Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Tuesday poem #525 : Peter Myers : Coverage

 

 

found a seat at the memory gate weaving sounds together I mean fingers (mine) sometimes doing sounds though at times just gestures or gloss ice on the idea of snow plucking out samples one by one during Sherwin-Williams visitation hours a document of the body’s weakness an archive of the body’s frequency if you’re here to lose your music don’t worry it was gone before dusk or its likeness made a misprision of certainty sure I remember those guys overtly rude amidst the willows perhaps weeping or was that a projection of the beauty I see in others that I claim I’ll never possess though granted an eternity no less limited than the one I have already so are you happy mom are you happier dad aster rover beaches doodads rivermouth bird of information a wing can bend but can never break a dog can bark a sun can give its light to those who will betray it (me) when the night (you) crushes the mind’s template with its boots teeth headcrown forces external to those visions proper to the temple that burns up the back of your head’s inverted idea of Earth thwarting ribbons floaties & other portraits of mirth left out in the rain for like twelve years so that when you say “fire” in twelve seconds all that’s left is what I was too late to say to only show weakness when it’s too late to do so

 

 

 

 

Peter Myers is a poet living in New York. His recent poems have appeared in Fence, Hot Pink Mag, jubilat, and Nomaterialism. He has written essays and reviews for Annulet, Full Stop, and Chicago Review. A chapbook is forthcoming from above/ground press.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Tuesday poem #524 : Emma Rhodes : Day 3 depression or something of the like

 

You ate today you're a freaking superhero.

The circles on the ceiling are close enough to the stars. When you put your head underwater it's like you're at the beach but no one watches you here. In your body and without it let the water fill your ears and feel the echo in the auditorium. Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing the sea and the sky and the inside of your skull so gentle. Ceiling stars melt and become the ocean which is your bathtub: the milky way and crabs, tiger sharks, and phytoplankton. A whole universe softened to listen to. Here in the tub. You have everything you need right here.

 

 

 

 

Emma Rhodes (she/her) is an emerging queer writer currently living on the unceded territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island people. Her work has been published in places such as Prism International, Plenitude, Riddle Fence, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, Razor Burn, is available through Anstruther Press.

Photo credit: Connor Price-Kelleher

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Tuesday poem #523 : Tara Borin : TO THE SLEEP CLINICIAN REVIEWING MY CPAP DATA 600 KM AWAY

 

 

Across the distance, you peer
into my bedroom,

interpret the downloaded data:
significant drop

in the number of events experienced.
Nancy, what counts as an event?

Is it only when my airway folds
wetly upon itself, breath interrupted,

or is it also a child coming into my bed
again, to sleep?

I fear I’ll never break them
of this habit, Nancy.

Do you have kids? Do you also fear
what will become of them  

once the relentless world takes hold?
They grow up

and away, but for now,
my child wakes each night

and slips quietly into my room.
Perhaps it’s the soft sighs

of the machine, pressing me open,
snores silenced.

Did you notice a pause
as I held my breath

to make myself smaller
so that they might fit beside me

 

 

 

Tara Borin is a poet and writer living in the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Dawson City, Yukon. Their debut full-length poetry collection, The Pit, was published by Nightwood Editions in March 2021; their poetry has been anthologized in the League of Canadian Poets Feminist Caucus in Conversation chapbook (LCP Press, 2022), Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo (University of Regina Press, 2021) and Best New Poets in Canada 2018 (Quattro Books), as well as published in various literary journals both online and in print. Tara is the 2022 winner of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Borealis Prize: Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan