Across Canada in 30 days!

The League of Canadian Poets would like
to thank everyone who participated
in this year’s Blog.
If there is a poem from a particular artist below who you would like to read, simply use the “search”  feature ” on the blog.

Nellie P. Strowbridge
Heddy Johannesen
Douglas Lochhead
Joe Blades
Edward Gates
Stephen Morrissey.
Cheryl Antao-Xavier
Robert Whiteley
Josephine Stone
April Bulmer
Keith
Lenore Langs
Penn Kemp
Katerina Fretwell
Charmaine Cadeau
John B. [...]

Read Full Post »

Nanaimo, British Columbia

balance point
from Ride Backwards on Dragon (Leaf Press, 2007)
in ebbing light on rainslick
oil basted iron
track laid by men
from china in a past
century – men
handed numbers
for payroll names
to haul coal, pound spikes, die
in lungblack
mineshafts, chinaman 71 – i catwalk
-

home. each
footfall
mothdrops sure
(or not), inline or off
into luminous wind-tossed
surf of fallen
maple leaves, soft
cradle
of yellow palms waiting
to catch me

Kim [...]

Read Full Post »

Salt Spring Island, British Columbia

AUTUMN RAINS
1
In the forest
white caps ignite a dark sea
and as the weeks go by
skins split apart at the edges
torn ragged like flowers,
yet among the sweet decay
a red skull appears
etched with a loosely drawn “Y,”
perhaps for “Yield,”
or maybe “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

2
Darkness,
this room quiet tonight,
my heart still
in the shudder of rain.

3
This morning
a new appearance on the fallen [...]

Read Full Post »

West Kelowna, British Columbia

life #2
“we write to
taste life twice.”*
-

i write to taste
life twice and
have a second
belly laugh along the way.

* Anais Nin
Sterling  Haynes

Read Full Post »

Burnby, British Columbia

Northern Bach
…haunting in its emptiness and bleakness and
starkly magnificent beauty.
–Glenn Gould, speaking of the Canadian north

Snow and ice, especially ice.
The music gleams with it, blisters, blinds.
Sunlight off each struck note plays
in the key of icicle.  Bach in a blizzard.
Each note an icy seed, footprint
in a field of white.
-

I deliver a northern [...]

Read Full Post »

Qualicum Beach, British Columbia

Scandinavian Picnic at Markerville
The idle burnish of an ancient cowbell grows courage on a barn nail.
The sun, bright as an Icelandic night,
sends a satisfied gleam across the buckboard-wide table
crowded by near empty silver-capped jars:  Gran’s jaw-shrinking dills
and vegetable marrow, prunes in sweet profusion, placed around bowls
empty of slaw and chicken.

We set out, refreshed warriors, into [...]

Read Full Post »

Courtenay, British Columbia

Crow Speaks from the Side of the Highway
I’m good at knots.
I like green pepper and Kentucky fried bones
and bingo.  The risk
of numbers.  Daubing
coloured felts on newsprint.
The sound. Smoky excitement.
-

I like glittery things.
I like glittery things in gravel.
I like dead things in gravel at the side of the highway.
Hubcaps with insects glued on.
Bits of snake.
-

Muffin cups. [...]

Read Full Post »