Ableist While you were sending flyers for running groups to people in wheelchairs you sent me a job ad the month after my retirement; a retirement, —I know—that you didn’t agree with, ignorance clouding your sight like a thousand mosquitoes, buzzing over my words of permanent and disability, poisoning your flesh until your tongue cut […]
erica hiroko isomura | MOTION
MOTION After Mayor Gregor Robertson’s apology for the City of Vancouver’s role in the 1942 internment of Japanese Canadians THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT this writer-poet does hereby claim full perspective for their experiences. With both self-determination & sustenance, the writer-poet completely informs their sense of historical displacement, under- stands the colonial nature of a […]
Oana Avasilichioaei and Zoë Skoulding | IN MESHES
IN MESHES the I, this I, an I is an uneven piece, a mismatched piece …………….a piece tugging at the corners that encase it, contain it ……..trying to stretch them, undo them, redo them the “corners” (which are not necessarily corners or at right angles) form a puzzle, a net, a fabric ……..……..……..……..……..……..in which the […]
Kath MacLean | TALKING APPLE
Talking Apple Another night like this I’ll be split nerve. Say it’s the wind’s rattle, somethin’ crazy, juddering. The limping house quivers a bone, bruises a calf, & humming a pretty heel, breaks my mistress’s shoe. A feeble dance. Broadway’s fumble–up-the-stairs; its blunder –back-to-bed. Fraying the carpet’s thread. Beating wool & silk. Unravel blunder. Cloud […]
Glenn Hayes | PORTRAIT OF THE POET AS TARGET
PORTRAIT OF THE POET AS TARGET I’m reading A.M. Klein’s The Rocking Chair – rescued from the basement bargain-bin of a now bankrupt used book store – just to kill a little time while waiting for my wife and kids on a bench by the loading area at IKEA in the heart of old town […]
Russell Thornton | GESTURE
Gesture On my way out of his room I said I’ll see you. He raised his arm. I didn’t think he had the strength. His forearm straight up, his knuckles facing me, he pumped his fist, bright, bitter glory in his eyes. Was it an insult? Was it pride flaming in him even when he […]
Vivian Li | WHAT IT MEANS TO SING FORWARD
What it Means to Sing Forward i cycle through phrases of songs calling us alien, dirty, virus-infecting like the lady who struck me and screamed to an audience of fairies for five stops like shattering car windows— a Chinese doctor who couldn’t arrive at work like laying-off a factory manager after a decade like tethering […]
Jeff Bien | THE HISTORY OF THE UNKNOWN
The history of the unknown What recoiled in the white moth, the glacial eyes, the history of the unknown. Glass slippers for the moon I said, and meant I flew into that flame, immolating the self. Obituaries for saints, and cockles and bee padding pistils, the golden blossom of the marrow. Loving hounding sounds, that […]
Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton | ESTATE
ESTATE they’ve replaced the apricots with apricot walls now they’re painting the stairs sixty years ago, every relic was sixty years nearer to hand the gold clocks on the ground floor hunker down in fifteen-minute intervals though only the duct tape ignored on the counter tells the time I walk outside for fresh air but […]