PASS THE NOTE in the palm of your hand. cup it in the hollow between life line and the lines of children. sometimes I check mine to see if my wife is pregnant again. pass it like a drug deal on a crowded subway platform and the train’s about to come. somewhere there is […]
Susan Hughson | APPLE TO APPLE, VALLUM AWARD FOR POETRY HONOURABLE MENTION
APPLE TO APPLE In the season of apples suspended in air, wood piles and winter spiders, you are lost with a canvas bag; an apple a book and a camera. Travel past previous windows, a green house between here and not take a photographbooks hold clues, save the apple for later. You fall forward from […]
Carla Barkman | LAST EVENING I STUMBLED, 2nd Place Winner of the Vallum Award for Poetry
LAST EVENING I STUMBLED Last evening I stumbled past smokers in doorways of boarding houses, ex-sailors’ rooming houses beside the inland sea, & up the gravel road again towards the lighthouse poised between two harbours now its panning light engulfed by Christmas strings of orange & white, & sat still on a Muskoka chair, its […]
Alexei Perry Cox | THE LONG STUDY, 1st Place Winner of the Vallum Award for Poetry
THE LONG STUDY Mother, now listen to my words. I see Your soul in anger; this is a foolish and an evil rage. Oh, I know when we stand before a helpless Doom, how hard it is to bear. [pause] —from “Iphigenia in Aulis,” Euripides The Mother talked to me as if I were drawing […]
Genevieve MacKay | ODYSSEUS
ODYSSEUS In the worst moments, when the sea rises up to engulf him or fires the arrows of the sun to scorch his eyes, the image he clings to is not the nymph, or the sorceress, or his wife or unknown child. It’s the thought of roots, strong and hale past death, stretching into the […]
Laura Matwichuk | DECOMMISSIONED PLANES
DECOMMISSIONED PLANES It’s not easy to pull the track blinds, look for cedar waxwings or passenger jets through dad’s cheapo binoculars, check the furnace filters, pilot light, as engines rumble overhead. Decommissioned planes in long-term storage in the Mojave are obsolete yet invincible. Because of the dry climate, they don’t rust, parts are recycled or […]
Michael Quilty | CONCUSSION 0H08D
CONCUSSION 0H08D (or “Back Way To The Mental Hospital”) Haphazardness with uncertain quirks. The last main corner juxtaposes a junkyard. Psychiatrists never follow a script, what you feel is tolerable. The obvious route has padding that stops mid-air. Every change conveys ability, impromptu symmetry. If you jump you’ll feel it later— your sunken body escaping […]
Sebastien Wen | PTERYGOTA
PTERYGOTA Two moths lie perched on a May leaf quivering downwind beats jacked legs torque, coursing electric They are the underdogs of meetings, the pheromones calling lost bottle, directionless longing for her. He looks at her with lidless kaleidoscopes. He does not speak English but he knows what love is. It is written on the […]
David Romanda | ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE But it’s gotta be Authentic And we both know We’ve never known Real love (Not even close) They sing about it And it’s gotta be Out there Somewhere (Please darling Leave before We get any deeper) Please tell me you believe Author’s Bio DAVID ROMANDA was born in Kelowna, […]