Tuesday poem #30 : Amanda Earl : from Beast Body Epic

a minor goddess of magic, isolated on this island the sun's my father I feed herbs to the lions my nightmare protectors whenever death calls for the bed-ridden days the morphine dripping into my veins if only I'd press the button

spiny solitary covered with coarse hair snouted elongated sharp clawed with tiny searching beady eyes looking for their next meal. I can't run away this time. I'm not strong enough

banshee keening at the death of myself washing the blood from my armour do you like my disguise? at dawn I begin as crone the silver in my hair glittering my eyes dead & brown  sparked by the thought of devouring I leap/turn tigress bound can't be contained I need this a distraction from the pain the flare of the scar like the strike of a match against a fingernail in the dark stings the vulnerable skin

Beast Body Epic is a monstrous long poem. Amanda Earl [photo credit: Charles Earl] is a poet, publisher & pornographer from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Amanda's most recent chapbooks are Sex First & Then A Sandwich (above/ground press, Canada, 2012) & Me, Medusa (Red Ceilings Press,  UK, 2012). Her poetry has been published most recently in independent &/or student-run online magazines & zines & journals, including theSteelChisel.ca, Nickel95, Ottawater.com, The Peter F. Yacht Club, In/Words Magazine.  Amanda is a small press fanatic & a chapbook addict.
Site: www.amandaearl.com; Twitter: @KikiFolle

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #29 : Mark Cochrane : Semi-Permanent Lashes

for Enid

Welts, pinkening.

A modified eternal.

It’s / blinky.

Odysseus sputters in this version.

Dirty old town.

Para-fraudulent.

You cross my mind.

Should the parties / cease to cohabit.

Like lesions.  Life lessons.

Everyday.  Every day.

Blinking, not flirting.

Not flirting but blinking.

Should the parties.

To this modified fraudulent.

Cross town, pinkening.

Sputter eternal.

This dirty version.

Para-life.  (Co-sirens.)  Mind welts.  (Masthead.)

Mark Cochrane lives in Vancouver, BC, practises law, and teaches in the English Department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. He is the author of Boy Am I (Wolsak & Wynn), Change Room (Talonbooks), and, more recently, a chapbook called Cat. (above/ground press). His poetry, essays, or interviews with contemporary writers have appeared in journals including New American Writing, The Capilano Review, Open Letter, and The Malahat Review; textbooks (Elements of English 11); and anthologies (A Verse Map of Vancouver, White Noise: The Eminem Collection). He has written book reviews, encyclopedia entries, and materials relating to the practice of family law. He has a manuscript-in-progress called Girlfriend of the Time.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #28 : Jessica Smith : The Skull Bones

Jessica Smith, Founding Editor of Foursquare and name magazines, serves as the Librarian for Indian Springs School, where she runs its Visiting Writers Series. She is the author of numerous chapbooks including MNEMOTECHNICS (above/ground press 2013), What the Fortune-Teller Said (dusie/a+bend 2009), butterflies (Big Game Books 2006), The Plasticity of Poetry and Telling Time (No Press 2006), and Shifting Landscapes (above/ground press 2006) and one full-length collection, Organic Furniture Cellar (Outside Voices 2006).

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #27 : Stephanie Bolster : KUDZU

This vine thrives.

It’s got devices.

Drives the car, beep-beep

beep-beep yeah.

Came over from Japan

for an Expo in Philly,

1876, just after Edo

(now things could come and go).

Goats munch it,

it slows erosion,

it can make a chair

or a fuel or a quiche

(with eggs and cream and cheese

and ham and dough).

It’s got isoflavones.

Weaves a mean basket.

Plant it for $8 an acre.

But wait!

In summer, a foot a day.

Sixty a year.

The shack soon defunct.

Leave the car a week, windows down,

and it’ll fill with twisted hoopla.

Hear that yee-haw?

Watch the field reach closer

as you roll the dough.

Watched your loved ones’

whereabouts.

Eat the stuff

before it eats the South.

Stephanie Bolster’s latest book, A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth, was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award, and more recent work was a finalist for the 2012 CBC/Canada Writes competition. Her first book, White Stone: The Alice Poems, won the Governor General's and the Gerald Lampert Awards in 1998. Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and co-editor of Penned: Zoo Poems, she was born in Vancouver and teaches writing at Concordia University in Montréal.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #26 : Hailey Higdon : just like us

would if I were
would if I were

in the place where
in the place where

wrapped in your towel were containment enough, comfort for shame, in the bathtub where all thinking begins and all we do is let go, your sad sunglasses, here we go again how we were again, I miss you, it is all I can say

but wait this

rain came on the articles I left outside, out in the cups of tiny crops it was getting moist, gaining momentum up

would if I were in the
place where you were in the
would if I were in the

sacks of gravel, no birdseed, it rots on the porch with the porch that’s also rotting

my bags are not packed, my bags are not moving

I still do laundry, celebrities are just like us

they do laundry
they use baskets

those big splinters, ideas, my work stays at work even though I like it

the most interesting social experiment or the one where you leave is happening right now, over a night of laundry, egg salad and public radio, I am grieving while you drive home

when I think of you I think of an optimist, I hold out for the best, beasts challenge the zodiac and all our opportunities have opened up

if I were in the place where you were, our precious, our precious

bottoms would be up in the urban waffle house, singing the gratitude that happiness is just like us

Hailey Higdon is the author of the chapbooks Packing (Bloof Books, 2012), How To Grow Almost Everything, (Agnes Fox, 2011) and the book-blog The Palinode Project. She runs What To Us (press). She is affiliated with many states and has many homes. She is a lifelong student of sound and language.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan