Five Poems from T R ( ) C E
1 smoke
2 fire
3 air
4 water
5 earth
1 smoke
shadings failings
dark willow drawings
november’s equilibriums
shed fire into the harbour
through wine dark glass
descending into weather
a radio pianos
nostalgic variations
I hear your face, a mystery
watching
the sea inside itself
creaks vertically
stalls the getaway car
outback
a useless frantic
chipping chipping
glass raised to impostor, facing
glances in the rear view mirror
suspended in a minor key
2 fire
who didn’t know
who needed to be right
who dreamed awake
whose cities never sleep
whose names erased
who blunder the small thing
listen
backwards
,stealing
fragrance
– a sky etched with branches
is blown open wide
that sad, exquisite tornado
slowly winding down
—’s tongue-tied
who race along the ground in the dark
to fly on foot
who help each other
now and again
one of us lifts off
briefly
3 water
we barely notice weather
the elements line up
tap out against a window
a curtain wall
a crystal logic
scrying eyes
fixing fixing
trying to straighten water
lost lagoons flush through
bottled towers
scenes slicked out of a magazine
city-crusted mountain . . .furbelowed shores . . .
. . . parasol prinked . . . trail cloud chiffonades
along atop a wall
light breezes carry light
milk of august . . . cloud canoes . . .
. . . willow-eyed . . . postcard views
a light creased road drives through
on the way to the lake along lovers lane . . .
. . . footprints . . . trespass plush
fern~spriggy
crow~swept
crocus
crocus
crocus
carpet
4 air
wastes of time
blow in over the colony
fly up you hunger artists
wing out over bored palaces
cut rings around mid-heaven
radical trajectories
for duck-billed decoys
spin the wind-crabbed fallout
for vertigo eyes
radio sad planets
your counterfeit pianos
a lot of wine and jamming
flutes to a moon
skimming the meniscus
oracular parachutes
dropped through holy skies
go blank go mad go missing
your mountain and your purpose
up into the watt~hour
time’s out of mind
5 earth
walls of windows
mirror weather
breaking sparrows’ wings
bird’s eye view
fallacy of reclamation
bloodstink in the dumpster
gossip overhead crow jinks
chase the handless man with stump for
wing
down a chute of alleys to the park
Lost Lagoon, bitter green
mallards cut across
brought the camera, what’s to see—
wild iris plucked ‘n’ tucked in hair
—nothing but dust and leaves!
the redwing’s plaint
the rushes’ green arpeggios
breeze enough to play the shades close to idyll
save for that petulant foot-dragging
raising the fine gravel—
blackberry chimes
round a bend
under ravelled willows
swan asleep with down-filled eyes
weathered benches slouch around the lake
—more swamp this year than lake—
dogs strain into their chokes
on the scent of skunk lily
frog’s single croak
moon ascends to scull a greasy sky
June without heat
voices hurry home
when we get there. . . we can change our lives
Presently working in the public service, holds an MFA in painting from Yale and is a graduate of The Writers Studio at Simon Fraser University. Her work has appeared in emerge 2003.