From ode to sonnet
more’s in your bonnet.
From Glosa and Virelay
Pantoum and Nonet
you’re offered Refrain
yes, even Quatrain.
More you shall see;
of Etheree and Shih.
• John Jansen in de Wal is a Toronto-based author, He has published several books. This poem is from his book A Poet's Adventure. For more on the author, visit www.jansenindewal.com.
Word Music
Two poems from Word Music, by John Jansen in de Wal
If my Dad had been a rooster
and my Mom a willing hen,
They might have had a lot of chicks.
Maybe even ten.
• • •
Sometimes I feel like
a bramble bush in the desert.
Not only are my thorns,
my leaves, my branches
on fire, but my very roots.
It is a fire that
does not scorch
nor burn to ashes.
It causes me to shake
in body and in soul.
Is that your spirit?
• John Jansen in de Wal is a Toronto-based author, He has published several books. These poems are from one of his latest offerings Word Music. For more on the author, visit www.jansenindewal.com.
Flirty Fanny Floozy
By John Jansen in de Wal
Flirty Fanny Floozy
bare skin’d ran
in bright moon
to get a tan
both arms here
both legs there
Flirty Fanny Floozy
did not care.
Flirty Fanny Floozy
what a gal
went to bed
with an - I can’t tell -
one leg up
one leg down
Flirty Fanny Floozy
wore no gown.
Flirty Fanny Floozy
that hot gal
played in bed
in a way just - well-
one leg down
one leg up
Flirty Fanny Floozy
swilled a cup
Flirty Fanny Floozy
that drunk maid
fell out of bed
then farewell bade
both legs up
shoulders down
Flirty Fanny Floozy
took to town.
• John Jansen in de Wal is a Toronto-based author, He has published several books. This poem is from one of his latest offerings Word Music. For more on the author, visit www.jansenindewal.com.
Rooster: A Silly Short
By John Jansen in de Wal
If my Dad had been a rooster
and my Mom a willing hen
they might have had a lot of chicks
maybe even ten.
• John Jansen in de Wal is a Toronto-based author, He has published several books. This poem is from one of his latest offerings Word Music. For more on the author, visit www.jansenindewal.com.
The Music of Words
By John Jansen in de Wal
I’m in love with
the music of words
at once undulating in
their ebb and flow
of syllables that sybillate
in mellow affirmation of
subliminal self or
starkly stride
harsh
full-blown egos
onto the page in
a breath of fire.
• John Jansen in de Wal is a Toronto-based author, He has published several books. This poem is from one of his latest offerings Word Music. For more on the author, visit www.jansenindewal.com.
Red and White*
By Patricia A. McGoldrick
All I know is that Paul made me see red
Red, when I didn't want to see any colours at all.
He sent a white letter with a royal blue stamp
And then, he started talking
About white
And Blake
And red
And Burns
And roses in boxesAnd roses in paper
And roses in JuneAnd roses in sick--
Sickillredcells
White cells--too many
Paul lived only twenty-one springs--too few.
Soon, so many
Needles so sharp
Drugs so strong
Handsome blonde hairs almost gone--
Laughing on Demerol
With skin so tender and white and pale
Arms hugging Paul so dear
Red-blooded leukaemia-stricken male.
Sick, in a red brick hospital
On a cold winter's day
Surrounded by white uniforms and tight white sheets.
In summer,
The colour-coded maze of halls
Are hospital-warm
And...
Aphone is ringing
Shrieking a warning in my home--
Paul
is haemorrhaging and
everything seems
red
again.
Through red eyes,
I see parents
At a sombre black funeral
With a white-draped
coffin
resting on green.
I left a
white rose for Paul
And a
red rose for me—
Just like my poet
Wanted it to be.
*Published previously as a winning entry in The Dorothy Shoemaker Literary Awards Contest inThe Changing Image under the poet's married name Patricia McGoldrick Goldberg, 1994.
In the dark opulence
of timelessness,
absolute anguish
palsies my integrity.
Jolts of fiery flames
pierce my bosom,
stab my sorrow.
To the naked eye,
no perceivable notion.
Stimulated
by bland intensity,
the dreadful saga
alters my subconscious.
Hopelessness
lutes its dirge.
• Maria Pia Marchelletta is a teacher, translator, quadri-lingual poet
and writer published internationally. She is the vice-president of
WEN and member of the League of Canadian Poets. Her short
story secured second place in the National Ottawa Literary Festival,
2009. She has published a chapbook Nocturnal Laments and her
debut collection On the Wings of Dawn is forthcoming from
In Our Words Inc.
Featured below are translations of her poem Timeless Opulence in three languages.
Opulencia Eterna # 7
En la opulencia oscura
de la eternidad
Angustia absoluta
Paraliza mi integridad.
Sacudidas de llamas ardientes
Perforan mi pecho
Apuñalan mi dolor.
Al ojo desnudo,
Ninguna noción percibida.
Estimulado
Por intensidad sosa,
La saga terrible
altera mi subconsciencia.
La desesperación
Canta su réquiem.
Opulence Intemporelle
Dans une opulence noir
d’intemporelle,
angoisse absolue
paralyse mon intégrité.
Sursauts de flammes ardents
troue mon sein,
perce ma peine.
A l’oeil nu,
pas de notion remarquable.
Echauffé
par l’intensité fade,
l’événement terrible
modifie mon subconscient.
Le désespoir
lutte son chant funèbre.
Intramontabile Opulenza
Nell’opulenza scura
dell’intramontabile
l’angoscia assoluta
paralizza la mia integrità
Sbalzi di fiamme focose
penetrano nel mio seno,
accoltellano la mia tristezza.
Ad occhio nudo
nessuna nozione percepibile.
Eccitata
dall’intensità insipida,
l’orribile evento
altera il mio subconscio.
Non come una vedette affascinante
ma come creatura umile
rassegnata ad esistenza pura.
Sono i dei celesti che prescrivono questo?
Essere capace di piangere con dignità
senza nessuna ricompensa.
Ha tutto questo un significato profondo?
L’afflizione deve essere element
di divinità o d’infinità.
Che anima nobile sopportare tutto questo,
il viaggio eterno.
Obama Smile Touches World's Heart!
POETRY | By Frederick Rocque
That smile
Flashes warmth, a gleaming welcome
Reaches out, shakes hands with your heart
Eyes touch your soul
Gentle comfort from just a glance!
That smile
Melts cold, bruised hearts, instantly
Soothes minds heavy with envy and scorn
Twinkling eyes, brush aside invisible shackles
Of bitterness and regret
That smile
Is hope, inspiration and confidence,
Shatters stony walls of isolation, rejection
Eyes light up, open wonderful windows
To life, a celebration!
That smile
Braves biting cold on the campaign trail
Turns foes to friends, champions for change
Eyes clear, beacons to a radiant path
To a historic present, a welcoming future
That smile
Is charm etched in character
Bridging time, shrinking distance
Eyes commit, an unspoken oath
Wedding race, faiths, creed and culture as one holy union
A legacy for change, a promise for humanity!
Written as a tribute to US President Barack Obama, the images are
those the world witnessed on his campaign trail and during his
first 100 days in office. This poem was published in October 2009
in celebration of Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
after less than a year in office as the 44th president of the United
States. Obama's inspiring role and leadership mark a glorious era
in American history - indeed world history!
Apple Picking at Rougement
POETRY | By Patricia A McGoldrick
On Saturday morning
In Grandma’s white car
We drive for an hour to the Quebec orchard where
Rows of trees with shiny green leaves
Are waiting patiently for pickers and those who plunder while picking
Cherry red apples are dangling
Like taunting targets for eager grasping hands
Within an hour of autumn sun
We have heaping bushels and brimming baskets bursting with
Late Macs and early Northern Spies
Delightful Golden delicious and crunchy round russets
Waiting on the wagon—but, all too soon, it is time to go back to Montreal
Ladders are secured and
We climb down with care along the charcoal stems of the trees while
Stealthily reaching into a bulging denim pocket for that rounded morsel
Before it is shipped from the orchard to be crushed for a tin of juice
Or packed into the trunk for the long ride home.
Suddenly, I hear a crunch; furtively, I look around—
Then, I take another and another crisp crunch--
Who can resist that first bite?
• Published in Voices Israel Anthology 2009, p.150. Patricia A McGoldrick
writes poems, essays and reviews about history, nature. books and
people. Recently, her poems have been published in Frost and Foliage, Voices Israel Anthology 2009, Sleet Magazine, Irish American Post and
on other websites, including Chapter & Verse. Patricia is a member of
The Ontario Poetry Society (TOPS). She lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.http://pmpoetwriter.blogspot.com, http://sites.google.com/site/pmpoetwriter
Maelstrom of Love
POETRY | By Gabriel Arntt
Two people meet—a familiar dance ensues, as old as time.
