Ghazal, with
Rabble-Rousing Leftist Minke Whales
Twenty yards out
minke whales whisper in the sound
and we eavesdrop,
camping mugs of cowboy coffee in hand.
I heard orcas train
their calves to attack billionaires’ yachts.
We’re disconnected,
tough and free, no phones in hand,
so we can’t confirm
this beautiful new fact: we imagine a movement
like Alice’s Restaurant where all the sea creatures raise a hand
in solidarity and
sing in four-part harmony, and there are meetings
to attend and
potlachs with four-cheese dips. This is getting out of hand.
The driftwood fire
licks fog off the Northumberland Strait
while we wash our
mugs at the shore, licking sea salt off our hands.
How many chatbots
would it take to empty this sound,
minkes and all,
you ask. I could
count them on one hand.
How many poems would
it take to build back the ocean?
Power is a whale
that’s born when you squeeze my hand.
Ghazal, with
Common Terns
Black-capped terns
lampshade the shore,
common as salt and
stone and the grey waistcoat of light.
They search for
stitches in the break,
the shimmer of
herring, the quick bloat of light.
A lumberjack’s boot
drops from the sky—gunmetal spikes
driving through the
surface, rooting out the light.
I don’t want to
suggest the need to bear witness:
the terns will dive
without this mote of light.
The shore will
shore after all, and the herring
always scatter. A
throat full of light
is common. Scales
that slip the ocean into silver
are common. The
trawler’s floating lights
are common. I want
my life to be the sound of water
sloughing off a
wing in the low evening light.
Alexander Hollenberg, a Pushcart-nominated poet and professor of storytelling, is the author of Human Story will not Consume the Cosmos (Gaspereau 2025). Some of his recent poems have appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2025, CV2, Arc Poetry, Grain, and The New Quarterly. He is a past winner of CV2’s Two-Day Poem Contest and has been longlisted for several other awards, including the CBC Poetry Prize, the Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest, and the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize. He is from Hamilton, Ontario.
the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
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