Vanessa Shields's Blog, page 24

Poem 272 – Dress

Dress

I fall asleep thinking about what to wear
consider the weather the hair on my legs
the size of my belly the polish on my toes – peeling

In my dreams I’m in space with Jake Gyllenhaal
& none of these things matter when our space
car explodes

I wake by the phone clock chime – startled
achy a bit cold & the dog scoots close
I hold her paw for comfort

It’s the green dress – fleecy soft
button-down with a floppy belt
jewellery accoutrements slipped
on wrists neck lobes red lipstick
for the zoom call at ten
bare legs crossed under a desk

I’d call the colour deep moss
I’d call the style vintage office

Poem 271 & Reviews x 2!

Her anxiety…

…like the three-skin layer scratch on my thumb knuckle
puffed pink edges, little sighs of pain & the scab catching
on polyester blends, the teal wool sweater, the yellow&white
striped dish towel – I can’t take it away

the line of wound the regimen of stinging how it feels itself
much more than it will ever show – the scratch I can see on me
dips into the canyon of fear in her

can I lift her out?

show her the succession of healing tasks a body knows
cry with her witness the changes marvel
at how courage mends the scratch on my thumb
how shadows come first & then the

faint art of trauma a body’s museum
the story of recovery in scars

New Books Review of ‘Thimbles’ by the Independent Book Review & Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews!

Thank you to the Independent Book Review and The Ontario Poetry Society for making these reviews happen! Many thanks to Josie D Sciascio-Andrews and Susan E. Morris for reading ‘Thimbles’ and taking the time and energy to respond in a review!

To read their *glowing* (if I may?!) reviews, please CLICK HERE!

Poem 270 – Haiku for When Daughters Cry

Haiku for When Daughters Cry

Oceans pause mid wave
Dark closes its eyes – exhales
Time begins to stitch

Poem 269 – Self Portrait On A Walk Beside the Sunrise, St. Marys, ON

Self-Portrait On A Walk Beside The Sunrise

skin tightens pulled awake by the strings
of dew-dazzling wind wisps
cheeks puff like mallard’s feathered
throats – green-deep-startled

leaves cling to stones in swerving-water
brooks – my worries lifting lusty to join the vitality
movement forward on slippery wood & thoughts
imprinting on thick-tufted grass centuries woven
into the earth

this silence geese-gaggle-broken the perfect
reflection of my blood song

I let the words go because that is what
the morning sun requires of me

& the moon – waning wise taps my shoulder
with her smile
this blue-sky portrait of beginning – a self
to re-remember

Poem 268 – St. Marys, ON

St. Marys, ON – for Rebecca MQ

The river is glass reflection
pink horizon pushing calm between
lush leaves lazing off willow wonder branches –
heaven’s hair reaching for tomorrow

And also robust rush of water falling –
the stacks fumbling from smooth mirror
to conversations constant rolling
of liquid tongues speaking
a different kind of respect

This confluence of
peace and production
the steady paradox
of our pandemic plié

Poem 267 Two Lips & Goodies #culturedays2021

Two Lips

Two lips alone are amazing
they smile shape sounds
rest in listening repose

Two lips alone are curtains
for the stage that is your face
(yes, your eyes are the lights, of course)

Two lips alone are puffed with electricity
dormant until

Two lips pressed on two other lips well –
this is a whole new theatrical release!

The science of exchange lives in the lips
and chemistry and biology perform too

Two lips feel two lips in the debut discovery
of first love (isn’t it curious how the eyes close?

light moves to mouths)

CULTURE DAYS HAVE BEGUN!

I am part of an exciting interchange of art for this year’s culture days!

HERE’S THE LINK!

It’s easy & fun – choose a kind of art (writing or visual), read and/or experience it – then write or do art in response! Thank you to Laura Rechwan for curating this fine exhibition! #culturedays2021

NEXT WEEK’S GOODIES!

An interview with kid-lit writer Charis Cotter about her *new* novel The Dollhouse!

Announcements for Yin Writing on Zoom – will you write with me at a gawd-awful early time in the morning? Please and thank you?!

Poem 266 – Haiku for Film Noir

Haiku for film noir

cut dark into light
let the hero hold the knife
match the moon’s sharp scream

Poem 265 – Wander

Wander

if you’re wondering what your purpose is
that means you know you have one

certain things take years to begin
but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist before they start

a story has a purpose
a story takes ten years to begin

a butterfly is a soul

migrating

until the perfect wind breathes under the perfect wing
the collision is a surrendering hope

purpose begins by wandering on the wings of butterflies

Poem 264 – The THIS of it

The THIS of It – for Nic

the vastnesses of exchange
that ventilate –

the sliced open hole in the bleeding
trachea of life

the THIS beyond the language that gives it life

in the deep deepnesses of now
that suture this love on your everything. THIS.

your story shared [THIS] your naked ode [THIS]

here in the knowing of supple scars –
provoked acknowledged swallowed the ecstasy

of being YOU [THIS] [ALWAYS YOU]

Congratulations, Nic Brewer!

So happy to celebrate Nic Brewer’s first published novel, Suture, from the great Book*hug press!

Um, buy it and read it, like, right now.

HERE’S A LINK!

Poem 263 – Hinge

Hinge

I don’t know how to tell you this
to give you the number of times I’ve tried to say –
how the sounds wrap around my bones jagged coughing
it’s like…

the only thing I can be is hinged
connected but swinging

away

opening a gap that is finite with a brisk wind of
infinite apologies

each of them meaningful

I feel silly small significantly inside this nest of almosts