"quebec" poems
JE ME SOUVIENS (I REMEMBER) by Céline Leduc 12/2013
I REMEMBER is the motto of Quebec
I remember the English colonized me.
I forget I colonized First Nations.
I remember multiculturalism is bad.
I forget it allowed me to keep my culture.
I remember the Church is my downfall
I forget it was Louis XIV and Napoleon politics
I remember my language matters
I forget I imposed language on First Nations.
I remember my culture
I want others to forget their culture
Quebec’s new motto should be
I FORGET -- J’OUBLIE
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 9:45 AM UTC
I hate the beach
I'm eighty six and I hate the beach
Hate the sand, not a fan of the surf
Face it, I hate the beach
Last time I went there
I had just turned 18 years old
June sixth, Nineteen Hundred Forty Four
God, I hate the beach
I was in the 5th Regiment
Régiment de Maisonneuve
and I've never been to a beach since
I'm from Verdun, Quebec, Canada
Not many beaches around there
Thank the lord for that I say
We'd been training for six months
Operation Overlord it was called
We were coming in on troop carriers
It was to be a beach head landing
I'd never seen a beach before
At least not for real
Never want to see another
We arrived early June 6, 1944
I think I said that already
You must forgive me,
I'm 86 years old and I hate the beach
fourteen thousand Canadian Troops
Bursting out of armoured troop ships
Like, the young, virile, brahma bulls we were
Coming in, all I could hear was the waves
I was in front, well...close to the front
I remember, there were no birds
who ever heard of that?
A beach with no birds
At least not at this beach
I could smell the salt in the air
And I knew I could hear the surf
And my heart, I could **** well hear that
But, no birds, I couldn't hear the birds
Gunfire, nope...cannons and mortars
But birds and guns, not a sound
Weird huh?
I remember running forward
Always forward, past blocks
Wood barricades and barbed wire
And bodies, lots of bodies
I knew that I knew some of them
I just didn't have time to stop
And say goodbye,
I just ran
Emptied my weapon at least once
I only know this, because it was empty
when I hit the beach
God, I hate the beach
You know in the movies
or in those flowery books
where they talk about someone being shot
and how "there was a bloom or
they're chest flowered red where they were hit"
I never saw that, never looked back
Just ran forward, saw the "bloom" in their backs
Don't like red, or flowers or the beach
I don't remember much after that
Could still hear my heart
That's a good thing, I guess
I got tore up good with the wire
but I never got shot
Never, "bloomed" for anyone
A few of my buddies were lost
I toast them every year
Never at the beach though
I hate the beach
Wife and kids used to go
I never did, never will
I remember the 50th anniversary though
Wife and kids went back
Not me,
Went into Montreal to see a ball game
Montreal Expos 10, Houston Astros 5
I remember Will Cordero hitting a homer
It was the sixth inning, I toasted the hit
I thought about that day 50 years before
And went back to watching the game
I hate the beach
My name is Gilles Roquefort
I'm eight six years old
And I can still feel the sand and taste the salt
On a bad day.
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 7:06 PM UTC
There was an Old Man of Quebec,
A beetle ran over his neck;
But he cried, 'With a needle,
I'll slay you, O beadle!'
That angry Old Man of Quebec.
3.9k
Going on a road trip
Something for my soul
It's gonna take a while
But, it's gonna make me whole
I'm going to cross the country
But, I'll start on both the coasts
I've been in too many bottles
Have to exorcise some ghosts
Mile Marker Three Three Three Nine
That's where the dream did end
Mile Marker Three Three Three Nine
That's where I'll start to mend
Greyhound bus out of the east
From the Maritimes my son
I'll venture through Quebec as well
This is journey number one
I'll stop and meet the people
Get their stories, of the man
I'll find the ones who met him
Try to learn just what I can
Adversity, I've had my share
Always tried self medication
Now, I need to find myself
This will take some dedication
I'll head on through Ontario
On the Trans Canada Highway route
And I'll try lose my demons
Give my devils all the boot
Brick by brick I'll bring down the walls
That over years I've built
Bricks made up of hate and rage
by love, and fear and guilt
From the west, I'll make my way
Do the highway he could not
Through the rocky mountains
Every mile is hard fought
I'll learn about the person
Who he was and who I am
I'll come through the fire stronger
I'll be a much better man
I will bus across the prairies
Through the Manitoba cold
I will focus on my endgame
I'll learn from what I'm told
Two journeys I will travel
Neither one from coast to coast
But, both are to be ended
by that famous mile post
Maybe I can find the answer
Join myself, go through the door
As he joined a nation
So many years before
Mile Marker Three Three Three Nine
That's where my journey ends
Mile Marker Three Three Three Nine
That's where I'll start to mend
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 12:16 AM UTC
Uncle Joe,
Quietly a bachelor,
All his 77 years,
Never spoke an unkind word
I ever heard.
Most afternoons,
He sat in his brown chair
Behind my Grandfather.
Two old French men,
Smoking pipes
Talking slow and low
In English, French-laced,
Laden with Quebec enunciation
Though they'd not been back
For sixty years.
I didn't think he'd ever loved a girl,
My Uncle Joe,
And then his nephew spilled the beans
One day to me.
Alice was the damsel's name,
But innocence was not her style,
And so my great-grandma,
Memere, disapproved,
Clucked her tongue,
Hands on hips,
Glared and crossed herself,
Whenever Alice came around.
Still, Joe pursued
Until the day she walked out
To the field where he was plowing
Behind a team of horses.
She didn't think ahead.
So when her dress billowed out
As she walked up,
She set the team in fright.
Uncle Joe,
Too shocked to act,
Fell feet first into the foot board,
And down the field the horses dragged
The plow and Uncle Joe.
They stopped before disaster came,
And Uncle Joe crawled out.
When he stood up,
He ended any chance that Alice
Had with him.
"Dat **** girl near got me ****
His exclamation.
So it was
He lived sixty more years
Safely and alone.
Jan 3, 2012
Jan 3, 2012 at 8:51 AM UTC
November in Quebec.
Almost winter, dull wet snow
And clothing never warm enough
To keep the dampness out.
Nothing like Dallas it seems
Where, even though the television says it’s cool,
She wears a light-weight suit of pink and navy blue
And matching pillbox hat.
November in Quebec.
On a day that seems to go from grey to grey
And grey all in between,
We sit in heated classrooms
With the first damp smell of mothballed wool,
While black and white New England nuns,
Banished for their sins to northern, foreign cold,
Talk about their hero (and now ours)
As if he were alive:
Alive enough to step up from the grave,
Alive enough to kiss the snow-white blonde,
Who squeezed into a dress that shone like freezing rain
The night she sang her birthday tune.
I watch for tears from the widow’s blank-stare eyes:
They don’t show through the sheer black veil
That drapes her pillbox hat.
It’s ’64 and winter in Quebec.
The ground’s so hard
That grandma has to wait for spring to lie down in the ground.
I think of her as if she were alive:
I feel her hold my feet again,
I see her smiling at the door.
On this sad and sunny day,
In my grey wool coat and matching pillbox hat,
I watch a dark brown box get rolled away.
Looking down at the new white snow and my new red boots
I blink and blink and squeeze my frozen tears behind my blank-stare eyes
And think I might be Jackie.
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 9:39 PM UTC
The poet asks, and Phillis can’t refuse
To show th’ obedience of the Infant muse.
She knows the Quail of most inviting taste
Fed Israel’s army in the dreary waste;
And what’s on Britain’s royal standard borne,
But the tall, graceful, rampant Unicorn?
The Emerald with a vivid verdure glows
Among the gems which regal crowns compose;
Boston’s a town, polite and debonair,
To which the beaux and beauteous nymphs repair,
Each Helen strikes the mind with sweet surprise,
While living lightning flashes from her eyes,
See young Euphorbus of the Dardan line
By Manelaus’ hand to death resign:
The well known peer of popular applause
Is C——m zealous to support our laws.
Quebec now vanquish’d must obey,
She too much annual tribute pay
To Britain of immortal fame.
And add new glory to her name.
2.1k
Born into a house of red hair
soulless people and
beer
my great grandmother is 101 and four months
and she has contracted Alzheimer’s
which means she sees those who have died before her
like her husband
two of her sisters and
four of her nine children
Her sister died just yesterday at 100 and 17 days sleeping in her bed
I was named after dead relatives
Moira for a cousin who died at 20,
before I was ever even born,
a cousin who sang like a bird
and could have been a mermaid
a beauty with straight white teeth and blonde hair
who found death after struggling with anorexia
Katherine for my great aunt who I never met
but my mother told me of her wearing sunglasses and
her sleek black car and
silky hair always tied back in red ribbons and
how she would sneak cookies to the children
holding her legs in the kitchen
I was born into an Irish house
I was born to people who have slaved their life away to make it
My great grandmother was born in Ireland in 1912
and came to America with her family when she was 10
my great grandfather was a French Canadian born in Quebec
who I was told was gentle and quiet
who smoked when he was happy or sad
and worked on houses and cars and a large family
I was born into the legacy
I was born with their blood in my veins
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 1:57 PM UTC
(Happy 150th, Canada!)
Canada Day - Just One?
With love from an ‘umble Yank
But every day is Canada Day!
The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada
The Muskogee never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, complete
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada
Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway
Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest
The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?
To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada
Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”
Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read
The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada
A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada
Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not -
Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!
Jul 1, 2017
Jul 1, 2017 at 11:39 AM UTC
I am from toaster
From toaster strudel and bagels
I am from the small space with too many bodies
Cold, old, musty
I am from the acorn
The maple tree
Whose long limbs I remember
As if they were my own.
I’m from movie nights and slender fingers
From Hélène and Luc
I’m from thinking of the worst outcomes and crackling knees
And from moving forward
I am from finish your plate and don’t draw on the car
And twinkle, twinkle little star
I am from Canada
I am from Quebec
I am from being locked out of the house
And desperation
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 10:51 AM UTC
aix, beck's, becks, blech's, checks, cheques, czechs, dec's, decks, dex, eckes, eques, ex, fecks, flecks, flex, heck's, hex, jex, kecks, lecce, lex, meckes, mex, necks, nex, next, peck's, pecks, plex, rex, sheck's, shek's, specks, specs, sphex, tech's, techs, teck's, tex, treks, vex, whelks, wrecks, x, x. amex, ampex, annex, apec's, apex, armtek's, avtex, aztecs, berlex, caltex, cemex, centex, cmx, comex, complex, comtrex, convex, crownx, defex, dissects, duplex, effects, ejects, entex, execs, expects, eyetech's, fanech's, fedex, finex, gatx, gtech's, inmex, intex, latex, memtec's, metex, natec's, nobec's, nymex, nynex, objects, onex, opec's, paychecks, paychex, pemex, perplex, pewex, playtex, portec's, projects, qintex, quebec's, railtex, rednecks, reflects, rejects, respects, roughnecks, scitex, simplex, starplex, steinbeck's, subjects, suspects, syntex, telex, telmex, tenrecs, timeplex, tridex, trintex, triplex, truex, vertex, visx, wall-tex, wedtech's, westtech's adaptec's, ametek's, atx, banamex, between decks, biotechs, bottlenecks, cineplex, cybersex, cytotechs, datarex, discotheques, equitex, eurochecks, gendrisek's, genentech's, govpx, hyponex, intellects, intersects, kaisertech's, malcolm x, medarex, mediplex, megaplex, memorex, methanex, metroplex, middlesex, multidex, multiplex, neorx, oraflex, pillowtex, prentnieks, rolodex, stratoflex, superx, symantec's, teleflex, turtlenecks, unisex, ventritex adaptaplex, ameritech's, audiotex, begonia rex, ****** simplex, solar apex, videotex, tyrannosaurus rex, regression of y on x
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 6:24 PM UTC
Dinner with old friends:
salmon with red cabbage, asparagus, Caesar's salad, penne
with broccoli, two white wines.
Jane Jacobs could analyze how it all got to our table
or even how their daughter came to us from Cambodia.
The economy or market bringing a thing of beauty, the farms,
the trucks,
such comfort. The ancients knew this too
yet we are anxious about famine, genocide and nuclear war.
How can we organize (govern) ourselves to end self-imposed
suffering?
That Quebec and Puerto Rico may secede peacefully at any
time a majority chooses is a source of pride. Why not
Kurds, Chechyns, Tibetans and Armenians?
Difficult to write a poem about it. At table, candlelight, we
debate
or whine about the other side winning and making a mess
of our lives. The election could be stolen, tampering with
voting machines,
what policy question does that possibility raise? War in Iraq,
school testing, prison population. Religion, the abyss
surrounding the
little promontory life.
It'll all work out in the end. Go to your daily practice, be a
good citizen.
Another failed effort to write what I mean. Such confusion, yet
two white wines.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 11:51 AM UTC
On the flight path down from Quebec
in the recent past, they say,
The lead goose saw a foursome
on the fairway, hard at play.
Their clothing was intriguing
Bright Argyles and Staid plaids
Little lackeys followed them,
carrying their bags.
