... you ask the boreal forests named after Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind ...
Contributors
Ilona Martonfi
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 […]
And you’d ask: Why do you write about fetuses and swallows, “Ciuri, Ciuri”? Flowers, Flowers.
A stilled world, living in frames?
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. […]
Seven Mountains For my maternal grandmother That moment when you see spring on your windowsill you have lost your sister, ceramic pot yellow daffodils, nodding buds. Wilted petals. Ruffled trumpet. Shriveled and fading that moment when news […]
Woman in the dream of the pink house I listen to you tell, Éloïse. Years before this dream. Perhaps it is taboo because it is ugly. We are stripping corn and talking. I stare at your bruised […]
Song of the Sybil: fifth lesson The Sybil foretold the end will come. The house deserted. Broken grey barn wood fence. The family beyond Curé-Clermont Street. Mount Royal foothills. Split into layers. Perennial river grass. Parched earth. Not […]
Unsteadily into the light a bumblebee sipping nettle flowers now in shatters on a field her party dress partially burned organza, silk tulle becomes just another trope for the scarred and sunken sound of a whipping wind: […]
Chimanigasse Through the kitchen window: walnut trees in bloom. Forsythia. Alpine foothills, granite cliffs by the old railroad tracks, Chimanigasse, the Magyar refugee camp Ungarnlager Korneuburg — 220 beds, 270 mattresses, 25 tables, 28 chairs. […]
The unsayable Pruning the wild roses Why? Is there any purpose? each detail Douglas outpatient hospital for your psychosis tarpapering over the window before the roses fade melancholia meds, the fatigue scarring lung sarcoidosis, adult foster home, […]
[Please note that this piece was originally published in Poetry Quebec. – ed] 3625 Aylmer Street, Montreal It is Thursday evening at The Yellow Door and you are hearing poets and prose writers reading from their work. […]
FAR AWAY to the south bayous— ruptured oil well tar balls soiling protected wetlands sea sponges crabs, fish, algae and octopus —coral reefs RÍO LAGARTOS thatch-roofed hut with […]
With nails that curved over toes. Her limbs, limp, her eyes vacant. She took her acoustic guitar to music lessons. She attended art courses at the Douglas Hospital for the mentally disabled. She had lived in shelters and foster […]
1. At Checkpoint Charlie customs huts The death strip – scraped earth :wildflowers. Sepia postcard of the Brandenburg Gate. Organized bus tour. A one-day visit. 2. Windows are bricks instead of glass. 3. A summer […]
Look through grandmother’s kitchen window: a concrete airstrip, wheat fields, red poppies, cornflowers. Forsythia, osier willows in bomb craters. We moved to Halle 7, in 1950, two-story, red-brick house attached to a shed. Windows blasted, front door, missing. […]
Unhung paintings stood stacked against a metal shelf. Inside four walls on Rue Mariette. The easel. Tubes of acrylic and oils. Boar bristle brushes. Black electric guitar in its case. Petunias in window boxes. Narrow pine shutters. A brick and […]
