But remind the lady
Not to pocket the money
But instead to give it to someone
In the street
A five pound note
is not a lot to us
But to some souls
it is the difference
between no shelter and a bed
To others it is the difference
between life and death.
ROLLERS
Yes this sun is merciless for sure
It's hot
It's barren out here
And behind me all you see is desert
But beyond this brush
And in my eyeline
is the Pacific Ocean
We surf out there
Me?
Yes of course
But I've taken a break
I've parked the wagon up
to have a slash to be honest
to get out of my swimsuit
and into these jeans again
And then, in my back pocket,
is the list of all the orders
the guys want me to bring back
before sundown
Yeah sure - we'll have a party
We always do mate
Feel free to join us
Right now I'm also enjoying
something else
That silver path
across the silver sea
That's what I love the most
It takes me right out there
limitless
endless
and makes me realise
I do not have to be fearful
of anything
not even infinity
Right - jump in. Sure.
And bring your mate too.
You can help me carry back
all the food and drink.
I can see the guys are now
doing the last of the great rollers
for the day.
They'll be hungry.
I am too!
And I now you guys are!!
* * * * * * * * * *
JAMES AMOATENG
MEN NEVER GROW
I
The bride asked her mother,
This question in her chamber,
“Why do men get quarrelsome,
After such effort to be winsome?”
Mama sat with legs asunder,
Over this question to ponder.
“You know,” she said, “men never grow,
But let your love out glow.
They spend much time seeking treasures,
Only to spend most on pleasures.”
II
The groom asking his father,
Same of ladies in his chamber.
Had Daddy searching his mind,
For this puzzle a cause to find.
Much effort he spent in his pause,
Until he thought he had found a cause,
“Cause,” he shrugged, “we men never grow,
Only you must let love flow.
Ladies grow at home to stay,
We men always look elsewhere to play.”
III
So just maybe men never grow,
But let your love out blow.
They are just big babies,
Who need their nannies.
They seek pleasures,
After getting treasures.
They scream and shout,
The rules they flout.
But it is just a cry,
If the world won’t try.
IMPRISONED IN OUR HOMES
I
From the lovely courtyard,
Of a fortress we call home,
Our beautiful surroundings,
Are obscured from view,
By twenty feet walls,
Crystallized at the top,
With rows of barbed wire.
II
Like gazelles or impalas,
Or the giraffe or a boar,
Always on the watch,
For a deadly predator,
Is our stark reality,
Of good guys in fear,
Outside their own homes.
III
The bad guys rather free,
Are lions on the hunt.
Lurking stealthily in the dark,
Knives and machetes wielding,
Guns and bombs at the ready,
Waiting for the chance,
To spring on their prey.
Why pretend we are safe,
In a so called free world,
Which is not really free?
Our cherished liberties,
Have long been surrendered,
For a prison we call home,
With wild dogs as our guards?
* * * * * * * * * *
KARENA MARIE
With the wind in my hair
I ride towards you
I cannot wait to
Talk to you
And wonder if you
Will hear me
With the wind in my hair
My tears dry
On my face
I miss you so much
And wonder if you
Can miss me too
With the wind in my hair
I turn off of the road
A bitter-sweet journey
I hate to do alone
I cannot wait to
Talk to you
But wonder if you
Are really here
You were born
A soldier
And died an honourable
Soldier’s death
As I sit by your stone
I cannot help but still care
But always wonder
If you are really here
With the wind in my hair
I mount for the journey home
A lone rider I am now
And I believe I
Always will be
You lived your life
With honour
And honour you
I shall always do
With the wind in my hair
And tears falling
Down my face
Please know I shall
Never forget
Time moves me ahead
But I wish to remain in the past
When you would sweep
My hair aside
When the wind would blow
My hair into my eyes
* * * * * * * * * *
LAURIE MILLER KAZMIERCZAK
The Pick-up Artist
First and foremost, survey the room.
Strategize and memorize the participants, don’t assume
That Ken there, looking dapper
should be the first.
Instead presume
That the well known architects
will moan and begroan, feel attacked
when I ask that they scale back
their designs. Restructure their hard work
while I lavish my admiration all the while.
And next is Barb, sporting her perfect smile.
Now I notice Annie, she looks ragged.
Her friend Samantha, off in a corner, sagged.
Her archaic clothes,
her arrogant pose
She just can’t fit in, share the game.
And Chubs! What a nickname
for such a beautiful creature,
slyly asleep, her most beguiling feature.
Will there be tears? Will an argument arise?
Or will my tact and aplomb overcome the cries?
I can no longer just ‘sweep the room with a glance’-
that old adage from Erma Bombeck, such nuance.
I must pick and choose,
legos, dolls, and shoes-
The bane of a mother of four, my existence.
3rd Thought
You’re my first thought in the morning,
But I’m a second thought in your heart.
Barely a third thought I am in your
brain.
You think you are such a hot shot.
I’m a small spot in your thinking,
But you’re my first thought in my heart.
I rate a third thought as you pass me by.
Hardly a good thought.
So here’s to thoughts that should fill your mind, space, time, whole heart.
I’m just a passing thought; I see that now.
But I can tell you anyhow
That thoughts like that should take a bow
To all your mental faculties.
Third thoughts can be most mysterious.
Deep inside your head’s where I’ll be
Waiting for the coming senses
Hidden in the third-thought process.
O thoughts that should fill your mind, space, time, whole heart.
I guess I’ll wait till you are curious.
But I take all your thoughts as serious,
For now, don’t mind me.
I’m a nudge in your third thought progress.
To thoughts that should fill your mind, space, time, whole heart.