The goose brigade lost interest
in proceeding South that day.
Instead they landed on the course
intent on watching play.
The lead Goose now spent all his time
At Bethpage, on the Black,
and honked golf commentary
to all his fledgling flock.
This lead Goose was the First,
brave Avian pioneer,
who broke the pattern going South-
instead he wintered here.
The Geese are protected by the law,
so we have no recourse.
We can't hunt down these honkers
who are greasing up the course.
Within one human lifetime-
a revolutionary change.
the geese have all stopped flying South
They're students of the game.
Jan 5, 2012
Jan 5, 2012 at 5:56 PM UTC
at most points of your life you have to take a stand
this usually means propping up your own causes
in a way that allows everyone else to take a step back
the myth of the strong individual
every once in a while you have to shed a tear
when young, as a means of attracting attention
as you age, you cry toward yourself
as true maturity takes over, the plaque of the years
puts an end to this ridiculous practice
truth is unknowable
the unicorn just told me
so I spread it around
coldly, life is based on shared lies
how anarchy lifts the soul
great heights of blessed freedom
from you
of course he was right
we are built for small communities
where information dribbles in
in a process called understanding
not this ever accelerating gyre
it is just too **** big
so what good does insolence deliver?
well, it can be very inventive
and people are left confused anyway
no matter what you say
or how you say it
whats a middle finger for, anyway?
maybe there’s a point to all this that everyone has missed
everyone but Voltaire
and he still ran out of time and space
I thought I was finished but I was mistaken
you see, warm air can hold more moisture than cold air
and grass grows in the direction of the sun
fences tend to separate things but cannot go on forever
and once you see a fractal, that’s about all you can see
there in the cinema
everything is staged for a purpose
maybe comedy or tragedy or adventure
then its all edited in order to present its very own meaning
that is not art
its tomfoolery
Aug 23, 2013
Aug 23, 2013 at 8:14 AM UTC
this is a voicemail to the girl I’ll never call
beep
Hey, remember how you used to tell me that you couldn’t wait to see the world?
The first place you wanted to travel to was Paris, you said that it’s just something
you have to do.
You told me all of the things in Paris that you wanted to do, like shop in thrift stores
and look across the city on top of the Eiffel Tower, hope to see a celebrity and take pictures with them.
We both knew that there were various school programs to study abroad but you didn’t want to go to school there, you just wanted to enjoy life there, for just a while.. not too long, not too brief.. at most, two weeks.
I wondered if you’d send postcards back home or bring back some goodies that you stumbled upon.
I couldn’t wait to hear the stories you’d tell me.
beep
It’s me again, I bought a journal with the Eiffel Tower printed on the front, all of the pages were blank.
I started to fill them in.
Suddenly, weeks went by and I realized that only one page had been inked.
It’s not like I had writers block or I didn’t know what to say to you, I just…
for the first time, I just wasn’t able to say or do anything.
Everything was silent, the pages, silent.
The ink, invisible.
The communication, gone.
I tried to go back time after time to ink the blanks, but nothing ever came out.
I’m still waiting for the stories.
beep
I miss you.
beep
This is my third attempt on this one voicemail.
I’m not ashamed to say that I got emotional in the last one, lucky for you, I deleted it.
Now it’s off somewhere in dead space.
I wonder If you’ve been to Paris yet.
I wonder if you’ve seen the city there, late night.
The way the tower glows, the way the city flows, its magical.
It’s almost like a wonderland.
I wonder if you remembered my mailing address for the postcards…
Maybe you sent them and they got lost in transit.
Its the thought that counts. Someday, they’ll find a home.
Someday, you’ll return home.
beep
I think I’ve ran out of things to say.
I’ll stop calling…
beep
I want to see the world too. I want to go places that I never thought I’d go.
I walk to climb mountains, cross vast rivers, sail the oceans, I want to live.
I want to bike across Europe, horseback the country in America, Ride a camel in the great Saharan desert, find love in Paris…
find love in paris…
find love in..
beep
I promise, this will be the last time.
This will be the last time.
I just have one last thing to say.
It’s been far more than two weeks
I wonder why I’ve been waiting for the stories,
when in reality I could tell my own.
I could have a pin pal
I could study abroad
I could learn french, travel to quebec
I could learn french, road trip to Louisiana
I could learn french, and speak the language of love
still, I wait to hear your stories…
beep
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 7:47 PM UTC
Calais was a small disappointment,
And Ams-too-damn good to be true,
So while the red orb is yet to set,
I'll clear out my debt,
And try to forget,
And gather fresh hope on the morrow new.
Vesoul, that was my destination:
I gave up Quebec and Madrid!
Gladly forsaking old
Constantinople, for
Paris awaited my trip.
But I can't make a living in Bangkok,
With poncy jazzmen such as these.
The coffers of kings are busted and broke,
And my heart craves more
Than ashes and smoke,
So tour Guatemal', if you please.
Goodbye to pretty Latakia,
I turn from your shore with such sorrow.
Your flowery air I long to breathe,
Instead of standing alone in the street;
I want to return in a golden-fringed dream...
And gather fresh hope on the morrow.
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 7:14 PM UTC
Perhaps it was her voice itself, clear and simple,
Unalloyed by any classically trained fol-de-rol,
Or possibly the nature of her faith
Displayed with such clarity, such transparency
By that very instrument,
But in any case, she had utterly bewitched the populace
Of the place known as Ahwaga by her distant cousins,
And when she stood on the Delaware & Hudson platform
The next morning, they had cheered her lustily,
All but begging her You must return to us,
But the train had lost its footing on a sharp grade
Mere hundreds of yards before making the station at Deposit,
And she was lost in the carnage and conflagration.
The townspeople she had said her farewells to that morning
Were distraught, their feelings a mix of grief
And an odd sense of culpability, a nagging misgiving
That perhaps this was an omen, some augury
Denoting that their own faith was not up to scratch,
And so they had taken her back to their own burgh
To bury her in a manner befitting her piety
(She had been travelling with siblings,
But they acquiesced to the plan, though how willingly
Not wholly apparent at the time,
And made no clearer through the ramble of time)
And so she was laid to rest in a plot
Surrounded by ornate fencing, her grave marked
By an obelisk pointing unambiguously to her Heaven,
And it is said that, on autumn evenings
When the breeze rustle the dying leaves just so,
You can hear the spirits of her Mohawk brethren
Come down from Quebec, murmuring songs
Telling of the spirits living in the trees and hedgerows,
Spoken in the ancient tongue
Of the languid, unhurried Susquehanna far below.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 8:37 PM UTC
6 Muslims
were killed
in Canada
in one day
last week,
this is
a higher
figure
than that
of Americans
killed by refugees
over the last
20 years,
the killer
was a white guy,
a Supremacist,
and as far as
I know
Trump has shared
not a word
of sympathy
or condolence
on this tragic
crime,
as of today,
not
a
single
solitary
word.
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 11:51 PM UTC
Canada Day? Just One?
With love from an ‘umble Yank
But every day is Canada Day!
The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada
The Muskogee 1 never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, completing
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada
Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway
Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest
The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?
To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada
Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”
Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read
The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada
A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada
Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not –
Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!
Jul 1, 2018
Jul 1, 2018 at 9:35 AM UTC
Don't fool with me,
make me feel like I don't know English.
Track me down and tell me it's easier to learn French.
Once you think you know French they tell you that you got it all wrong.
You need to know Canadian French. If it wasn't for poutine I'd build a wall around Quebec.
Any how if I didn't use enough modifiers with my Verb string me up
And who cares anyway, just some tired Academic that tries to say
he teaches people.
If anyone wants to say wrong again then the only thing they can do is teach. And like they say, if you can't do, teach.
In conclusion ( like I'm writing an essay). To which I state the dictionary's definition of Predication could use a little plain language, or maybe I should learn Chinese. Just for their beautiful Characters.
Jan 3, 2018
Jan 3, 2018 at 5:07 PM UTC
In Quebec’s quiet winter wee
A season’s joyful jubilee
Crafted mid cliffs towering tall
Sculptures sitting in silent awe
Glistening gems grown from sea spree
Blue-blush hushed by green-glow glee
Fascinating formed frozen freeze
Sketched a skillful sibylline sprawl
In Quebec’s quiet winter.
A sublime sight stunning to see
Until spring summons the flow free
Tuning it to a fast free fall
A raging race, a roaring wrawl
Go gaze and kneel at nature’s knee
In Quebec’s quiet winter.