A touch of sky, a glimmer of hope that flashes across your face.
You can never find a proper name,
but the feeling always stays the same.
Muscles tense in anticipation and the skin quivers (you know what’s coming). Grant the mind its sudden elation and give in to the body’s celebration.
Lips part and breath comes heavy, slow, and labored.
The nervous laughter starts;
Neither one retreating nor making an advance.
A quick glance and both eyes lock.
A smile creeps across your face;
a mirrored reflection responds in kind.
Unspoken agreement crackles,
like the first streaks of lightning in a storm.
Finally, lips touch: the gentle first kiss of lovers
slowly soaking in the moment.
A storm of emotions, falling gently as the rain.
Chests begin to heave.
The heart beat quickens, racing towards the object of its affection,
but it sputters and trips with each electric connection of skin to skin.
Insecurities and fears are shed with the clothes that lie on the floor.
An act of trust, matched by no other; two souls rejoicing in their simplicity.
Bodies writhe and the temperature rises;
a sun burning brightly within the two.
Clouds disperse and life itself cries out in ecstasy.
This is sacred, this is pure.
Now the ocean recedes slowly, the tide returning to the vast deep.
Stars appear and twinkle with mirth.
Both bodies hug close in the afterglow of this momentous occasion.
An acceptance of release and an affirmation of humanity’s hope in its most heavenly form:
Love.
• Maelstrom of Lovewon third place in the Second Annual Love
Poem Contest. For the contest report, click here.
I Have You
POETRY | By Sheila B Roark
Storm clouds may be dark as night
raining their teardrops on me,
but I can always get through
as long as I know I have you.
Life may be hard and unfair
as I fight through its turmoil and trials,
but I never feel saddened and blue
as long as I know I have you.
You are the strength I depend on
your love helps me get through each day
I feel there is nothing that I couldn’t do
as long as I know I have you.
• I Have You won second place in the Second Annual Love Poem
Contest. For the contest report, click here.
In the Heat of the Sun...I Love
POETRY | By John B Lee
I am singing of first sensation
when the locus of two bodies
lost
to dark desire
lie together as if in a bed of rivers
with the silting down of dampening dust
wafting from a wind on the land
adrift by the lonesome tree-shadowed shore of a great
sky-bearing water
and there
in the sacred verso and recto of dream
at the very meaning middle
of orchidaceous flesh one man receives
a sweet low kiss from the silken secrets of the womb
and vanishes
on the threshold and circumference of delight
into that moment of memory
when watered clay persuades the soul
to breathe beyond the quitting point
of a sad story of the heart
a story concerning animal stone and mortal stars
as is was when the blue-tipped cuticle
of life-giving-life touched earth to heaven
undulating in luminous waves of wakeful and confluent oceans
of energetic darkness and vacillating light surging inward and falling away
in shell-wash and pebbled blur of sundered smooth glass-blue crests
foamed with the roaring silence of a quieting sea
the goddess
like a seamstress at her treadle
seated close on the edge of her chair
concentrating on her stitches
the garment cascading on the floor
transformed from formless fabric to radiant raiment
where she shudders through closets of chaos
while the birth-wet imago
almost open and nearly closed
alit with the flexing shade
afire with tension she steals for her flight
from the floriferous heat of the rose-deeped sun
for the purpling cool of the moon …
• In The Heat of The Sun and The Cool of The Moon, I Love won
first place in the Second Annual Love Poem Contest. For the
contest report, click here.
Anniversary of Montréal Bed-in (2009)
POETRY | By Patricia A McGoldrick
It was forty years ago that
John and Yoko hunkered down in Montréal and
I wondered to myself
What would he say
If John Lennon had lived until today
Imagine
Yes, yes, if you could
If he had lived to see
The towers fall away
Or another war being fought so far away
By young soldiers
American and not American
And John would sing
Give peace a chance
My sisters and brothers
All we are saying is…Give peace a chance.• Patricia A McGoldrick writes poems, essays, reviews about history, nature, books and people. Recent publications include poems: City of Lights; Autumn Happens and Apple Picking at Rougement in Voices Israel 2009; Pears of Ivan; Neighbourhoods and Flower Pots in League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Planet Blog 2009. Patricia is a member of The Ontario Poetry Society. She lives and writes in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. http://pmpoetwriter.blogspot.com, http://sites.google.com/site/pmpoetwriter
City of Lights
POETRY | By Patricia A McGoldrick
The Saturday matinee is about to start
On this no-longer-a-Holy-Day-of-Obligation feast-day of the Epiphany.
