Since 1996 Volume XXI
Glen Sorestad
Glen Sorestad is a well published Canadian poet whose work has appeared and continues to appear in print and online in many countries. He has over twenty poetry books published and has appeared in over sixty anthologies and textbooks. His latest volume is Hazards of Eden: Poems from the Southwest from Lamar University Press.
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Retired Farmers in the City
They may sell their farms, leave them behind with the worn-out cultivator and harrows, with the long-retired John Deere tractor;
they may take up urban residences where no morning chores crook their fingers, or call out to be done, soon as the sun rises.
But come that first big thaw of Spring, the initial trickle of running water courses in their blood, you will know them
by their rubber boots, crowbars, spades, as they trench the neighbourhood roads to speed the snow melt to the drains.
The World As It Is A woman goes out to a bar for a few drinks with friends. She has a very fine time, but she never makes it home. She is now data -- a missing person file.
A teary high school freshie asks the principal for help opening his new locker. The principal stops what he is doing; he goes to unlock the freshie’s locker.
A man kneels on the ground, hands bound behind him, moments before a terrorist sword decapitates him in the name of some misinterpreted ism.
A fire truck arrives at an elderly woman’s home; a fireman climbs the ladder to rescue a frightened kitten from its lofty tree perch, returns it to its owner.
Frequent Flyers
Two days before Winter Solstice, a loose string of Canada Geese wings through a flutter of snow fluff,
passing southeast above our home to forage remnants of harvest grain hidden beneath its cover of white.
What can they be seeing from above?. Surely these late migrants must be ticked off with snow and paltry pickings,
though they seem quite unconcerned, as they repeat their usual morning flights, zeroing in on whatever food they find.
Clad in their down-filled winter wear they pay little heed to our calendar, nor care a smidgeon about the Solstice.
That they are here this winter day, this sudden presence is adrenalin enough to make me want
to sing out beyond my window into the swirl of wind and flakes their momentary passage.
On Having Given My Book as a Gift
Somewhere in these pages you will find me, though that will not be your intent. Maybe you enjoy poems and always divorce them from the solitary souls who sat and wrote them just for someone like you. Or any other reader. A poem is never anonymous; it may be spontaneous as the eruption of a volcano, or as falling in love.
I am here in these pages, dear reader, as surely as your mother or your father can be found in every little gesture, every little mannerism you wear each day and never consider for a moment, in each sequence of actions you take to do something, from brushing your hair to folding your clothes, or holding your piece of toast in the morning. Perhaps you will know more about me than ever I intended to reveal, but such is the risk the poet takes with each poem. Neither poet nor reader escapes this.
The Morning News
Outside my window: fresh snow shimmers -- new canvas, new day, promise.
In early light, an erratic scribble, familiar tracks. Several overnight hares,
footprints circle wildly, criss-cross, spin hither and yon, no pattern.
by moon-fever, romping in madcap tag,
a mild February moonlit El Nino lark? Runes from the midnight rabbits.
Copyright, 2017, Glen Sorestad. |
Mary Barnet
Andrena
Zawinski
Grace Cavalieri
Joan Gelfand
Janet Brennan
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