Category: Other People’s Poetry

Other People’s Poetry

Posted on by Rocco

 
Well

 

How often we imagined something else
as an ending.
Now there are only hours left,
avalanches of pain past
plunged into pools
of morphine, and you are without
fear, your skin a geography
of purple continents, your eyes
unblinking, seeing
through everything.
I was there all morning
describing the clouds to you
from the song of the sky.
I shut up and followed
the tiny rill of your breath.
And I said, “Mom, can you see me?”
as I leaned over you. You
turned your head to me and
gave me a long, leisurely
blink, full of pleasure,
and then turned your head away.


 

 
By Brian Henderson

 
As appeared in Sharawadji, published by Brick Books.

 
Brian Henderson is the author of nine volumes of poetry (including a deck of visual poem-cards, The Alphamiricon), the latest of which, Nerve Language, was nominated for the Governor General’s Award. His work, both critical and poetic, has appeared in a number of literary journals. He has a PhD in Canadian literature, is the Director of WLUPress and lives in Kitchener Ontario with his wife, Charlene Winger, who directs a mental health clinic in Halton.


 

 

Other People’s Poetry

Posted on by Rocco

Persuasion

 
by guest, Dawna Rae Hicks

 
Come back to my arms,
do not leave me just yet;
I am not done with you.
Leave the dishes in the sink.
There is a backdrop to everything –
a sheet of stars behind the noonday sky.
You must come and wonder at it with me,
just for a little while.

The coffee will make itself, given a chance.
Let us listen like the elderly do,
to the quiet room, to the breath of god
escaping our lips. A state of bliss
where we only own what happens.
Let the tinkerers rest
from hammering away industriously
at nothing

 

 

Dawna Rae Hicks is a poet, broker and single mother living in Toronto. After a long hiatus from writing she has returned to her first love, a bit more humble. She has been published in such books as Short Fuse (Rattapallax Press), 100 Poets Against The War (Salt) and Future Welcome (a Moosehead Anthology), and the e-book Poems for Madrid, which can be found through www.nthposition.com.

Other People’s Poetry

Posted on by Rocco

 
The Soldier
 

by guest poet David Livingstone Clink
 

If he could speak he’d ask for some food, some water, and you’d invite him in. Taking off his boots and putting his feet up, he’d sip lemonade with you on the back porch. He’d talk about where he grew up, which sports he played, and the women he knew. He’d say this place is very much like the place he grew up in, but the sky seemed bigger in his hometown. You’d ask if he wants to stay for the BBQ, and he’d surprise you by saying yes. He’d eat his fill, wash it down with a few beers. Before it gets dark he’d say he’d lost his map. Can you tell me where the enemy is? he would ask, and you’d point beyond the trees, and he’d thank you for your hospitality, and he’d be off, walking in the direction of those trees. But no, the faceless soldier cannot speak, you don’t strike up a conversation, you don’t invite him in. He passes your house and you get a sense of relief as you watch him become a distant memory, become the landscape, the soldier as much a part of the world as that distant mountain that draws everything in, even the clouds.
 

 

From his latest collection, Monster.