Tuesday poem #504 : Ori Fienberg : The Spirit Lifts Us

 

My beverage depot wants to save me
money on my favorite spirits, and I thank
them, then agonize over choosing favorites. 

Some days it’s so hard to rise I can barely
bring myself to place the right offerings by
my favorite shrines. Hallway eucalyptus, 

burnt toast offering in the kitchen, daily
shower squeegee strokes, and the wads
of fragrant cinnamon gum gently smoothed 

beneath a train station seat; next, standing
in prayer, left hand clenching rubber, the right
balancing in air in unison with the supplicant 

commuters, on our way to our sacred jobs
or skipping work to thank each open flower
at the Botanic Garden, despite my allergies, 

or because of them, sneezing vigorously,
so when nurturing volunteers pat the mulch
by roses and say, “Bless You”, I can share.

 

 

 

 

Ori Fienberg is the author of Old Habits, New Markets (elsewhere press, 2021). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in venues including the Cincinnati Review, the Dallas Review, Essay Daily, Heavy Feather Review, Obliterat, Pank, Sixth Finch, and Subtropics. Ori teaches poetry writing for Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies. Read more at orifienberg.com and follow @ArtfulHerring for poetry and political tweets.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

Tuesday poem #503 : Heather Cadsby : I would love to live in Leeds

 

 

So much going on there. Artists and poets daily. Years ago Desmond and Marion came to Canada. I got to be friends with Marion. She had studied Anglo-Saxon syntax at the University of Leeds. There was an intern on the TV show Bones, Mr. Nigel-Murray, who said he had several science degrees from there. The Americans on that show rolled their eyes. Probably had never heard of the place. The Anglo-Irish population could invite me to join. I’d have to get a new accent. Everyone would love me. I would be the hick from the colonies. I really don’t know much about England. Once I went to Newfoundland. Something about Vikings. That might count. They have swifts in Leeds too. But different. Theirs come from West Africa. I wouldn’t care. Sometimes a cigar bird is just a cigar bird. Ha. Ha. They would love my sense of humour in Leeds. I’m working on understanding their words like bollocks and doolally. Knickers I know. Would mine do? Perhaps they don’t bother with any in Leeds. I have a lot of research to do. Before I pack my bag.

 

 

 

 

 

Heather Cadsby is the author of five books of poetry. The most recent is Standing in the Flock of Connections (Brick Books, 2018). In the 1980s along with Maria Jacobs she produced the monthly periodical Poetry Toronto and founded the press Wolsak and Wynn. In recent years she has served as a director of The Art Bar Poetry Series.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #502 : Kirstin Allio : Aphorism I.

 

 

Every woman is inside
Everyman, bathed in blood
Warm background noise the
Dial tone of memory.

  

Every man is an eye
Of the earth, says Frédéric
Bruly Bouabré, but
Not every woman gives birth

  

To herself by a certain
Alphabet, uncertainty how
Most of us feel about dying in the shadows
Of the ribbed pillars of destiny. Not

  

To put too fine a point
On the unknown, knowing
We still have to feed, but
When the child is more nostalgic

  

For childhood than the mother you get
A monster. 89% of survey monkeys
Say interruptions cause connection
To falter. A little

  

More starch per square inch,
The stretch sounds
Synthetic, like
Velcro, reversal

  

Of referent, re-do
Of nature, nurture’s
Aftermath: nothing
That isn’t held holds.

 

 

 

Kirstin Allio’s books are the novels Buddhism for Western Children (University of Iowa) and Garner (Coffee House), and the short story collection Clothed, Female Figure (Dzanc). Her writing appears recently in AGNI, American Short Fiction, Bennington Review, Changes Review, Conjunctions, Epiphany, Fence, Guernica, New England Review, Plume, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Subtropics, and elsewhere. She has received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, a PEN/O. Henry Prize, and fellowships from Brown University’s Howard Foundation and MacDowell. She lives in Providence, RI.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan