Building in Nova Scotia
–Stephen Dunn
Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash
nova scotia
Month: January 2020
work, for the night is coming
Work for the Night is Coming
–Jared CarterOn the road out of town past the old quarry
I watched a light rain darkening the ledges
blocked and carded by the drill’s bittwenty years back. Within those stiff lines,
places half-stained with damp, the rock face
opened to a deeper grain – the probable driftof the entire ridge outlined for a moment
by the rain’s discoloring. Then all turned dim –
grass holding to the seams, redbud scatteredacross the cliff, dark pool of water
rimmed with broken stones, where rain, now
falling steadily, left no lasting patterns.
Photo by Curioso Photography on Unsplash
breathless
Breathless
–Billy CollinsSome like the mountains, some like the seashore,
Jean-Paul Belmondo says
to the camera in the opening scene.Some like to sleep face up,
some like to sleep on their stomachs,
I am thinking here in bed–some take the shape of murder victims
flat on their backs all night,
others float face down on the dark waters.Then there are those like me
who prefer to sleep on their sides,
knees brought up to the chest,head resting on a crooked arm
and a soft fist touching the chin,
which is the way I would like to be buried,curled up in a coffin
in a fresh pair of cotton pajamas,
a down pillow under my weighty head.After a lifetime of watchfulness
and nervous vigilance,
I will be more than ready for sleep,so never mind the dark suit,
the ridiculous tie
and the pale limp hands crossed on the chest.Lower me down in my slumber,
tucked into myself
like the oldest fetus on earth,and while the cows look over the stone wall
of the cemetery, let me rest here
in my earthy little bedroom,my lashes glazed with ice,
the roots of trees inching nearer,
and no dreams to frighten me anymore.
Image (c) S Donaghy
my history as
My History As
–Emily SkajaIn my history, I was bones eating paper
or I was paper eating bones. Semantics.I lived in a narrow house;
I lived with a man who saidYou fucked up your own life, who said
I could never love someone so heavy.The place was brick on brick
with iron grates covering the windows—rowhouse cage, South Philly. I was learning
how some of us are made to be carrion birds,& some of us are made to be circled.
Somewhere in this educationI stopped eating. Held up my hands
to see if my bones would glow in the dark.My boat name could have been
HMS Floating, Though Barely.Meanwhile I had a passion for cartography.
Not leaving, just coloring the maps.I covered all the walls with white paint, whiter paint, spiraling out— a weather
system curling over water.I always drew the compass rose flat.
I was metal-blue, I was running my mouthlike a bathtub tap. A bone picked clean of particulates.
Everything has some particular science.By its nature, a vulture can’t
be a common field crow, for instance.Look at the wings, look at that hard
mouth, look at the feet.When I tell my history, I can’t leave out
how I hit that man in the jaw,how I wasn’t good at mercy,
how eating nothing but white pills & white airmade me unchartable—
I can’t skip to the end just to saywell it was fragile & I smashed it
& everything’s over, well now I know thingsthat make me unlikely.
What am I supposed to say: I’m free?I learned to counter like a torn edge
frayed from the damp. That’s how I left it.Leaving the river, leaving
wet tracks arrowed in the brush.
Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash
meeting after years
A Meeting after Many Years
–Ted KooserOur words were a few colorful leaves
afloat on a very old silence,
the kind with a terrifying undertow,
and we stood right at its edge,
wrapping ourselves in our own arms
because of the chill, and with old voices
called back and forth across all those years
until we could bear it no longer,
and turned from each other,
and walked away into our countries.
Photo by Greg Shield on Unsplash
feather of mist
Heaven
–David Baker
All afternoon the sprinkler ticks and sprays,
ticks and sprays in lazy rounds, trailing
a feather of mist. When I turn it off,
the cicadas keep up their own dry rain,
passing on high from limb to limb.
I don’t know what has shocked me more,
that you are gone, that I am still here,
that there is music after the end.
Photo by Methi SOMÇAĞ on Unsplash
snow
Snow
–Vladimir HolanIt began to snow at midnight. And certainly the kitchen is the best place to sit, even the kitchen of the sleepless. It's warm there, you cook yourself something, drink wine and look out of the window at your friend eternity. Why care whether birth and death are merely points when life is not a straight line? Why torment yourself eyeing the calendar and wondering what is at stake? Why confess you don't have the money to buy Saskia shoes? And why brag that you suffer more than others? If there were no silence here the snow would have dreamed it up. You are alone. Spare the gestures. Nothing for show. ____Photo by Wladislaw Sokolowskij on Unsplash
tapeworm
The Lover as Tapeworm
–Olivia Gatwood
a photo,
then
slid it
into
the dog’s
bowl,
walked
to your
apartment
& left
the bare
dish
at
your
feet.
pericardium
Pericardium
–Joanna Klink
Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash
in the mirror
Things I Should Say to Myself in the Mirror or Things I Would Say to the City of St. Louis If It Could Hear Me
–Jacqui Germain
I’ve been planning
to leave you for years.
It began as a quiet urging
in the bottom of my heels
and now I dream
only of highways.
My desk drawer
opens to the smell
of engine exhaust
and the letter I wrote
when I was nineteen
and made my wrists
a cave of plane tickets.It is a sign of prudent planning
to have marked an escape route
through your own bones.Once, after all the policemen
left your forearm,
I walked my eyes along
the scar tissue on Delmar,
pretending, casually,
that I was your lover.
I did it nearly every day
for a whole summer
until I couldn’t help
but smell entirely of skin.Don’t be so hard
on yourself. Half of you
is postcard, while the other
half of you is trying
to rebuild what, years ago,
was burned to the ground
by someone else. You are
always rebuilding. You are
always reaching for the river.You have survived so much
that no one remembers.
And you still spread warm
rain on all your overgrown
lots. And you still get dressed
in the morning. You still
open wide for the sun.
Photo by Jeni Holland on Unsplash