Post #2

For my first few posts, I thought I'd put up the pieces of writing that I've had published over the years (primarily in the early and mid-90's).  Then, I looked at some of them and felt that rising tide of panic and embarassment you get when you're exposed.  Kind of like one's first sexual experience, letting someone else see what you keep hidden under your clothes ...

For better or worse, exhibitionism won out over prudery.  Below is the first poem I ever got published in Public Works Literary Magazine while I was in my 3rd year of an English degree at UWO.  I'd like to say that it stands up still.  I'd like to say that.

* * *

One Dream

Turning up, but momentarily,

Her warm, apple-core face,

           i read every crevice,

           to a subtext:

           every malnourished, restless day
           and night
           on board the tiny vessel
           their dreams so big, hers too    
           jamming them in tighter
           choking all life
           soaking in faeces, and
           stale food scents
           with screams of children kept too long
                                                     below decks.

The hatches unbattened, on
This shore with clouded sun:
           sun's radiance reflected, sent back
           in gleeful praise and promise of life.

A skip across time, brought people,
Other human cargoes,
Not so very the same nor different,
Clinging to that kernel,
Seeking this Neue Gegend
Nouvelle Terre,
New Land:
            crammed galley slave-style,
            travelling cargo-class, they came
            eating potatoes, not rice,
            dying in the dark
            amidst screams of children,
            screams across a barrier, unbreakable,
            unchanging.

And so, the well-worn face,
Its dignity,
Not that which is traded for the dingy voyage,
But that it was formerly denied,
          regained,
Smiles.
Though not necessarily wanted nor unwanted,
Radiates to me anew,
The dream well-thumbed
         ink, faded and blurred
         beyond recognition,
         reinvigorated, written over
         from the blood inkwells
         of the East.

* * *

Ok, you can stop snickering now.