Three poems, by Colin Dardis

 

 

Ghosts Out There

All these ghosts with their spray cans
writing their name across the city
trying to convince us that they exist
as if bricks offer validity

  

 

Mid-March

The empty
papier-mâché nest
hung as a gift from
an optimistic child,
the birds waiting until
the camouflage of leaves. 

 

 

An Elastic Complacency

a glove of hand sanitiser
before pressing the button
at the traffic lights
        you have to wait
        for the green
light from the government
before staying outside
for more than an hour 

in prison,
they get daily constitutionals
in a yard
        here, we go walking
        and then return to our cells 

subjugated for our own health
        and all healths 

the revolution was televised
but the conquest was invisible
        a breath
        a touch
        a trace 

and now
we cross the road
back to normality
        an old dress
        slipped on
        and immediately
        we return to ourselves 

now the conquest
is like a strange neighbour
you hear through the walls
but rarely see
        they leave their bins out
        and don’t collect them in 

and we return
to old homes
with opened curtains

 

Colin Dardis is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently with the lakes (above/ground press, 2023). A neurodivergent poet, editor and sound artist, he currently co-hosts the Poetry Poetry open mic night in Belfast, and is editor of the poetry blog, Poem Alone.

Three poems, by russell carisse

 

russell carisse is currently living on unceded Wolastoqiyik/Mi’kmaw territory in New Brunswick. Here they have resettled from Tkaronto (Treaty 13) to an off-grid trailer in the woods, with their family of people and animals, to grow food and practice other forms of underconsumption. Work forthcoming or in, Juniper, Queen’s Quarterly, The Temz Review, Touch the Donkey, also online. Website: russellcarisse.carrd.co Mastodon: @russellcarisse@writing.exchange Bluesky: russellcarisse@bsky.social 

Two poems, by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Play

Now is not the time for me to dawdle
on a poem that jests at the expense
of my winter heart, not a frolic nor
a trifle, though you would be forgiven
for your quick joke as we pull on boots
to gamble at the air being just warm
enough to divert from the seasonal
sadness, dallying as I allow. But
I can find my delight in this gesture
that won’t just dabble in warmth, but fully
cavort, a bonfire, even in snow waist-
deep. Je m’ébatte avec toi, as the world
rollicks in these ending days, and we will
skylark, screaming poetry as kindling.

 

 

 

A Year is Forever When
- a found poem on nuclear semiotics, from the Sandia National Laboratory Report

This message is a warning about danger —
          and it can kill 

Rudimentary cautionary information —
          tells what why where when and how it increases toward a center 

Basic complex information —
          no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here 

We consider ourselves to be a powerful culture —
          nothing is valued here 

This place is not a place of honor —
          and part of a system of messages 

This place is a message —
          what is here is dangerous and repulsive 

In your time as it was in ours —
          this place is best shunned and left uninhabited 

The danger is to the body —
          something man-made is here 

The form of the danger —
          only if you substantially disturb this place physically 

The danger is in a particular location —
          the danger is still present 

The danger is unleashed —
          of a particular size and shape, and below us

 

Shelagh Rowan-Legg (she/they) is a writer and filmmaker. Originally from Toronto, her poetry and short stories have been published in The Windsor Review, Taddle Creek, Carousel, and numerous other magazines. Her short films have screened at festivals around the world, and she is a Contributing Editor at ScreenAnarchy. She lives in Montreal. Find her at shelaghrowanlegg.com and on Bluesky, @bonnequin.bsky.social.

Two poems, by Alice Burdick

 

