Tuesday poem #256 : Geoffrey Nilson : this could be a sequel

June 11, 2014

what roof will cover the end when blood orange is eleven

years one month & ten days after “Mission Accomplished.”

balaclavas wrap the bulletproof Humvee in evening ink.

bone script, prisoner flood, ghosts up to the knees & the flight

of all men charged to protect the city, uniforms shed like skin.

another beginning begs long off under shingles, a light

in the upper window. blink slow cartography, clear the map:

blackened Tigris, mountain ash, neighbours

turn to the tumult of ocean. the future has been levelled—

stillness paid in boxes, oriel windows & hospital deconstruction.

what will be worth fighting over. children rebuilt then again erased.

mannequins in the alley clothed in our garments. leaning

minaret splayed before dawn after eight centuries unobstructed

views of the river. present company a collection of life

less bodies. this is a version & yet also a lattice.

Geoffrey Nilson is a writer, editor and multimedia artist living in New Westminster on the unceded territory of the Qayqayt and Musqueam First Nations. His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry is Dead, The Capilano Review, subTerrain, CV2, and other journals. He is the author of four chapbooks and the most recent, In my ear continuously like a stream, appeared recently from above/ground press. Find more on his website at www.vcovcfvca.com.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

Tuesday poem #255 : Emily Sanford : Dead | Lines

Deadlines are insinuated

tracks in winter snow and the forehead;

the phone on Sundays now.

The morning wash in October

and another year gone.

Lines left unwritten, like

blanking on stage—a look to cast

anywhere, a dropped cue,

missed class along the way.

Upon your upturned palm

which went unnoticed then—

power lines down and ominous.

A line thrown to submerged grasp

in desperation: A to B,

in time, or in memoriam.

A paragraph skipped

that time

was the distance between two points.

A pickup

on the horizon,

rivulet in rain—striation.

Patience as a virtue

is just a line— 

unfinished.

Emily Sanford was born in Nova Scotia and holds an MA in Literature and Performance from the University of Guelph. She is the winner of the 2016 Eden Mills Writers' Festival Literary Award for Poetry, shortlisted for the Janice Colbert Poetry Award, and won third place in the 2017 Blodwyn Prize for Fiction. One of her recent poems was listed amongst The 10 Best Poems of 2016, by Vancouver Poetry House. Her work appears in Canthius, Grain Magazine, Minola Review, newpoetry.ca, and Plenitude Magazine. Emily is the Creative Writing Program Administrator at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, and volunteers for the Brockton Writers’ Series.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #254 : Katie Fowley : CROWN

I would like to crown you with this beauty.
A thing of beauty is a felon.
A felon takes me out.
I would like to crown you with a thing-like beauty
Beneath the molting tree.
I would like to crown you until you are wealthy
And somber enough to eat.
My haunches turn to rubber,
My crown of honey—complete.
A nimble quake. A quiver.
The passage opens with healthy ships
Envenomed in a fetid mist.
   A joyful felon stops and starts
   To keep the briny ghost afloat.



Katie Fowley’s first chapbook, Dances and Parks, is forthcoming from DIEZ Press. Her poems and criticism have been published in Atlas Review, No, Dear, 6×6, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, and Poems by Sunday. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches English at CUNY York.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan.

Tuesday poem #253 : Jay Ritchie : Green from yellow to black

For the month of June you are a flight attendant.

You take people

to faraway places like Sault Ste. Marie

& Newark. I wish I could take you

to the place I go when I am alone.

It’s so nice here.

I wish you could see it.

It’s raining small.

Are the windows open?

There are no buildings.

Jay Ritchie [photo credit: Stacy Lee] is the author of the poetry collection Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie (Coach House, 2017). He is pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan