contents - 49th Shelf

contents
poetry
5, 7, 49 Evelyn Lau Past Life \ Grip \ breast
9
Daniel J. Langton
Send Money for a Better
World
10
George Elliott Clarke
Joseph Repulses
11
Julie Eliopoulos Nobody
12
Karina Borowicz
Meant To Be
13, 16 Daniel Cowper
20
Two bodies once \ April, from
Winter Devotional \ Searle’s
Chinese Room Problem
15
Tom Wayman Semblance
18
Paul-Georges Leroux
SEUILS
21
Adam Casole-Buchanan
Trust
22
Adam Dickinson
A String of Small Pearls
24
Jeramy Dodds
San Fran Fiasco
25
Joshua Trotter
The Enormity of What You
Have Done
26, 28
Leland James
Logistics \ 1 September 1939
27
Sheila Stewart
Robes 30
Rafi Aaron
The Hunting Party
31
RufinusTranslated by John J. Brugaletta
32
Donna J. Gelagotis Lee
Original Bride
37
Ilona Martonfi
DANDELION SNOW
38
Jean-Mark Sens
Angel’s Line
40, 56 Crystal Hurdle
Excerpt from AJAR \ out of
the cocoon
41, 44 Sebastien Wen
Ballad of the Gambler’s
Shadow \ You Always Get
To Keep The Gun
43
Changming Yuan
Y
46
John Kinsella
Threshold Failure
48, 56 Rhona McAdam
The Phantom Bus \ the language
of doors
51
John Wall Barger
A Woman on a City Bus at Night
52
Lou Vani
Ask A Decision
53
Iggi ZhouShedding skin
55
Melanie Swetz
Mussolini’s Legacy
contest
60
Michael Prior
1ST Place - Godzilla Versus Mothra
61
John Pahl
2ND Place - Hawk
63
Ulrike NarwaniHonourable Mention - Dun
64
Mary Ann MooreHonourable Mention - No Paradise Here
65
Elana WolffHonourable Mention - Summer
reviews
68
Kevin Higgins
Rooms the Wind Makes by James Deahl;
and Zeppelin by Blaise Moritz
74, 78 Bill Neumire
this drawn and quartered moon
by Klipschutz \ philosopher at the skin edge
of being by Andrews Grace
82
Monika Lee
Patient Frame by Steven Heighton
Andrew B. Myers
Fast times at ridgemont high
art
cover
1, 33, Andrew B. Myers
the wave \ knowledge is power \
34-35,
i believe in the loch ness monster \
36, 58-59,RISE AND SHINE \ PARADISE FOUND \
66-67, 84
STEADY DECLINE \ helene
Paul-Georges Leroux
SEUILS
1. Kinderszenen
Le contour des premières choses, les premières géographies
La peur de ne plus rien voir
L’espoir qui se révolte, l’amour qui se perd
Mouvantes circonférences d’un blanc soleil
La crête des vagues et les cimes de neige
Le vent, le courant, le temps emportent nos confins
inlassables cartographes d’une réalité
dont les frontières fugaces laissent passer nos rêves
Oubli, Insu
mots étranges, syllabes furtives
d’une hermétique mathématique d’ombres
d’un regard aveugle à lui-même
Seuils d’un continent englouti
au fond des pages d’un cahier d’écolier
3. Mélanome
S’endormir inerte sous un solstice d’hiver
Se réveiller en pleine nuit
Poser les yeux sur une constellation
un peu plus brillante que les autres
Sommeiller
18
VALLUM
Se réveiller de nouveau de ressentir
confusément
quelque chose
quelque part
se déplacer pour l’éternité
Se rendormir une fois de plus
Rêver d’un aigle ravisseur
se posant sur une branche enneigée
sans que la branche ni la neige ne bougent
19
Daniel Cowper
SEARLE’S CHINESE ROOM PROBLEM
Dark-winged cedars are flocking
by the lakeside: goffered
with oar-feathers of sun;
cantilevered
over the water like cormorants
sunning their wings. Sick of walking
this loop with me, you’d stayed home. Overhead
the crisscrossed limbs are tangled, locking
together. Wind flowing through
this weir of plashed branches stirs
the boughs, and bark rubbing against bark
whistles and chitters like a grove of birds.
Where the branches chafe, their wooled grooves
(rawed Tyee-pink) chirp and keen until grosbeaks
and siskins answer, mistaking
the cedar’s twitters and squeaks
for birdsong. And maybe we’ve made
the same mistake. Maybe we’re
no more alike than the songbirds
and the cedar weir.
20
VALLUM
Adam Casole-Buchanan
TRUST
What beauty thy betrayal is unknown more,
And deceit: friendship not I rather know,
With both, I have known qualms and to abhor,
But both, I am not without my share bestowed.
How indifferent such my deceit has been
And such deceit against me twice the knife,
Moreso my back has known the pierce atwin
For betrayal has not yet seen me out my life.
But then, I would not life without these knives,
For scarred my back has known what daggers must
Admit these twins accursèd in our lives:
Without, there is no beauty in one’s trust.
I would my scars to never be unmade
Unless I seek my back anew betrayed.
21
Adam Dickinson
A STRING OF SMALL PEARLS
Group A Streptococcus
We are in the throat now.
Necks
are the hardest animal
parts to scale.
We are in the throat,
disingenuous
with the night-time sleeping
arrangements for ulcers.
We are in the throat
now as the caterpillar
and butterfly parent
completely partitioned worlds.
We prick light
on a throat
culture
of entitlement, remarkable
for its moth-eaten,
tonsillar birthright.
22
VALLUM
Hospitals are being infected
by their inhabitants’
throats.
We are in the throat
trying
to make a difference
to our sporadic communities.
Insurrection
is metabolism practiced
with spit.
We are in the throat now
sharing the same spoon.
23
Jeramy Dodds
SAN FRAN FIASCO
The first blast of a bell
is cast to catch our attention.
Everyone looks the same
direction, but they’re looking
the wrong way, that ring’s
a ricochet, as if someone,
a great uncle perhaps, has
mimicked your gait and timbre,
bathed in your Drakkar Noir,
and tortured your dog into talking.
So, in a fit of tit for tat when you
get in late from your fateful date
it chomps your throat out.
Earlier, Angie, your neighbour
who insists she keeps seeing
your dead sister, had joined you
at that joint downshore; her eyes
were the glass of abandoned
aquariums. Eating her out
of house and home in back
of your Fiat, your sister rapped
on the pane, “I’ve been camped
in the belfry all along,” she said,
so as to relieve your suspicions,
“and they’re not glass
they’re Pyrex.”
24
VALLUM