Mediaeval advice column
 

Compare your eels to hares,
their snowy bellies, many hidden holes.
Treasure your husband’s person -
keep him close, keep him clean.
Keep his feet re-shod, toes up
in secrets. Identify the season’s cheese:
a melting Lazarus, a minimum of tears,
only time. A thing like time tells us
that a border agent opens the suitcase
as we watch, small autumn-shaped fish
strapped to our bellies. I growl at
the husband, who is out sweating
or freezing, holding the keys to the keep,
nightcap quivering on his tipping crown.
Sing the song of the market riddle -
choose the clearest eye, the dullest
stone rolled from the cave. Oh
friend, oh husband, the timing is off,
whatever time is. We dream of electricity
while candles wax our halls. A gulp,
a soft landing. I have heard it said
that spring is the time for blatant florals.
The reason for voices is stories.
Light a fire under the baby eels, who
are an expensive industry. Maintain
the linen’s wave on an airy line of inquiry.
My forehead tells the time, whatever
time is. Drop the second husband’s decanter
against the canal’s hitch - a lock away
from distance. If a ship lowers itself through
the locks, it means time is a nightmare of inquiry.
Sprinkle a posy bouquet onto the sheets
of early spring. If your bed is full of fleas,
address the fleas, free the fleas - shake them
onto your neighbour’s food truck. The care
of the outside world is man’s work, the care
of the inside world is woman’s work.
Everyone knows this, and I’ve written it down.
These are the simple aspects of time -
it is here, it is now. It is not education
but discernment, which can be related,
but not necessarily. Use the slippery skin
of a good carp to mend your door.
Carp at your good husband, but let him
slide down the gross hill of dirty socks.
Give him orders. Make them gentle so
they sound like music, not conviction.
He’ll balk at clear logic. Let him.
You ask me for advice, so I’ll tell
you that worms produce a soft, smooth silk.
Just so, just as love does, the worms writhe
and expend energy, to look really fly.
They shine, alive in your life, figure eights
in the rubied ancestral chalice. Nod gently,
tag your wandering bitches. No plastic,
we have a simple rhyme in our beds.
It’s more for the telling than the teaching,
dear friend, dear sister. Mortar your ramparts,
storm the pestles, grind it out, grind
it down. May every seed flower.
Bend hearts to open them,
though they may break.
Fold your heart to start again.

 

 

The possible principal earth
 

Inside winter - congress of seeds.
No flowers from leafing light.
Violence blooms through doors. 

Flowers of design, a river
unrolled a boat into violets.
The gall stains change - no art. 

Employer of labour, wealth
can yield principles - dye
indigo into fast food. 

A thief in chintz loves
slow religion - the moon
misunderstands lectures, love. 

Study last-minute science.
Do not mow the end of the world -
illuminate the cold, stone, pink. 

Peaks like crusts, a small breath -
great loads a burden on height.
A sound blinks near the sea. 

Without a good captain, we would
not agree on earthquakes,
the demolition of whole islands. 

The sea a sunken enemy.
We are at war with the story -
a mast into the sky’s open eye. 

You are a country,
a torn route. Map
of torrents, map of hands. 

Dearness, not to be scanned -
stamp the silhouette
of each fallen leaf. 

Barnacles trek through
secretions. We take years
to amass carcass information. 

We talk on booms - buoys
bounce conversationally,
slow to conclusion. 

A universe is a law
of design. We will hope
for all that we can. 

Heart beef, a way
to the end of your ass -
the trail end of days. 

Feather and its quill
are based objects, birds
made into modes of communication. 

Wallpaper blooms and fades,
camouflage in flowers -
flowers hide in flowers, too. 

Time is an allowance
we can think of
as a line at a time.

 

Alice Burdick writes poetry, essays, and cookbooks in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She is the author of Ox Lost, Snow Deep, a feed dog book/Anvil Press, 2024; Deportment: The Poetry of Alice Burdick, 2018, Wilfrid Laurier University Press; Book of Short Sentences, 2016, Mansfield Press; Holler, 2012, Mansfield Press; Flutter, 2008, Mansfield Press; and Simple Master, 2002, Pedlar Press. Her poems have appeared in such anthologies as GUSH: Menstrual Manifestos for Our Time (Frontenac House, 2018), Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence, An Anthology of Surrealist Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press, 2004), and others. She is the author of many chapbooks, folios, and broadsides since 1991. Her essays have appeared in Locations of Grief: an emotional geography (Wolsak & Wynn, 2020) and My Nova Scotia Home: Nova Scotia’s best writers riff on the place they call home (MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc., 2019). She is a freelance editor, manuscript assessor, and workshop leader.

Three poems, by Nate Logan

 

POEM THAT ENDS WITH A BIRD

The old barrel of laughs was blasted apart last week. 

