Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Vol. 3, June 2014

writing
a love song
for you
baiting the hook
reeling you in


beside
the endless highway
murdered
her twin's only son
and his girl


in the forest
ghostly Indian Pipe
e m e r g e s
out of moss and earth
older than I'll ever be


collecting flowers
to press inside my book of you
gathering words
of stone and feathers
acorn poems in my pocket


in the highlands
we are standing stones
leaning
toward each other
f r a g m e n t e d


in my pocket
an opened invitation
I already know
the name of his new wife
the name of my best friend


at the clinic
one pale woman
waiting
while they review
her mammogram


falling
snow stars
melting
in the grace notes
of your hair


you cradle
my stone sorrows
in the leaf
of your palm
sifting me into sand


she flew
from the tropics
to the prairies
carrying orchid leis
for her winter sisters


sitting
on Santa's lap
year after year
she asks for one thing:
a father who stays

come
fly with me
over the mountains
in the curve
of a magpie's black wing


preparing
a nest for you
plucking
blood-tipped raven feathers
from my brooding breast


antelope
dissolving into wind
over the prairie
ancestral bones
remember my name


pine needles
stitch my lips together
a silent vow
the forest has heard
so many broken promises


our breath
wispy quills of maroon
curling
a graceful ballet
in the sky


drawing
a heart in sand
i offer
my beloved's name
to the boundless sea


a fox
on the cabin steps
waiting
our dog asks
if she can go out


black ice
and snow angels
at twilight
we are riven
we are stone


sailing
into midnight
encircled
by stars upon stars
nothing but stars


your lips
a perfect storm
raining kisses
into the chipped bowls
of my unquiet hands


Mother

I see now
with my inner eye
that she always walked alone
beside the waters
that called her name
a small song rang out

a firestorm
is raging in her belly
she rends the heated cloth
and bares the scars
upon her naked breast
she is leaving, she is leaving

after she
is said and dead and done
we are earthbound
dust sparkles
on our wings though
we are still too singed to fly

mother, why
does the torment of your life
still haunt me
daughter, let go
you were never meant
to bear my cross of stone


O (No) Canada

shame on us
thousands of aboriginals
(ab)used
in nutritional experiments
and residential schools

now they search
the dump for bodies
hundreds of missing
and murdered Indigenous sisters
whose spirits wait for justice


Crocodile Tears

Oh, those crocodile tears. You painted your face with them every time you wanted something from me. All it took was a single tear quivering on the tip of your lash, and I would dissolve into a crush of bruised petals beneath your feet. You devoured me with lips dripping lies like honey. When you finally spit me out, I was nothing more than a shadow.

they said
I squandered my only life
on quarter moons
and pennies
for your thoughtlessness


New York Room

(After Edward Hopper, Room in New York, 1932)

Passing an open window on a sobbing afternoon, I catch a fleeting glimpse of you, reading. I wonder if the broken arrows of world news are piercing your conscience, or whether you are charting a new course on the unfolded map of your heart. Perhaps your mind's inward-looking eye is remembering the nothing and everything of me. Your woman in red presses the keys of the piano tenderly, as if they are recalling the song of your flesh, though there is no answering thrum. I avert my knowing gaze from the ache of her unsuspected future.

tableaux
through keyholes
all the things
we wish
we could unsee


1st Place
Writers' Collective/Winnipeg Free Press Short Fiction Contest, 2011


Winged

I came in off my land 20 years ago, weary and beaten down inside and outside. My man was gone. My kids were gone. Now I'm nearly gone. I'm brittle as bone, scarred by the sun, with furrows as deep as those on the land.

thumbing history
through train track-stitched prairie
to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
and its mountain
of bleached skulls

I'm the town's school librarian now, and it's a comforting job having out-of-date, yellowing, and dog-eared books as my faithful companions. Books have always seduced me, and I gorge on them like some sweet pleasure that I will soon be denied. The library's fusty air and squeaking floorboards are both soothing and inspiring. This is where I began to work on the book that will bear my name.

at the library
aspiring writers
emerge
from inky cocoons
unfolding new wings

Accompanying each story in my manuscript is a photograph of a derelict building that will soon vanish from the face of the earth. The pictures help to breathe life into the tales told by those forlorn walls. A stately old farmhouse has taken root up on a nearby hill, with a vista of swaying golden wheat surrounding it. Defending the sagging front porch are two gnarled lilac trees that scarcely bloom. The front door dangles askew, and most of the windows are wounded. Inside the house, shreds of decayed curtains and patches of water-stained wallpaper are still visible, but nearly all the paint has peeled away. Lacy cobwebs float everywhere, while puffs of dust rise with each footfall.

dirty thirties
three million acres
d r i f t i n g
in a dust cloud of dreams
over the Atlantic

I'm wary while setting up my tripod. Hunting season is fast approaching, and I've been winged a time or two over the years. I guess I've always looked like something wild. My breathing is slow and easy as I frame the scene. Suddenly, the house on the hill is violently splitting asunder, creaking and groaning like a ship going aground. There is no time to capture the image of the crumpling veteran. As the house willingly surrenders its ghosts, a towering cloud of roiling dust rises over the hill.

wraiths
hover and moan
appearing
then disappearing
into smoke

In the dusk, as I am crawling over the pile of bleached bones that were once a home, white feathers begin to swirl like snowflakes over the wreckage. I look up at the silhouette of a whistling swan gliding across the face of the moon. Then, I put my hands in traces of something that looks and smells a lot like blood.


