Vanessa Shields's Blog, page 28

Poem 231 – Swell Haiku & Guest Poem by Mark Bradley

Swell Haiku

The full moon is near
I arch into its full swell
Lick the dark it moves

Today is the 79th anniversary of the Dieppe Raid. In 1942, almost 5,000 Canadian soldiers, alongside British and American allies, landed on the shores around the towns of Dieppe, Puys and Pourville in occupied France. Local artist, activist and poet Mark Bradley has honoured his father, who was on those very shores, in the following poem: For My Father and His Comrades, Reunion 1976.

Poem 230 – Algae

Algae

underwater
I brush the algae off the lining

it pulses into clouds of gorgeous green
surrounds me

like a mermaid’s echo calling me

home

Poem 229 – Marrow

Marrow

Pain passes membranes
slyly smiles
teeth blackened, daggered
bite through time
spit-splatter into lifetimes
beyond bodies

Karmic lessons dangle
like keys from
soul locks
if I listen I can
hear them clang

It’s the deciphering
that’s difficult
the surround-sound
of trauma is deafening

So I look for the mouths now
on pain’s shifting faces
stick out my arm
let them clamp down

When bone breaks
I know I have the power
my marrow is my own
its work is to keep
me breathing bloody
to clot inherited
narratives penned by pain

I choose to fight
the dis-ease of
letting go, finally
with lasting attention

Yes, it is hard
to give suffering a meal
but a meal is something
to be grateful for
the fullness of belly
the distinction in digestion
the extraordinary excrement

Poem 228 – Spool

Spool

cursive sentences
connected by sighs
when pulled & stretched
could roll into the world’s
largest spool –
worry-wood wrapped
in the thread of my living

I miss her

such a collision of sounds
these letters of undoing
spell my story of stitches
hemming edges that
desire an end beyond
this body

Poem 227 – Onion

Onion

an onion from the garden
pushes purple into a sea 
of vibrant red tomatoes 
so ripe they’re splitting open

the onion – looks like an onion
smells like an onion
layers like an onion but it 
is not fully grown

beside the tomatoes 
an onion leans toward 
sunlight lashing out
on the kitchen counter

I am the onion leaning toward the light for growth

Poem 226 – Float

Float

Inspired by ‘Float on your Back A While’ pg. 35, The Purity of Desire 100 Poems of Rumi, translated by Daniel Ladinksy with Nancy Owen Barton

I go to Rumi for guidance
gather his words over my heart
pushing faith through my skin
beseech him –

Tell me, friend, how do I live this poet life?

Float on your back a while,
he tells me through the softly parted lips
of his humble smile

How did he know? My bags are packed
for the beach! My spine is waiting to
expand on the warm water-top of Lake Huron
the stars are so in need of my gaze
I see them dazzling in the day-blue sky

I feel the edge of his laughter lift
my flesh into a whitecap-wave of chills

Have fun, he coos, poetry is for joy too,
for sand in toes, for screaming under water,
for trusting that every thing is alive
to hold you

Poem 225 – Eight Ball

Eight Ball

on a whim
I palm the magic
eight ball
ask: will I ever
get an agent?

the rush of hot hope
the tightening of desperation
makes my torso smaller

blue bubbled liquid
reveals the white
pyramid of magic
in the small
window of
the ball’s belly:

FOCUS & ASK AGAIN

Poem 224 – Paradox Haiku

Paradox Haiku (for M)

Asleep and awake
I’m straddling paradox
Reaching for Moon’s smile

Poem 223 – Remember What You Did

Remember What You Did

Remember when you did that? 
When you bought a one-way ticket
to fly out west by yourself?
Remember stuffing your green 
backpack so full the seams whimpered?
Remember all the aloneness? How you
leaned into it? How it lifted the weight
of the planet off your shoulders as the
plane soared over the rockies? 
Remember how you needed to go
like going was a cure? Remember how
fear was too afraid to come near you?
How courage became your skin
so powerful a layer of your being
all you could do was love yourself?
When you rode your dreams like 
wild horses galloping across the 
grass-tufted horizons of knowing
who you were?

Poem 222 – Ritual

Ritual

I pull the twisting line of lavender sage
smoke over my heart with the strong backbone
and supple edges of a turkey feather

Help me, I whisper into the burning curl of moving shadow

when I try to touch the smoke it curves around my fingers
a reshaping wisp
becoming more itself as it lifts
spreads and dissipates into something
I cannot see but can smell and feel deeply

something that lets itself be absorbed
a message imprinting in the pages of my lungs
showing me how to let go and arrive how to burn
and rewrite in the displacement of shadows

SUBMISSIONS STILL OPEN!

The final day to submit to our open poetry call on the theme of community is August 24.

For submission guidelines, CLICK HERE.

What does community mean to you? What does it look like, smell like, taste like? How does it live in your life? Your body? Your mind? Has it shifted over the last year in the bumpy flow of the pandemic? Write! Write! Write about it!