#Canadian Poet

[theaskew]

You Have the Lovers, a poem by Leonard Cohen, from Leonard Cohen: Selected Poems, 1956-68 [Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969]

[clarislam]

Here's what to expect in my next newsletter, coming Tuesday May 13th!

Newsletters arrive in your inboxes every 2nd and 4th Tuesday each month and include fun podcast and/or audiobook recs (and sometimes recs for other media)!

Subscribe at: https://buttondown.email/clarislamauthor

[canadachronicles]

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields."

--In Flanders Fields, John McCrae

[donmaciver]

Dance with an Angel

Feel the warmth and loving graces, my angel makes me cry

Colours of the rainbow dance upon your eyes, so warm, indulging smiles loving, hold onto my attentions for together... we will fly ~ Our austerity so, fleeting never say goodbye this night will last forever... my Lord, you make me cry ~ Moonlit stars ignite as pleasured graces falling, falling forms of Heaven, sent in measure gently do they humanize ~ Wings will…

[writerharrison]

[notolux]

Pre-Order Tomorrows (eBook)

You can now pre-order my poetry collection tomorrows on Amazon.

[poem-today]

A poem by Michael Lavers

Coda

From the garden rose the sound of bees that lurched and wobbled through the peonies. We ate eggs, French toast, drank milk that warmed in minutes in the sun while fat drones swarmed and looped like drunkards in the purple field. On the porch we heard their bodies yield to wills their fuzzy minds don’t understand. They smelled the stains of syrup on your hand and one, in gold-encrusted drunken strut, smeared pollen from its mandibles and gut along your wrist. That morning you had tied your hair, and as you rose and ran inside, it gently bounced, and loosed, and then unfurled. If the next is better, I’ll still miss this world.

Michael Lavers

From Rattle #35, Summer 2011 Tribute to Canadian Poets

Listen to Michael Lavers read his poem (15:55)

[johnsturtz]

"time..." ©2024 John Sturtz

Time-speech, slip/

Drop-leaf words FORM.

*from the micropoetry project entitled, "the 11th" ©2024 John Sturtz

[brimcnamara-poetry]

Moon Dance

When I was 17, I took immense

comfort in the way that, in the

face of it all, the Sun stirs itself

for its predictable journey every

morning. The Sun possessed an

unflinching reliability that not one

person, least of all myself, could

deliver. Lately, I have felt a shift

in awareness. I have found joy

not in the consistency of the Sun's

ascent, but in the variability of

the journey we take around it, the

holding on and releasing that

comes to fruition again and again

and again, so many endings and

beginnings we choke on them.

I have begun to fall in love with

the Sun from every angle.

Change is the only consistency

on this nauseating revolving

stage, and I have spent so much

precious time with my eyes

scrunched shut, praying into

oblivion that the willpower of

a teenage girl was weighty enough

to change the constitution of

reality. I could not stop to embrace

the one unchangeable thing. After

all, change and growth are star-

crossed lovers, and to dance with

the one is to dance with them

both, in tandem.

The Moon looks different every

night and it is so full of hope,

it vibrates with the desperate

energy of potential. We only

climb up when there is nowhere

left to go. The Moon didn't change,

only the pattern of light refracted

onto it, only the perspective I

view it from. I have started introducing

myself every time I catch a glimpse of

a mirror, because who is this evasive

woman, who is this container of

the Universe's paradox! Satisfaction

is the mother of indifference, but

mine gave Passion as my middle

name and raised me in a howling

pack of silver-skinned wolves.

--- Bri McNamara

[smpalardyartlife]

  5 posts! yahoo and yipee!  celebrating with this poem...

[mrspacino]

Leonard Cohen, 1970

[theaskew]

[clarislam]

Did you know that all my books are available to purchase on Itch.io, in addition to other retailers than just Amazon?

For readers looking for Amazon alternatives, Itch.io is a great place to check out ebooks from many indie authors, including my own works!

Find my books on Itch.io: https://clarislamauthor.itch.io

[canadachronicles]

"Winter. Time to eat fat and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat, a black fur sausage with yellow Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries to get onto my head. It’s his way of telling whether or not I’m dead. If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am He’ll think of something. He settles on my chest, breathing his breath of burped-up meat and musty sofas, purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat, not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door, declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory, which are what will finish us off in the long run. Some cat owners around here should snip a few testicles. If we wise hominids were sensible, we’d do that too, or eat our young, like sharks. But it’s love that does us in. Over and over again, He shoots, he scores! and famine crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits thirty below, and pollution pours out of our chimneys to keep us warm. February, month of despair, with a skewered heart in the centre. I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries with a splash of vinegar. Cat, enough of your greedy whining and your small pink bumhole. Off my face! You’re the life principle, more or less, so get going on a little optimism around here. Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring."

--February, Margaret Atwood, from Morning in the Burned House (1995)

[orchard-bliss]

Anne Michaels, from The Weight of Oranges; “Depth Of Field”

[wouldyourecognizethisperson-poll]