Tuesday poem #452 : Natalie Jane Edson : I HAD A DREAM THAT YOU DIED WHILE I SLEPT NEXT TO YOU

 

in this pearl-sized room
on the soft mattress

in this sand and concrete
this beige blur

i find rest within my resting
in an old friend’s bed

when I wake up to the dim
and grainy morning

his body is still warm
he embraces himself

like a flowerbud
and when I wake up again

i’m small and careless
in my white sheets

wilted as old rose petals
in the unrelenting sun

 

 

Natalie Jane Edson is a queer poet and computer programmer based in Portland, Oregon. She has a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Oregon and approaches her work with the interdisciplinary in mind. Her artistic practice centers around process—a mix of algorithm, iteration, divination and letting the subconscious mind speak for itself. She published a chapbook, BALACLAVA, in June 2019 and is currently working on her debut full-length manuscript.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #451 : Moira Walsh : Turdus merula

 

 

I put my finger to worry’s lower lip

Listen: the blackbird

 

 

 

Moira Walsh, born in Michigan, makes her home in southern Germany and translates for a living. She has no university degree. Moira’s poems were recently picked up by Bennington Review, Denver Quarterly, Ethel Zine, Poetry Northwest, Stadtgelichter, Tiny Spoon, and Trnsfr. You can find her at linktr.ee/moira_walsh

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #450 : Saba Pakdel : lullaby

 

absence is a presence that never is

centuries would not pass

in an hourglass that’s falling

upward down

you did not believe in time

yet sand runs through

timelessness in a bubble

and oceans dry

does it all go back by turning the other end up?

 

what to do about the restlessness of the sun

the rebellious Icarus

falling to the borders of your stripped body

melts

in between your thighs

into a mirage appearing closer

yet absence still is

not standing afar

to outdistance recollections

 

here, is no fear

here is the fear

tall city towers fall apart

rows of pine trees succumb

a crowd wanders inside me

with hideous faces through the fuss

I             am                  pregnant with a disaster

mother lullabies

 

time follows you all the way up

don’t try to move backward

shadows

are not the darkest side of absence

when trees are the presence that never is

 

 

Saba Pakdel was born into a family of artists in Tehran, Iran. Growing up in a home of theatre, literature, and cinema, Saba breathed in the quality air of arts from an early age. She completed her BA and MA in English; attended and coordinated literary workshops and poetry readings; published poems, translations, and essays in Persian journals before leaving her home country to Canada in 2017. Once settled, she continued her studies at SFU (her second master’s degree in English) and gained admission to the Ph.D. program in English at UVic.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan