poetry
quench
contemporary verse 2 fall 2024
someone told me about broken glasses
and I went
who breaks glasses anyway?
less then a week later, I broke one
then two
now it's been four or five in a month
slipped through soapy fingers in the sink
on the counter
to the floor, wherever
and what a feeling
watching your feet through white socks
waiting to see if they're bleeding.
liminal strip mall mems
contemporary verse 2 special birthday edition january 2025
listen. the last thing I need
is to bring out a thesaurus
when my asthma inhaler's
run out of puffs. how to describe
twenty jumpsuits covered in oil? it wasn't sexy
like that jason statham scene, it was me
choking alone in a room for 8 hours.
the air across the parking lot walking to taco bell
was so good, calgary
could have been the middle of the ocean.
back then my allergy meds tasted
like cherry and the curtains were blue
so call it like it is: sad bitch disease
pisces moon motherfucker can't handle
long words, even drenched in oil.
maybe if I were a capricorn
god knows I wouldn't have spent and eaten
instant gratification slipping like the suction
on the 'back in 5 minutes' sign on the door
at the dry cleaners where you and me
stole the R from the 'shirt' in 'shirt laundry,'
lost in the sauce of four-letter words
and fries supreme.
but I was born a week early and this half-man
half-human half-woman half-0animal
doesn't want a chemistry lesson in his stomach,
never mind a poem, okay, I just want to know
why pasta water should taste like the ocean,
and what the author meant by
the ocean was blue.
southern AB highway mountain-staring
this side of west winter 2025
see where the sun sinks summits
crisp with challenge and thin air
so easy to drown in?
how to die too close to the sun:
not from melted wings but frozen lungs
frost-caught steps fraught with edemas
and thickened blood.
superimposed sunspots burn
behind eyelids unraveling unspoken dreams,
fear manifests knee-bending truth,
possibility holds its breath and
from prairie flatbed, I pay my respects
to the mountain man over the border,
head tilted to the sun, the stars
your sugarbowl deathbed.
