Kite limp at our feet,
we lay in the long cool grass
and listened to trees breathe.
A caterpillar, a ladybug,
wriggled up over scraped knuckles
or tickled smudged fingertips.
A butterfly flickered past
and even without a breeze,
it was enough, enough.
~ Susan Ioannou
Susan Ioannou is a Canadian essayist, children’s writer, and poet, and author of the writer’s guide A Magical Clockwork: […]
Bending lower, we fondle
chipped bowls and stained spoons.
Contentment is imperfect,
truth a cracked glass.
Open the cupboards, out tumble
yellowing memories.
Does order begin with chaos?
Can we believe
a little silver polish
will rub the ache from long days
or must we cling to sticky rings
for fear of being erased?
~ Susan Ioannou
Susan Ioannou is a Canadian essayist, children’s writer, and poet, […]
birds on a telephone wire
then a car backfires
birds take off
telephone wire sways
I look up
and once again
birds on a telephone wire
like any poet
I grasp for the analogy
meanwhile the birds leave
for good this time
leave nothing but the poem
swaying
~ John Grey
John Grey’s writing has recently been published in Agni, Worcester Review, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal, […]
They flooded the town to build the dam.
It’s buried two thousand feet or so below,
some rotting homes, a hardware store
of pig-iron rusting.
Not much of a place so they said.
And they swear that every corpse
since the revolution was exhumed,
replanted elsewhere.
And the few who lived there
gather on the banks,
have picnics, fish, or maybe
they just sit, pretend they […]
A sad man with a long face
sits on an antique chair
in an empty warehouse
slowly unraveling a handmade sweater.
Skeins of green and white wool
softly pull free
and coil in on themselves,
unmaking an imperfect
unfinished
labour of love.
The form disappears,
but the hands never forget
the rough touch of the wool.
A string snaps;
a world comes apart;
a sweater becomes two […]
