This week we have poetry from Canadian author Joan MacIntosh who writes personal accounts from snapshots of her life, executed with exquisite, simple images. The speaker tries to find the beauty in the ordinary around us.
An Iceberg Lived
In Twillingate
I rented a house
on the North Side
with threefold dormer windows
watching over
a picket fence cradled
lilac tree
In spring
the upstairs bedroom
felt like a ship at sea
floorboards sloped
to the east window
where, in the harbor,
an iceberg lived
In winter
the ocean current
corralled a herd
of jagged ice pans
and the house walls,
undefended,
allowed the north wind
Cold swept up
the staircase
snow grains lashed
the windowpanes
and the old house, glacial,
became a tomb
Timbers shuddered
day and night, and
wretched
I left my coat on
went to bed after supper
In summer
I moved house
abandoned
the vagrant dust wisps
plugged kitchen sink, and
ajar garden gate
But I dreamed
of islands and icebergs
parlor doors
that opened to
sea water, and
Years later
I returned
to find the threefold
dormer windows
boarded
fence broken
tree wilted
house diminished
withered
more alive
shining in
my dreams
A Kind Angel Calls Here
Light glows
from the
old house window
like something warm
lives inside
Molten sunrise
born at
the ocean’s edge
pours radiance
through
the second storey
windowpane
First
a sliver of light
blooms to
blazing rectangles
of gold, flaxen
then
lightless again
The sun
visits the house
at daybreak
its brilliance
benevolent
like a kind angel
calls here
The poetry deals with finding safety and comfort in a world that doesn’t always contain these things easily.
Tune in soon to find out who won the Words, Pauses, Noises 2015 competition with £100 each for Poetry, Short Story, and Flash Fiction!
Words, Pauses, Noises 