“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” — Steve Bantu Biko I remember. I probably shouldn’t, but I do. It’s a distant memory. Still, like my parents and their parents before them and so […]
Walls You tell me you are not like me. Nor am I like you, but obliterating my thoughts, my feelings, my senses was not yours to do. It was my place as well as yours and if I chose not […]
Pororoca Do you hear the lament of the deep riverwhere you played as a childlaughed when youngand in which you drown today? Playful shorestickling water lettucesexcited crabshiding in the warm sandwhere you dipped your feetfreelyyour cleaned handsoverflowingwith the fullnessof the […]
“Poetry’s appeal is rooted in emotion. It tends to chase people away whenever it becomes too cerebral.” Michael Fraser Author Mayank Bhatt interviews award-winning poet Michael Fraser, whose third collection of poems, The Day-Breakers, was published by Biblioasis in April […]
Chernobyl II Revelation 8:10-11 “… the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.” We are the Chernobyl babushkas wearing black kerchiefs. We are the ones with radiation sickness. We are […]
There Was a Wind There was a wind blowing outside, a dog barking, flashing headlights. When your stomach turned black in your RV, you finally got scared. You decided the time had come to softly drift. All you needed […]
POEM OF THE UNFINISHED SANDWICH Tomato slice, white baladi cheese, rye, a bite taken from one end, crumbs. An ant trudges her burden across the blue countertop. Ah, if only you’d listened! Ah, yes, if only […]
Green String Beans Long thin beans on slender stems, fresh, smooth velvet carefully picked, weighed, lifted. Carried them as she did the signs of fading youth. Softened each one gently from ends, Prepared, diced into tiny circles, pearls in […]
Stardust and Moonlight: A Love Poem Beaches built of melted Sun. Iridescent air Lavender thoughts sprinkle Yearning on sun-whipped skin Oceans shout to the shore, “I will sing to you of love.” Waves recede with a kiss. […]
Dhrupad of Destruction I see Nataraja dancing on a lofty hill, to the sound of crushing ice, Melting glaciers and rising seas. Primordial forces unleashed. From the dark corners of the earth, I hear the eternal rumble of Chaos […]
Eocene Time of rising temperatures the dawn horse gallops on primitive hooves greeting the day’s heat with hunger and teeth grinding small-brained toward longer-limbed progeny expanding onto the first grassy plains no mountains to snow on but coming on […]
Dusk On Loukes Lake (for Kathleen) thin spirits of mist rise immobile on a lake flooded to ice by the calm water bugs skate in circles to a waltz of their own signature my canoe glides on the echoes of […]
Mitochondrial Eve A plague of poppies: salmon, tomato, apricot. Some years I save the seeds, audible in upright cups, and carry them, carefully, to make two lemon cakes, eat all those flowers. Flowers that are as famous as […]
Turbulence it’s not the breath, in or out not quite breath’s only the boundary sneaks past smooth ebbs on laminar silent it’s where streamlines retch mouth shot off with plosives, or trills eddying deep into passionate night where breath […]
Cardinal Flower Red flash— a few sprigs puncture the monotony of brown-green bog, never-ending evergreens and skeletons of cedar. I know you, skulking in the wetlands between bridge and dam, around the island, beneath the boulder’s shoulder, under jack […]
Snow Is Falling Snow is falling. The earth turns white. Its new skin is as smooth as silk. The sun hides behind a veil. I stay confined inside my shelter while the cedars run between the houses and collect […]
Summernote V Call her goddess of heath and yellow gorse. Tell her you have left the moon unlit. Snuggled into its folds. Swamp-fed forest creeks. Grafted to fen carr, sedge grasses. Dwarf blackberries. See if she believes you. […]