Outside the uptown theatre where the latest Paris movie is ready to roll,
The line-up for tickets is long, made up of stragglers without online tickets.
Huddled in our warm woolen coats and rainbow coloured scarves, We laugh and talk, as we move ahead, stamping our feet to keep warm.
From our spot at the end of this parade of people, the line seems to curve oddly
As we near the doors of the recently restored Edwardian theatre building.
Like sheep, we proceed to follow the circular pathway of people a few more steps,
Then, just before the ticket window, we see Him.
There, sitting on the concrete sidewalk, he doesn’t take up much space--
Less than a square metre of brown cardboard, all told, in area.
If you had a metre stick, say from that tricouleur flag waving beside the shiny new Billboard,
He wouldn’t reach the full height of those centimetric units, sitting all hunched over like that.
We watch as he pulls tight the remaining red and green bands of the worn HBC blanket
Amidst a concert of the chords of La Marseillaise
Wafting through the air with the scent of café crème.
Wearing a worn khaki coat with four brass-buttoned patch pockets and
Shaded by a sun-bleached summer hat, not a cozy Canadian toque,
The man in blonde whiskers and tattered jeans is
Fading into the speckled grey sidewalk.
If it weren’t for the outstretched hand holding a soiled metal cup,
Clinking with the sound of quarters and toonies,
The sidewalk would appear to be empty except for the newly-fallen crystals of January Snow.
--Two adults, one teen, one senior for the Paris movie, please.
• Patricia A McGoldrick writes poems, essays, reviews about history, nature, books and people. This poem was published in The Changing Image 2008with the winning entries in prose and poetry categories of the 2008 Dorothy Shoemaker Literary Awards Contest. City of Lights was ranked second in the Senior (over 18) category of the Poetry submissions. Patricia lives and writes in Kitchener, Ontario. http://pmpoetwriter.blogspot.com, http://sites.google.com/site/pmpoetwriter
Sometimes - Magic
POETRY | By Joanna Gale
Along the way of the deadwood trees
up there, on Stoney Brown Hill, sits Arial ,
the prettiest fairy, on a carrot weed,
fluttering her feet—nibbling a berry
bright as the twinkle in her eyes.
We drive the sparkle of trees. She hops
the hillside beside us; and from deer fence links
she harnesses wind chariots of magic,
sprinkles her wispiness over crushed rocks, and
in dervish whirls she twists and turns, hovering
the passion flowers risen from their heartaches.
She darts and splits the jagged black-cut giants
that crowd, and loosens mountains of cloud
enough to show their petals smiling.
The sky opens, and the horizon smoothes beyond
the river loops she pirouettes, once more,
before she floats into the great white
bear cloud stretched over us—to disappear
beyond the scent of sweet grass—splattering
gold dust.
• Joanna Gale, a resident of Markham, Ontario, is a member of The Ontario Poetry Society and Canadian Federation of Poets. She has also recently been involved with The Markham Village Writers. She loves to write about anything that moves her. This piece was started while driving back to Ontario from Nova Scotia.
Writings In The Stone Garden...
POETRY | By Paul Costa
The vine wrapped itself,
Around the stones jagged and smooth.
It fell from each one.
Wanderer:
It would not be wise to move today.
Chorus:
Is it ever? Wisdom does not change.
Wanderer:
Only my levels of foolishness do.
Blowfish in the cool clear river run to the temple.
Ghosts of children play,
In the fallen leaves of the cherry blossom,
Where?
Now they cut it down,
And sell it in wreaths at the market.
It is inevitable,
The valiant samurai become ronin,
When pride befalls their masters…
So it says in the teachings,
And so it shall ever be.
I decided to lie,
And watch the storm;
An immense off white sky,
And a vortex of black snow.
Beneath the pink purple death,
of the sun in the valley of clouds,
Her existence sleeps against me in reality,
On the new shadows of the fresh grass.
Hold still your roots,
And let your branches move in the wind.
• Paul Costa is a poet working out of Toronto who experiments in a wide range of verse types, including but not limited to lyric and epic verse. This piece, Writings In The Stone Garden...Shogun’s Fortress, is an experiment in different styles of Japanese literature he has read in several translations.
