Tuesday poem #608 : Steven Ross Smith : From Petal & Fracture (ms in progress)

 

~

2. i.

  drum-patter
five   in   four   particulate  

paul & dave’s mathematical
  musical
      sequences   e
   quated who
      donym identities
ids entity  

   Desmond-Brubeck’s    take
genius of
     route-five
ego-exit    beyond the rule & ruse
   of self-aggrand
    I-zing   nodes
     ego centricity   brushed out
electricity sp-arced    in mirrorless me-vein   
     aired as other    a vain-free
unapologetic
   anthro
       pology   
    (beware   tik-tockers   influencers 
                               strokers of codes   of toads)
    note the cinquefoil bloom

   D-B    flick    &    key
notecoil co-llusion
   smoothfuse
   in the off-beat’s
catchy collisions

drumscuffskittle  
   insistent eighty-eights
bouncy reeded emollient lilt  

          quirky count
quincunx paradox     staved
     & spacious
revel
     -atious

 

2. ii.

   to hold up
& together
   looped
buckled
   cuffs tucked
budded up
   readied for a
synched-up stroll
   the five reprise
the cinq-tuary

crank the earbuds
      amidst the caws
the crow crowd’s
  black & dapper
shiny gang-suits
   these so-cawwed
intruders
    these corvid lexifiers
whose chatty merger
   shatters & darkens the air  

rude noisy mockers  
   clatter our ears
perplex our comfort
   & ken

   beside our habits
our habitations
   of knee-high
waving iris flag
   blooms
amidst the mob
   the inter
loper throaty
   garblers   who
flick
   & bob at
chips & bits
   berries & seeds  

   we   awe
& curse

   to join & sep
arate   we   
   invent bio
logy & tax
   onomy
as if a name
   ‘s a gain

below the punctuating
   crowthrong gaggle
       & gurgle
   we breathe
in   out
   apace the buffed
& syncopated
   black-staved notes
the sweet cinquaines’
   re-capitulation

cresting
    caught in the cochlea
syncopating the cerebellum

 

 

 

 

 

Steven Ross Smith, Banff Poet Laureate, 2018-21, loves live music and walking on beaches and in forests. His work often juxtaposes disparate threads, as in his seven-book poetic series fluttertongue. His fourteenth book is Glimmer: Short Fictions, from Radiant Press, 2022. He has published three chapbooks with Saskatchewan’s Jackpine Press. He’s been effective too as a literary activist, on behalf of writers—speaking, teaching, organizing, collaborating, editing, presenting, and writing journalistic pieces on literary and visual art. Noteworthy are his stints as Director of programs at Sage Hill Writing (Experience) and The Banff Centre. In 2024 The Green Rose, a collaboration with Phil Hall appeared, from above/ground press. Over many years Smith has migrated westward from Toronto to Saskatoon to Banff, and he now lives and writes in the region of the Songhees First Nation peoples, Victoria, BC.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #607 : Jillian Clasky : Vanishing Points

 

 

Only once in my life
have I woken

in a state of sleep paralysis.
I opened my eyes

to the sight of myself
on a perch at the foot

of my bed, her neck
bent down

in shadow, her eyes
white stones, her teeth

a string of gleaming slats
in space: this me

who was not me,
a mirror warped

and ossified. I tried
to lift a hand and wave,

could not move
my arm. And still,

as if she’d read my mind,
she waved back.

 

 

 

Jillian Clasky is a poet and fiction writer from Toronto. Her work has appeared in journals such as PRISM international, Room, and flo., and she was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize. She recently graduated from the University of Ottawa, where she cofounded and served as editor-in-chief of Common House Magazine.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan