Pluming smoke, pupils like myrrh, lavender eyes, sage skin, grenache lips, a tongue of tannin with a gravel finish. The record spins, the needle placed, it’s just now catching. I’m laying on a beige carpet, bonded to it like velcro, staring at the eggshell white, popcorn ceiling. My body’s become a cauldron of amorphous fumes, the future telling me its long withheld secrets,
She came to me in the end of night wearing the stems and leaves of a sword fern, adorned in cockle shells, her hair sprinkling black sands, her eyes like moons, her hands swaying and caressing like the rolling mounds past dry gulch. She came to me after as the birds started singing, when the winds took
The night is dark So dark you could catch the darkness in a bowl or catch water in a bowl at the bottom of an ocean The machine roars, a lonely rumble It cuts through the dark Disturbing the peace Here I am, controlling this metal beast My headlights barely cut through the night This
Life is the river your father drowned in When the tailings dike failed, Or his friend died in the mineshaft, Or some such thing that your mother won’t say. It is lunchtime in the house that smells of cigarettes and mildewed laundry and damp basement, ashes wafting from the polyolefin couch and green sculpted shag
Have you ever forced your own soundtrack over top of the TV news headphones in ears blocking out assault by political commentary making pundits move their lips in sync with the beat their arms waving, their eyes shouting, their mouths, futile. They are tragic figures of speech, Silenced.
Combining creativity, freedom from violence, activism, and committed parenting takes courage. Nichoel Sutton’s spoken-word series “I’m done” can be seen as part of a poetic tradition called Incantations. Braid and Shreve in their book “In Fine Form” share the Canadian Oxford Dictionary’s definition: “a magical formula chanted or spoken” which comes from the Latin “cantare”,
– I – Marguerite Porete (13th century – 1 June 1310) was a French-speaking mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian mysticism dealing with the workings of agape (divine love). She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, refusing to
Your love was on condition You showed me the fine print Handed me a nearly empty pen Directed my eyes down to a page A page filled with terms and agreements A page titled ‘My love contract’ I held that pen full of empty promises and extended conversation I had so many questions, The first
Ben lày’en a marredistance isolationne t’approche pasles enfants vont tuer leurs grands-parentsla petite Lennon reste dans sa chambreelle ne sort qu’avec un masquepour ne pas infecter sa mère son pèrel’arrière grand-mère a déménagépeur de Lennonelle ne peut l’approcherson bijou sa raison de vivremaintenant le spectre de sa mort Lennon est maladefièvre touxle nez qui coulecomme
Learning the difference One day I killed a carpenter bee that was crawling on the driveway. It was crawling and I squished it with my shoe. Mom told me carpenters weren’t dangerous, not like the bee who stung my hand last summer. I tried to save the bee, blew on it, gave it water drops
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