1st Place (prose excerpt)
Writers' Collective/Winnipeg Free Press Fiction Contest, 2012

Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Vol. 5, August 2014

sunlight
floods the bed
we wade
into the billows
and drown


peeking through
midnight's velvet drapes
a spotlight moon
scans the theatre
for fallen stars


the stormy thrum
of our quickening breath
as your lips
wend their way
to the rain in my breast


thirteen
her first boyfriend's
hard slap
some of our memories
are burning brands


he gave me roses
and larks ascending
I offered tanka
bound with strands
of my silvered hair


an eagle
carries off a lamb
still struggling
the new mother grieves
her lost baby


our initials
tattooed on sand
b e t w e e n
heart-shaped tracks
of white-tailed deer


with ink stick
and wolf hair brush
on rice paper
I paint the unlikeliness
of my married name


mourning's
warp and weft
woven
into the tapestry
of war-torn faces


lonesome
these delta blues
blowing through
the broken reeds
of my heart


e x h a l i n g
the unspeakable
slipping-down pain
i n h a l i n g
the unknowable
stripping-down bone


rearranging my (negative) space


ruler

measures the tread of infidels
and your infidelities
incremental reign of words
affection over-ruled
broken-thumbed dictator
the judge declares you out of order

paper clips

clip clippings of your clipped words
to my origami wings
paper-quilled intimate intricacies
bent out of shape
i am undone
by your undoing

tape

unfurls over cutting edge
sticky tongue catching the fly
tearing the tip
zipping the lip
securing your crime scene
and sealing my evident fate

keyboard

warning
experts advise that using
may cause serious injury
while turning over and shaking out contrapuntal crumbs
a scattering of unplayed scales
falls from my eyes and fingertips

white out

rubs out the road to there from here
in an icy blast of shrouded blindness
equidistant
pointed to pointless point of no return
we listen to the static noise
erasing everything i meant that you would never say

staples

hold documented scars together
never dissolving or resolving
punctures wounding
both the paper and the skin
thoughtless perishables behind closed doors
fill my emptiness of self

screen

reflects my distorted
fingerprinted face
viral truth and lies
lies as thick as the dust on my illusions and your collusions
first the shield
then the reveal

cords

entangling and untangling
electrical and umbilical
i wear the frayed fabric
faded ridges worn down by the misgivings of forgiving
you chop and bind the rotten wood
and wither the blossom's bud

pen

cages the page
confining lines
between the gates of prologue and epilogue
wielding this instrument of might or might not
treastise broken
indelible ink blots the pain on my escutcheon

trash

overflows with used tissue kisses
world stained with acrid acid tears
plastic oceans and emotions
sweet rot begot and forgot
i watch your ashes drift away
on burning waves of truest blue forget-me-nots

Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Volume 7, November 2014

this amulet
of feather and bone
how frail
the hope that my verity
could banish your demons


trade winds
washing through my hair
at ocean's edge
the salt of forgiveness
in morning's mercy


we compose
the music of our lives
with grace notes
scattered between
lullaby and requiem


winter winds
play an aeolian harp
of barbed wire
a lone coyote and i howl
at the long night moon


all i ask
from you is sanctuary
the world's weight
is upon me and my hands
are filled with weeping

on the stroke of

my parachute

careens earthward

p u n c t u r e d

by flashes of memory

in this blur of falling

paralysis

ineffable fear

knocking

at the closed door

of my understanding

shadowed maws

swallow me whole

s p i t t i n g

my softened bones

into the crib of a coffin

thirst

silver trees

nurse me

from torn bags

of slow-dripping rain

i am swaddled

in a blue shroud

c r a d l e d

in the web of my harness

rocking like a baby

hunger

a roosting bird

spoons worms

into the red gape

of my slack mouth

so many voices

in my broken brain

g a r b l e d

all the tangled lifelines

that hold me here

loneliness

creatures hover

and shout

someone else's name

as if i cannot hear

i exist

between layers of life

i m p r i s o n e d

keeping the company

of ghosts and crows

Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Volume 4, July 2014

The Weight of Snow

(a collaborative tanka sequence written with Kath Abela Wilson, whose work appears in italics)


heavy snow
bending our boughs
settling so deeply
into this life's tracks
I didn't know we were lost

the hailstone
you pressed into my hand
a keepsake
the only diamond
you ever gave

snowflakes
melting on my tongue
remind me
of the way it felt
when you disappeared

what a paradox
you were
I watched a bit of white
foam on your lips
during your long explanations

snow falling
between then and now
filling my spaces
how I long for the touch
of your cold hands