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016 at 2:25 PM UTC
we don't live in times
likened to a nearby 1cm off
renaissance painters
with patrons as noble as the popes,
we live in times where
free art flows, free art as free
among starving people,
as free as sea water, as free
as candlesticks among electric
shrapnel sparks, in a time
when no bothersome brine
of full-time takes the telescope
to see more stars that are plentiful
already to eden's sacrifice of nakedness
(sign-of-the-cross missing crucifix blaspheme
all authority);
we live in times where no complete
artist exists, instead artists with
full-time jobs tying them down
to originally stated profession for a
date (lawyer, surgeon, chemist, etc.)
& **** art has become 2nd grade karaoke
if no worse hara-kiri would-be sway of
a forgotten decapitation - of a disembowel'ed satyr
when a martyr would do a due icon for the
urban and shrinking wheat field arable populace
kneeling;
in st. petersburg i was told to stand up
when listening to a choir,
once in catholic school i yawned during our father
and was held in detention for an hour,
then paddy came along and said: martin luther -
so i said sweden in suede and it became the origin
of quebec: came the rain of applause.
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 7:29 PM UTC
I am from
waking up at 5 a.m.
and making my dad pour me a glass
of chocolate milk and put in
the Tom & Jerry VCR tape.
I am from
the years spent on stage
performing, acting, dancing,
making music from the keys and strings of instruments
that I have since abandoned.
I am from
the technology that shaped me,
which I cannot live without-
the shows and movies and games; staying up,
the bright screen of my laptop glaring against the darkness of my room.
I am from
crying until my eyes are red and raw,
happy and sad and laughing tears
from the deaths and lives and breakups and reunions
of the characters and shows I will never forget.
I am from
lying in my bed
listening to the music that has healed me,
blaring in my ears
and against the four walls that enclose me.
I am from
the places I’ve been-
from La Jolla to Lancaster to Boston and Nanjing,
to the places I wish to go-
from Sydney to Quebec to Venice and Chicago.
I am from
homework and studying and tests,
and homework and studying and tests.
Yearning for college since middle school,
to be around people who crave knowledge, too.
I am from
Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens and Disjunctive Syllogism,
and memorizing fallacies and philosophy arguments at 8 a.m.,
the course that challenged me beyond my limits,
the course that introduced me to my favorite place in the world.
I am from
my home away from home-
lying on the grass of the quad,
dancing beneath the stars
to the Canon, the soundtrack of my youth.
I am from
the memories I hold
within polaroids and photos behind screens,
within songs and books and between the lines
of the poems that I have bled from my heart onto paper.
I am from
my previous and continuing attempts to escape this town,
and the meaningless interactions within the cold halls of highschool;
trying to find the people who will become my people
and the places I will call home.
j.z.
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 11:48 AM UTC
i really did shove an afro into my socks dancing to
pendulum's tarantula in a Basildon nightclub -
alongside the shark-like
(-like, ever see an adjective
misplaced like so? all dues
concerning a lack of necessary
spelling to sand-smooth
a block of marble, polish
a leg of mahogany or any other
leisure life item worth's
of a cartel's production)
nibble of flint-spear:
jagged-little ***** - i.e.
what feminism needs is a booster,
a booster via a misogynist,
and then we can have a Disney
Brothers' Troll story about Borat Obama's
daughters' kissing a frog...
oh boo Abraham Lincoln and assassination to mind...
a real wreck of a tear jerker -
can say **** you in canadian french at this moment
to ensure Quebec is the new Vatican?
well, hush out the harshness and
we'll all be olive skinned as Queen Sheba
said prophecy unto King Solomon -
boy you better leave that harem of your's alone
if my **** be the count of three thousand
with only about 10 satisfied...
seriously, the homosexuals agreed,
feminism needs a true misogynist to feed it
it can't do with with womanising brown-nosing
cute-pies minding it as mince beef
while Hinduism was happening -
and the cows were minded for the homeless
to be worth more than fast-speeding
cyclists and motorbike eventualities to
subscribe to ***** donor Netflix.
i can side with misogyny via the robert johnson -
she loved me so much she preferred me to be dead -
a quasi-crucified body was resurrected,
and those who denied the truth
denied it for no political gain - they denied the truth
for a sense of denial per se,
hardly a ******** case
for Milton's revision of the book of genesis -
given Moses the positive subverter
and ****** an Austrian and Stalin the Georgian
as negative subverters;
i had to learn a language, unlearn it with a
lightning strike without thunder -
and get told that for all my integrative efforts
i had to learn to be an immigrant twice-over by
some paddy leprechaun...
and so i thought: well isn't that rude?
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 7:58 PM UTC