Once pots of earth
carried miles
in strawberry baskets
“and Susan shall have
a new hat.”
Now streets
deserted beyond life,
windows carelessly nailed shut.
Abandoned flowers bleed
across broken sidewalks.
A squeaking screen door
gapes open in the ghostly wind,
then suffers shut.
A childless swing
moves to remembered life.
Thus is the town of houses,
built in the time of dreams,
of the new frontier
now a graveyard
untended and
unwept.
~ Melodie […]
I am classified
senior.
Here there are no elder statesmen,
only the rich become elders.
The poor become merely old.
Fodder for special housing.
On occasions they remark
my attendance.
Once I was part of the GNP,
now I am congratulated
for surviving.
They ask my age impudently
as they ask a child.
We are both referred to
in the third person
as if we were not in the room
which […]
he kneels before a stove,
match in hand, union
of gas and light left
you in solitude, the
stillness of prayer left you
kneeling at recollection
rustle of stones
at the mercy
of his blackened boot
an iron ore dock measures
your heavy history, the metal grates
of a swing bridge bare down
weight that anchors you the way
morning closes in before
thunder arrives, the wind gathering
rain clouds […]
countless questions
count the questions
silence falls
from tongues drops
between letters of ink
into blank spaces where light
bends against darkness
another direction
countless questions
count the questions
~ Valerie Poulin
Valerie Poulin spends her work days writing instructions for software applications and documenting business processes. Her work has been published in literary periodicals, micro-press journals, and anthologies—in print and online. Between creative writing […]
the scent of clean laundry
from someone’s dryer
bored teenagers
walk the alley
cat pounces on a mouse
the death cry
a whisper on the breeze
~ Laura Dennis
I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I have been published at blueskiespoetry.ca, and in the anthology Home and Away from House of Blue Skies. A poem recently appeared in Four and Twenty. I also […]