Blood and Sinew


the homestead
rooted in prairie soil
and memory
my blood and sinew
snagged on barbed wire

how we spun
on the merry-go-round
wagon wheel
unwinding ourselves
falling into grace

taking turns
on the wooden pony
with horsehair tail
riding into sunset
wild manes on fire

empty silo
the sound of hoppers
and hailstones
singing harmony
with my sisters


Burning Down Morning

mad archers
with steel bows
and arrows
piercing the towers
burning down morning

peregrine falcons
in their tower aeries
no earthly wings
broad enough to carry
the innocent home

Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Volume 1, January 2014

black and bitter
the crow I have tasted
upon my feathered tongue
the caw-caw cacophony
of all my murdered words


at the moment
her twin sister died
she felt
their connection break
into the static of stones


fence posts
wearing prairie crows
and dust shrouds
we strum the rutted road
with barbed wire fingers


a fishing tree
cast its hand into night
and caught
the white-bellied moon
on hooked fingers


hollow eyes
look backward
as the walls
you built
become dust


you watch me
with flaming eyes
my skin sizzles
I am ashes
in your hands


the telegram
advised he was a P.O.W.
but she saw him
return in a waking dream
(he never ate turnips again)


in the library
we avert our eyes from
the homeless
expanding minds over
the matter of shrinking bellies


time
drips from my fingertips
slowly
in the honeyed moments
of a thousand bees


every poem holds my breath
until I exhale winged words
into cupped hands
and release them
into the open book of sky


I am driftwood
curves undulating
worn smooth
my windswept bones
the flute of tides


with a raven's feather
I wrote my shame on snow
then rolled the words
into a crystal ball
and flung them at the sun


padlocked to history
our skeleton key is lost
in this life's dwelling rooms
we are water-stained
with secret sorrow


tamarack and aspen
the mountain called our names
before your spark
became my flame
we laid our bodies down


my glacier heart
receded
when you shed
your avalanche skin into
the blue moan of echoing sky


waltzing
on the rotting dance floor
our father built
in the ash grove he planted
between rows of aching years


she sets sail
through oceans of grain
anchored to her father
trailing fingers in his wake
untangling beards of barley


after the divorce
we sisters in the back
of a pickup truck
vagabond wind stealing tears
from homeward-looking eyes


my grandfather
broke earth's crust
scattering
stone crumbs
behind his plough


last night
shadows in the yard
this morning
only stems remain
in my deer-proof garden


I see
lightning flash
though
my eyes are closed
and I am barely breathing


messages
in broken bottles
all those words
you didn't say
glinting in the sun


I carried
your stone heart
in my beak
until I lost
the will to fly


floating
on my back
in sky
my hair in clouds
my hands in fire


she picks
at the blanket
her food and skin
she picks at threads of memory
forgets how to pick flowers


she is a dried rose
in an empty vase
an untouched bed-tray
a ghost
no one visits


at the funeral
wearing a neon pink dress
I made in school
a conspicuous parrot
keeping the company of crows


her sad piano
plays an argument
anger's red curtain
billows out the window
not everything is black or white


on sagebrush prairie
the whirring grasshoppers
and trilling larks
sing a lamentation hymn
for my sister's stone ears


those silent
bones of words
that mean goodbye
the distance between us
further than the crow flies


etched against
the star-stamped sky
arthritic branches
scrawl the naked poetry
of old-growth forests


snow geese
scribe an ancient mystery
across the moon
their soft murmurs
catching winter's breath


migration
the last loon on the lake and I
ululating
our echoes vanish in that
sad impermanence of air


they called us
to collect her things
not knowing
what to do with her teeth
we left her smile in the trash


sky cauldron
roiling with funnel clouds
and rooks
we take shelter in a crowd
of broken shadows


in shadowland
where mist wraiths nestle
between hollows
a phantom owl spills my name
into the broken glass of night


a busker
plays cello at the market
his little dog
wears a sign
"will play for dog food"


Tanka Prose


Elemental

I am ignited by you
          (my paper to your fire)

I am polished by you
          (my stone to your water)

I am nourished by you
          (my seed to your earth)

I am lifted by you
          (my feather to your air)

we are
e l e m e n t a l
forged by
fire, water, earth and air
we soften into ourselves


Wandering

Kneeling beside the looking glass lake, we see ourselves reaching for the other side of knowing. We set our lantern boats afloat in the midnight sky and wait for the wind to show us the long way home.

we are
homeless clouds
w a n d e r i n g
a cardboard sky
begging bowls filled with stars


The Detritus of Dust

You are gone, and I am left with nothing but the bittersweet need to excavate the architecture of your past. Layer after layer of your thick life has been peeled away—exposed, excised, and exhibited for my perverse pleasure and pain. I thought I knew the very you of you, but I mistook your first mask for someone else's face. Even now, though my ruthless wrecking ball has demolished your facade and the sunlight has faded your untrue colours, I still yearn for your fingerprints to cover me in the sparkling detritus of your dust.

in my hope chest
a box of disillusions
the dust
of love letters
never meant for me