Tuesday poem #366 : David Groulx : Looking at a shallow mistle thrush

I

Nothing is issued

and the ladies go blah

delicate and fierce

boom boom ah

a decision of

Gemini

a hand of illusion

can't be free

got a hard on for home

and I can hear myself speak

great Britannia

come up the stage

and glow

an old back of a

shallow fish

a skeleton maze

the evening gestured like this

a heap to shove off

there nothing but wine

the weather here is

gettin a rain

and disappear from here

a kiss goodbye Gemini

must go like that

after awhile

see you waking after awhile

a decision of the dawn

to sop up what's left

of the darkness

but that's just here

looking at a choke

the stage that floats

and everything is old

my mania misplayed

again

II

Come and get this fire

I'll get you high

I'm just a little blue

a tired colour of my horn

the boots, the eye, and the avenue

sometimes, Lady I think of the night

making love, making ready

to leave

the phone rings, the smoke

the heel taps away and the moonlight

makes words

coming through

up to my shoulder

I froze

I was lame

another heart shines on

hurt

let me leave hungry

open another bottle of seems to be

and explanations

Miss Tabytha fly

you figure, you stumble

the horses will come

when you say please

please Miss Tabytha

every Sunday

apparently still

hand travelling

just to be alive

III

You wore my horn somewhere

I think I heard a train

in the mountains

there was laughter and a blade blond

and the love of footsteps

that we couldn't come up for air

I held it all in

like a man will always hold love

with both hands

My roads to you

became my favourite

but I gotta go around

just to get there

it was a scree

you and I

and the tombs we carried

swayed

I doubted the venom

but the venom did not doubt me

now I'm going there

my favourite roads

but I gotta go around

VI

I was to become ablated

brought down to my muss

and I was almost

broken in two and nothing tasted good

does she ever low

something bubbles from her mouth

and I ain't sure why

anything just wearing on

and the goats are gone

I wait

and a crippled memory

comes back like a hand

feeling its way around in the dark

a blind

a kink

a trip down a crooked bone

I can hardly see

winding my way

just pigeon past

a sweet key

and its been so long

since we crumbled

like frozen snow

in the rain

my your way to me again

I'm shining

following

especially you

like half hand of a steed

hurry to me

V

I got my body pressed against

another get away

got the wind in my hand again

leaving this dirty bastard town again

helplessly I'm pulled from

your blah blah blah

just get to the hoar-ra

in the front of you when you zoom bye

goin on the Z train

the starlight moves

all light moves

there is nothing that can turn me off

about anything I can get out of this

they line up everything

the sunshine keeps moving

the ooze are ahhhs

and a rustle at my feet

David Groulx was raised in Ontario, Canada. He is proud of his aboriginal roots, Anishnabe and French Canadian.

                    

He won the 3rd annual Poetry NOW Battle of the Bards.

He has published 11 books of poetry.

His book, The Wabigoon River Poems was nominated for the Archibald Lampman award in 2015.

Was the Writer-in-Residence for openbook.com Toronto for November 2012.

His poetry has been translated into French, Ojibwa and Cree languages.

Red River Review nominated his poetry for the Pushcart Prize in 2012.

         

One Throne Magazine nominated his poetry for the National Magazine Awards in 2014.

His poetry has appeared in over a 190 magazines in 15 countries.

The Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #365 : Jami Macarty : The Daughter

Rather than a church prison with nun guards, a military prison held me. I tied my soldier’s clothes tightly round my body with dozens of cords to protect myself. There is no record of what they did to me. But, are such records kept. Frustrated that I could not be broken, the tribunal used my clothes against me. The military clothes I wore to lead the French army to victory over England at Orléans. Those clothes were the basis of the charge that I dressed like a man. What is it to be dressed like a man. Were my captors dressed thusly or were they dressed as rapists. Executioners. The English, their French collaborators, the Burgundians took me to the marketplace in Rouen and burned me at the stake before a crowd estimated at 10,000. I was 19 years old. Some 30 years later, the people of France declare me innocent of all charges. Designate me a martyr. 500 years later, they canonize me. My heart survived the fire unaffected. I am no one’s saint, but my father Jacques’ and my mother Isabelle’s steadfast daughter.

Jami Macarty is the author of the full-length poetry collection The Minuses (February 2020) in The Mountain/West Poetry Series, published by The Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, and three chapbooks of poetry: Instinctive Acts (Nomados Literary Publishers, 2018), Mind of Spring (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award, and Landscape of The Wait (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She teaches poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University, mentors writers privately, and edits the online poetry journal The Maynard.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #364 : Geoffrey Olsen : Marrow Insight

marrow insight. leaf. rose. animal pens. men brushing fingers under white wings. barrenless. care of beings. gridless. under. heavy liquid.  Fleeting liquid. raptors. broad parts are cupped. anticalamity. forgetting. sounds other birds make as music. infinite pulse made obvious. framing wound lick. Muhal Richard Abrams. soft child looking out. improvising play cloud scintillates angerless aspect. directionless. ends torment. peace of. of space. of limb. on instant. startling. the calf eye.

Geoffrey Olsen is a poet living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of two chapbooks. Recent work has appeared in Prelude and Vestiges.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan