Monthly Archives: August 2013

Vanishing Points (poems from old notebooks, October 2009)

Posted on Saturday, August 31st, 2013 1:16 pm by John MacKenzie

Nearly sunset, and we can be seen walking beneath a sky smudged by the charcoal wings of crows. The angle of light postulates a geometry of shadows, sketches a corridor of non-parallel lines beginning at our feet and diverging, bent … Continue reading →

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Back to the Bog, Seamus

Posted on Friday, August 30th, 2013 1:23 pm by John MacKenzie

I came late to the poetry of Seamus Heaney. Death of a Naturalist was his first collection, and the first one I read—it sat on my bookshelf for 10 years before I read it.  It was worth the wait. His … Continue reading →

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In the Night

Posted on Thursday, August 29th, 2013 11:30 am by John MacKenzie

Guess I’ve decided I can’t let Andrew Griffin write all the good cicada poems. In the Night With you gone there’s nothing in the night but trees wild with wind and cicadas’ ceaseless longing

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The End of August (When a Whole Lot of Decembers are Showin’)

Posted on Wednesday, August 28th, 2013 1:01 pm by John MacKenzie

Conway Twitty – I’d Love To Lay You Down The End of August (When a Whole Lot of Decembers are Showin’) The end of August and, across the harbour, fields lay out brown carpets for autumn’s stark procession— we’ll strew … Continue reading →

Posted in Art is lies, Art is theft, Autumn, Harbour, John MacKenzie, Memory, Micropoetry, Music, New poems, Poem tweets, Poetry, Summer, Tanka, The Sea, Time, Winter | Leave a comment

The Buddha Farts Tonight

Posted on Tuesday, August 27th, 2013 3:09 pm by John MacKenzie

Somewhere between Christ and Muhammad, Buddha farts tonight—how stained all their fingers are, and greasy, with saffron, long pork, and blood

Posted in Atheism, Epistemology, John MacKenzie, Micropoetry, New poems, Poem tweets, Poetry, Political Commentary, Religion, Social Commentary, Tanka | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

No Wonder the Gulls

Posted on Tuesday, August 27th, 2013 9:23 am by John MacKenzie

No wonder the gulls ache in the sky all summer— the north wind whistles always in their hollow bones, holds their wings deep in winter

Posted in Art is lies, Charlottetown, Gulls, Harbour, John MacKenzie, Micropoetry, New poems, Poem tweets, Poetry, Summer, Tanka, The Sea, The Wind, Winter | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Strands of Grey Loosen

Posted on Monday, August 26th, 2013 10:17 am by John MacKenzie

A week from September the purple thistles start to let themselves go. Strands of grey loosen. Morning light slices more precisely through cooling, thinning air. The ache in bone moves deeper. The smooth harbour water looks dense enough to cut … Continue reading →

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A Brief Homeric Goodbye to the Moon

Posted on Sunday, August 25th, 2013 9:46 am by John MacKenzie

I was a lucky child; my parents neither directed nor censored my reading. So imagine my bliss, my rapture at stumbling across Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey at the age of ten or eleven in the tiny, one-room Crapaud Library. The … Continue reading →

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The Deeply Set Moon

Posted on Saturday, August 24th, 2013 9:13 am by John MacKenzie

Every month I scratch at this patch of sky trying to scrape out the white stain of moon that keeps coming back, bringing your memory

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The August Evening Crow Agenda

Posted on Friday, August 23rd, 2013 11:38 am by John MacKenzie

Sunset and the crows fill the air with gossip, sky with black wings—leave us behind in the dark  

Posted in Art is lies, Charlottetown, Cinquain, Crows, Jason Arsenault, Jeremy Larter, John MacKenzie, Language, Micropoetry, New poems, Poem tweets, Poetry, Summer, The Crow Agenda | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Setting Moon, West Prince

Posted on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013 11:19 am by John MacKenzie

If it weren’t long gone, the home my father was born in would be another one of these empty houses—blank windows, missing shingles— beside the quiet western roads of the Island, with their roofs that shift and groan all night, … Continue reading →

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In the Kennels of the King (If You Ain’t Never Caught a Rabbit)

Posted on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 12:33 pm by John MacKenzie

Elvis Presley – Hound Dog In the Kennels of the King (If You Ain’t Never Caught a Rabbit) Old hound dogs, limping through their daily rounds, stopping in shady places, still sniff all around every rock, tree, or plausible bush … Continue reading →

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Aphorephemera

Posted on Tuesday, August 20th, 2013 11:41 am by John MacKenzie

Buddha’d claim fragrance defines the rose no more than the thorn—I’d rather bleed for a sniff of a rose than wade through Buddha’s bullshit

Posted in Aphorephemera, Art is lies, Atheism, Epistemology, John MacKenzie, Micropoetry, New poems, Poem tweets, Poetry, Religion, Roses, Social Commentary, Summer, Tanka | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

m1 • v1 + m2 • v2 = m1 • v1′ + m2 • v2′ (Momentum and Collisions)

Posted on Monday, August 19th, 2013 11:47 am by John MacKenzie

A white scar on onyx— and the stars like glass dust strewn by impact—the August moon, risen

Posted in Art is lies, Art is theft, Cinquain, Epistemology, John MacKenzie, Language, Micropoetry, New poems, Physics, Poem tweets, Poetry, Summer, The Moon, Time | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Late Summer Storm (with process note)

Posted on Sunday, August 18th, 2013 12:56 pm by John MacKenzie

Late Summer Storm Cinquain* Two clouds then two clouds more and more till the sky’s all raindark as your eyes, strobe lightning, thunder *Back to the cinquain form for a bit. I missed it. Also, another example of how everything … Continue reading →

Posted in Art is lies, Art is theft, Cinquain, Consciousness, Creativity, Epistemology, John MacKenzie, Micropoetry, New poems, Poem tweets, Poetry, Process, Summer, The Rain, The Wind | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

August Thistles at Province House

Posted on Saturday, August 17th, 2013 4:21 pm by John MacKenzie

Take it as read, of course, that this applies to the Prime Minister and his cronies as well. August Thistles at Province House Shaggy purple thistles slouch at Province House—still less seedy than the Premier, his caucus Var. August Thistles at … Continue reading →

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Poe Vs. Cicadas

Posted on Friday, August 16th, 2013 1:27 pm by John MacKenzie

Was it these goddamn August cicadas Poe heard ring the thin moon all night against the high-pitched sky, or just fucking tinnitus?

Posted in Art is lies, Art is theft, Cicadas, Edgar Allan Poe, John MacKenzie, Micropoetry, New poems, Poem tweets, Poetry, Summer, Tanka, The Moon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Like Two People on Skates for the First Time (poems from old notebooks, December 2009)

Posted on Thursday, August 15th, 2013 3:30 pm by John MacKenzie

The death poem still refuses exhumation (the good news, then, is that, while there is never a way out of death, for today, at least, there also appears to be no way in). I’ll get it yet, though. So here’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Art is lies, Art is theft, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Epistemology, John MacKenzie, Poem tweets, Poems from old notebooks, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Space, Time, Winter | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This Thin Shred of Moon

Posted on Wednesday, August 14th, 2013 3:05 pm by John MacKenzie

Was hoping to post a death poem I’ve been working on, but so far it’s refusing my attempts to lay it out…might have to wait for its rigor mortis to pass. Instead, another piece of moon to chew on. This … Continue reading →

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Still Life by Moonlight

Posted on Tuesday, August 13th, 2013 12:01 pm by John MacKenzie

Where the moon will spill pale and cold through your window, I’ve left this green bowl of cherries and plums, taut-skinned over firm flesh—fragrant, wet

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