We’re in trouble with an invocation.

The empty field is hard. We kick the ground to prove it.

Cut us some slack.

Gulp of magpies, mischief of magpies, and tidings of magpies are all the same thing.

 

 

POEM THAT ENDS WITH A BIRD

“The phrase, 'If I never saw you again, it would be too soon,' seems like the long way around,” she said, a turkey peering in the backyard.

 

 

POEM THAT ENDS WITH A BIRD

Epizeuxis is here to stay. 

I’m sorry?

You’ve seen every movie about missing people.

I’m open to suggestions.

At the worst possible moment someone says, “What a doozy.”

The lifeguard tower crumbles.

It’s a common loon that interrupts the news.

 

 

 

Nate Logan is the author of Wrong Horse (Moria Books, 2024) and Inside the Golden Days of Missing You (Magic Helicopter Press, 2019). He lives in Indiana.

Three poems, by Sean G. Meggeson

 

chlorine

 

blue tints conform 

kill body cell clean 

lost vocation verb

haze eye light infection 

prismatic summer refraction

 

water anthem resuscitation

 

nice little anthropophagy

 

 

 

halogen

 

 

erasure light flake

 

fissure light fob

 

memory light fade

 

fallow light feint

 

 

 

mac low

 

 

Zen ultra ilk

 

bird sick flight

 

mount sky sink

 

flight atom tick

 

am biv light

 

am all light

 

christ cone light

 

basket wick light

 

moment ash like

 

& old camera light

 

& plastic plate light

 

wood table light

 

 

Sean G. Meggeson lives in Toronto, Canada, where he works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He has written and lectured on such topics as Lacan & James Joyce, neurodiversity, and interspecies intersubjectivity. His chapbook, Cosmic Crasher and Other Poems has been published by Buttonhook Press, 2024. Meggeson was the winner of the 2024 League of Canadian Poets Spoken Word Award. Poems forthcoming in antiphony press and #Ranger Magazine.

Two poems, by Stan Rogal

 

Au Naturel

 

I worry about the trees, their furry existence
the smell of rain, the heavy drag of wind
across the concrete, the creeping fog 

& what about the smell of light? what about
the moss, listening in the damp shadows?
wildlife clothed in fur, feathers & flowers? 

how romantic : unbothered by conventional
notions of good taste : in the subway, walls
display young girls in brassieres & panties 

seeking jazz or sex or soup or the yakkity-yak
buzz : those who blew or were blown : poetry
strange as money beneath this cloudy firmament 

posters that read “my son’s father is missing”
living in Chicago, homesick for London,
blinked too much & was afraid of snakes 

how naked am I? my thighs are amphibian
where rats go, go I, accustomed to the night
I am a pal of the earth : I come from wilderness 

piece by battered piece I appear to re-enter
the world (we all gain from alien phenomena)
creature absorbs creator in this bent light 

it is the sky, it is the ground, there is nothing
between, save, a thin line : tree names, flower
names, deliberate as hard squares of teeth

 

  

Knee Deck Her Daisies
          Lorine Niedecker

 

rainy day w/yellow warblers & wild canaries
in this place, geese make a wilderness in the ears
a text composed of locks of black & red hair
& horizontal strips of cut white paper 

the line flat as a lake is flat, as a corpse is flat
(I’m really in a vein if I can direct it better)
quite lavish w/their ripe expletives
news of the weave, mud of the bleep 

look — a bit of mottled blue
behind a skin of fog after days of grey
the way that big trees somehow seem
to just rush out of a landscape 

… because everything is connected …
(after all, we do have sex & other appetites)
I — if s/he did exist — wld know how to spell,
just by looking, at the “jonquils,” or whatever 

the handcuffs of words are on us for good
poetry is a dead loss; & this is true, Bataille argues
come up (then) to the dandelions & say goodbye
to April [which] wasn’t much favourable, anyway

 

Stan Rogal: I live and write in Toronto. Work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia. The author of 27 books, including 12 poetry and several chapbooks. A 13th poetry collection to be published in March 2025 with ecw press. A produced playwright and former coordinator of the popular Idler Pub Reading Series, now defunct. The series, not me.