, stuffing
ripped out, upside down.
by Mark L. O. Kempf of Ontario
Dressing Down The Ongoing Heat Wave
Our sheets blush, dry, stiff and folded on the line, two clothespins holding each head high. Neighbours cringe, turn off their mower, turn up their sound system. No-one but me wants to see you naked in the yard, hanging up your wet nightshirt, one I wear to bed. OK, so show me.
by Penn Kemp of London
What We Condone
As I float in happiness, rain cocooned, TV planes drop bombs. I fall through the scream to land among proud, elegant peoples divided by civil/uncivil arms. Shovels at a narrow grave: a boy, skin and bones. As the men bury him two tears run down his cheeks. That boy survives but cannot speak.
Language is lost in war. Lies thrive.
Language is lost in war. Lies thrive.
by Penn Kemp of London
night has collapsed at my feet
like a trapped, drunk coal-miner
acrid smoke pours
down the street
hunting me.
I held your head in my hands
told you truths.
then nothing.
by Mark L. O. Kempf of Ontario
acrid smoke pours
down the street
hunting me.
I held your head in my hands
told you truths.
then nothing.
by Mark L. O. Kempf of Ontario
Toss My Word Salad (19)
I enjoy refurbishing the derelict, so upholstered my last boyfriend in leopard print, then swapped him at an antique shop for a Deco chaise. It looks nice in track lighting with sexually-suggestive topiary.
by Verity Hill of Toronto
monstercase
Screamed silent, a skeleton city of bonemen crumples, paper to burn. In ash whispers of massacre, barefoot wraiths claw corpses for trinkets.
Tracks worm into sun, staggering, stumbling. Thirst scythes survivors and they lay awaiting crows, their poor parcels plucked by living ghosts.
The transport nears, a dark mirage from collective parched doom, metal vertebrae coupled car to shell-scarred car.
by Verity Hill of Toronto
fireset sunset
The prison has been arsonized. I burn first with freedom, then burn because I’ll only know it dying.
Buried in blistering sunset, I am its body’s bloody heat. It consumes me then dies, night my soul’s shadow passing.
A transient witnesses moonrise in ash. Crossing himself, he crosses the street beneath it, reforged alien in lifeless light.
by Verity Hill of Toronto
Clock Tower
Mangos brown to mush-pods
an old man’s freckled head
lolls in the tide, at peace
with dead goats and sheep
by Mark L. O. Kempf of Ontario
an old man’s freckled head
lolls in the tide, at peace
with dead goats and sheep
by Mark L. O. Kempf of Ontario
The Drink
snaked round a blade
he slowly lost sight
(having melted her Johnny Cash records
to sip the clear parts)
red fist on the clipboard
she cried
by Bardia Sinaee of Ottawa
he slowly lost sight
(having melted her Johnny Cash records
to sip the clear parts)
red fist on the clipboard
she cried
by Bardia Sinaee of Ottawa
Man vs. Nature
is it not
the burst bubbles
of whims and wishes
that made us all
such a fine
evening glow?
by Changming Yuan of Vancouver
the burst bubbles
of whims and wishes
that made us all
such a fine
evening glow?
by Changming Yuan of Vancouver
