I’m so very pleased to have 3 quite different poems as the monthly feature at this lovely journal: LAST BREATH, CINDY, ON POSTERITY .
Tag: love
Poem Featured at Poetry Pause!
I’m so pleased to share that my poem MECHANIC is featured today on the League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause (similar to the American Poem A Day).
ER, Vancouver General Hospital
Last night, watching the reality TV show, marvelling
at the array of patient issues—stabbings, overdoses,
malaria that can kill, cyclist hit, pedestrian hit, a
flailing foul-mouthed drunk—each with a short
update later in the show and then—the last one—
a guy in his early sixties like us, who, diagnosed
with a form of lymphoma and told it had a 70%
cure rate, suddenly had a heart attack and looked
dead but was brought in because a faint pulse was
detected—then none—CPR—now a pulse again
but then fading, finally his wife called in and the
family doctor, all the staff around this white-headed
buddha-bellied man with the grey-tufted chest
hair cresting like smoke signals from a dying fire
and the doc in charge saying they could do no more,
his body wasn’t responding, then taking the tube
out of his mouth to make him more comfortable and
telling his wife to hold his hand and everyone standing
silently, the woman weeping, thanking the staff for
all they had tried, the man mostly naked lying there,
my husband and I on the couch with a box of Kleenex
knowing exactly what the other was thinking
and him not a handholder but he let me hold his
until the show was finally over.
After being longlisted a couple of years ago in The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition (one of 108 out of 16,729 poems) this poem was finally published back in February of this year in “Loss” – Lifespan Vol. 9 – an anthology put out by Pure Slush Books, with thanks to editor Matt Potter. Because the poem was split over two pages in the book, it was difficult to present it properly by snapping a photo and anyway, above is its proper format. Thanks for reading!
Poem Up At Blue Heron Review
I’m thrilled to share that my poem “My Body The Hymn” is now up at Blue Heron Review, Issue 18 – Transformation and Change. It couldn’t have found a better home! My deep thanks to editor Cristina Norcross for including it. The poem is about halfway down the page (18th – you have to scroll) and can be read here
Lost Imaginings
As I walked through the frost-covered hills at dawn
I was you, and you, in your dreams, were me.
Only the veil of a lifetime tried to keep us from meeting …
Shadows of a truth prevailed:
the formless secret moved, and vague forms—we—
we embraced the heart-shaped clues.
And there, not on grey-breasted hills,
we met, and danced the briefest dance
before shades of a vision quieted our feet.
But we did dance.
And the still pool I passed
still reflects lost imaginings.
This poem was first published in April of 1976, along with three others of mine, in Vol. 10, Issue 13 of a magazine called either The Seneca or The Senca. I can’t find evidence online of what I noted but it’s legit as I have the actual page cut out. Anyway, now that I’m back from summer boating and in the wake of quite a few rejections, I thought I’d post some of these older poems. It’s always interesting rediscovering one’s poetic first steps. And I like to think that my time away from the internet (because of remote anchorages) enhances my “inner net” though I am thankful this method of communication is available again. Happy Fall to you all!
Note To A Friend
Window
Through the window, quiet rain.
Through the window, a woman’s
hands arced in morning prayer.
If not rain, I would be a Thumbelina
sliding into the silky bell-bottoms
of flowers. If not hands, I would be
the day cupped between,
still secret-sweet.
If a flower, I would proceed brazenly
blossom by ecstatic blossom
down the winding April streets.
If the day, I would warble amazed
through all my encounters.
And if from a dark cave of longing
came the strength to thrust aside logs
of bark mulch, I would say love
itself sprouted green and slender
in the sun-slanted garden.
From across the room, you come
toward me. What would it take
to meet the horizon most feared
and sails flapping, drop anchor
in the storied harbour of your arms?
Through the window, the steam of rain
falling now into light, the backyard
cedars leaning toward us, generous
limbs outstretched, as if to say—
all it takes is yes.
Another older poem, first published in North Shore Magazine in 2008.
Poets Speaking To Poets
This poem, which first appeared in my chapbook “Irresistible”, is the first of two selected for the anthology “Poets Speaking To Poets: Echoes and Tributes” – the brainchild of editors Robert Hamblin and Nicholas Fargnoli. My poem was written after Cecilia Woloch’s “Blazon”. I will post my tribute poem later. The book is a wonderful collection of poems that talk to each other through poets past and present. It’s available on Amazon here and also here.
Poem Up At STONE Poetry Journal
Thrilled to have my quirky take on love poems published in Stone’s second issue, with thanks to editor Damian Ward Hey: https://stonepoetryjournal.com/lynne-burnett/
HERITAGE
Americano coffee in a mug,
time alone to savor
some timeless good words,
the day, for me, just beginning,
unfolding sip by sip
from the generous cup
in which it is first held.
Yes, wars still rage
on either side of the heart’s door.
But lucky me—a colicky baby
born into a colicky world,
a world, it turns out, impossible
not to love
with all the muscle
of the grateful arms
in which I was first held.
This seemed like the perfect poem for me to post, as I’m still in the glow of my son becoming a new father, the little guy a month old now. It was first published in 2008 in North Shore Magazine.
Lynne Burnett 