LUCY PIREEL
Empty Love
A heart filled with dust and sand
Dry and infertile
Empty but hot
Love, the raging beast
Destroyer and maker
Hate, the loving companion
hot like a burning heart
Empty like the desert
Filled with dust and sand
Dry and incapable
Creator and ravager
No more
Nothing left
An empty shell
Dry and infertile
He is All
Foe and saviour
Sun and moon
Master and slave
She crooks her finger
Devil and saint
Flower and thorn
Acid and honey
She crooks her finger
Void no more
Universe filled
He is all, yet nothing
Fear
goosebumps raise on skin
unheard, never seen
the nightmare awake
terror stricken
a mere thought
in the mind
all is real
a voice
a whisper
a sigh
no more
silence
Woe
sun sets on clear skies
Dark, starless, empty, cold nights
mood plummets deeper
* * * * * * * * * *
MURIELLE CYR
Harvest Talk
My white-haired mother pulls out roots
from her yellowed autumn garden
dried-limp tomato stalks caught
in prickly cucumber vines.
She has weeded thru out the long
demon summer
watered
night dryness and battled
onslaught of whiteflies and gnats.
Her harvest is now in jars
bright-coloured fruit of her vigilance
all in a row
on a straight shelf
browns greens yellows and red,
pickled and dead.
Conserving anything white never an option for her.
I visit on Sunday afternoon
talk of past harvests
rain
my children her jars.
Show her photographs,
blood seed of her garden.
I feel the fibrous strength of her roots
only while seeding my own,
children all harvested
shelved
body lies fallow
scarred womb shell
life yellowed
cracked furrowed autumn soil
flesh loose gritty
over tilled over fed,
carbon backing shows thru
fist-shaped blueness
chalked under my eyes
charcoal eraser smears
blur contours of my face
etching
mother's oneness.
Moon Planting
Beneath Italian marble,
landfill
pressed tight
into stolen lands,
my mother sings
her Mi'Kmaq song.
Dollar-store plastic bouquets
hover on both sides of her 18-inch wide garden:
plantain leaves spread wide,
foot of the white man,
push thru sacred sage I replant
each moon that calls the wild geese back.
Tiny rez leased in Catholic bone yard
Till someone decides to stake it out.
For Marcel Giroux
"A Montreal gas-station attendant was tied up, doused with gasoline and set on fire yesterday." The Montreal Gazette, April 2, 1989"
Not the regular guy at the gas pumps,
tonight Marcel lies prone in Hotel Dieu Hospital
eyes and mouth torched shut
by a thief for a moneybox.
He waits mute
for his charred skin to cement
stiff and heavy like burnt steak,
in the hospital baths
it peels off in black chunks
floats like dead fish in the Black Sea.
New skin resurrects
in tight purple furrows,
the raped whiteness irreversible.
Thief's silver pieces weren't enough,
driven by urge to crucify
to spike Marcel's delicate skin
with the toxic flames darting
from his twisted mind.
He skipped away in triumph wiping
Marcel's spit from his cheek.
My child strapped in her car seat,
distracted by all the monstrous tractor trailers
blinding neons and skyscraper yellow arches
drops her umbilical Teddy without wailing
and for that mesmerized moment is transfixed
by all the deafening motors and glitter of plastic lights,
oblivious
to the womb warmth of her friend.
Was it so for the thief?
That temporary distraction from humanity,
did he not recognize his own
brother's brown eyes,
or that acrid smell of human fear
as he struck the match?
From the darkened back seat
an impatient cry.
My hand reaches back
to nurture that fragile link.
Salvage
Head twisted backwards
peering
down
inside
this latest
formless-shape
shoving bones
blood paths
anything sticky
aside
keeping them as landmarks
in case.
* * * * * * * * * *
OLLIE LAMBERT
The Sun and Sea
The sun wears his golden coat,
And the sea her cloak of blue.
They’re old and tired lovers,
Who say silently ‘I love you’
They only meet twice a day,
At sunrise and sunset.
But at that time they share a kiss,
A kiss that cannot be kept.
At night and in the day,
The sun and sea must part.
But still the sun’s rays shine,
On the sea’s two sided heart.
Though they are together,
A couple beyond compare.
Nighttime’s another story
Because the sea, she has an affair.
In the dark the moon shines brightly,
And the sea, she has no choice.
They kiss as the moon goes down,
And they silently rejoice.
The sun unfortunately knows
What happens when asleep.
Still he stays devoted
To the sea. He cannot weep.
So this is the tale,
Of the sea and the sun.
The lovers who stay loyal.
And will till the world is done.
Music
A magical mellifluous melody,
Speaking through the air,
A hollow space filled with warmth,
Hot with musical flare.
A single note with so much meaning,
A power all on its own.
But paired with another, three maybe four,
All beauty will be made known.
Instruments crafted by man,
Vessels for this ineffable element.
Domineering the seas of silence
Turning cacophonies into sediment.
Such soft serene sounds,
That echo through the ages,
An art that started verbally,
Is now all written in pages.
A manuscript of pulchritudinous dots.
A song of capricious chords.
All the tones of life,
Well worth our applause.
The one and only language,
That everyone understands.
A beacon of communication,
lit by gods irreproachable hands.
Some say it inspires people
In everything they do.
I like to think, it inspired life,
love, and friendship too.
Older than animals and older than plants,
Yet still it soldiers on,
An ode to music, shall I sing
And this shall be my song.
The beating heart of our society,
A ringing bass for our ears.
But the reliable thing about music,
Is its been here, for years and years.
Beloved
The petals of a daisy,
The fragility of their stems,
Fail to amount to the delicacy,
Of her eyes, those glistening gems.
How hushed are the sounds
That come echoing from her lips,
And how soft a head of hair
Running through my fingertips.