UNWRITTEN RULES

Lately the plague of monkeys I keep in the blue hut
on the bridge of regrets
has been making an unholy racket every night by
rustling their dry nest bits
and making their chrrrr chrrrr chrrrr noises, the ones
they've been making since just after they were born.
A sweet  enough sound - but loud once they all get going.

They must be agitated because mostly they're silent
and it's just the African Grays out on the rotting deck
that can't keep their blasphemous mouths shut, who
I have to worry about
But as long as I keep a coverlet over the cage at night,
they're kind enough to be silent.

Now - it's both monkeys and parrots - some someone put
a huge tear in the bird cloth
and no matter how carefully I fix it over the cage, it
falls open every night
and I awake to one or both of them, squawking:
"fuck fuck fuck - hear me? hear me?  fuck fuck fuck".

Of course, I hear them - I'd have to be bloody deaf
to not hear them; even with earplugs I hear them.
And I'm sure everybody thinks I taught them the words
but I don't think so, or if I did, I don't remember.
I wish I could be shut of the whole lot but they're my
family, you can't just rid yourself of family
You have to keep family...that's the rules.

Gearing up for Found Poetry Review's April 2015...and other April Poetic Happenings

April promises to be super-crazy this year and I'm hoping to have this new blog up and running for all the fun I've signed on for...

Let's see...there's the aforementioned (in the title) Found Poetry Challenge...

There's the usual Poetic Asides Poem-A-Day Challenge that's always really fun and a great way to reconnect with poets I've written with for over half a decade, plus meet a whole new bunch of people.

Then locally, we help celebrate national poetry month (April is celebrated all over North America as such, and maybe other places as well, I not sure; it's something I need to check out) by holding the Edmonton Poetry Festival - a week of readings, workshops, performances ... just a fantastic celebration of all things poetic. We usually have guest poets that come from other parts of Canada, and sometimes from other parts of the world...every year there's a different theme and this year it's "Poetry Moves" - it will be interesting to see what that turns out to involve.

CASTLES MADE OF FLOUR

The sting from making excuses—over—
No more belonging to clubs of little consequence
Those that knock the wind from high hills,
collapsing kite strings, and hope.

Once forced to plant her feet wide and squarely,
like a pugilist's,
she dared them to try and drive over her,
to try to trample her dreams,
to smash images she'd created,
once she'd built bridges and towers.

Her architecture reflected the strength created
with hands made strong from kneading bread.