LOVE POEM
He saw the teardrop on the rose
And again, he saw the teardrop on a rose
And he knew he could never melt the teardrop
And he knew this was already the end
So he kissed the face of the evening wife
As he had kissed it before, in all its varying forms
And again said hello to a precipice of silence
A precipice of silence
For his eighteen months of loving
The Queen of Swords is crossed over
And all the king's horses and all the king's men
Are trying to get her together again
like me
To no avail.
Gigolo and Gigolet
This side of the lake of mutilation
Strike a match
And the hotel burns
There is only
this path of silence
As we dump our gods
And become like them
--Ivan Prokopchuk
And again, he saw the teardrop on a rose
And he knew he could never melt the teardrop
And he knew this was already the end
So he kissed the face of the evening wife
As he had kissed it before, in all its varying forms
And again said hello to a precipice of silence
A precipice of silence
For his eighteen months of loving
The Queen of Swords is crossed over
And all the king's horses and all the king's men
Are trying to get her together again
like me
To no avail.
Gigolo and Gigolet
This side of the lake of mutilation
Strike a match
And the hotel burns
There is only
this path of silence
As we dump our gods
And become like them
--Ivan Prokopchuk
8 comments:
we dump our gods and take their places. Indeed. A rather profound thought for the day! I like this.
Thankee, Charles.
I dig it, Ivan.
Happy 2013, man ~!
Eric France,
...And happy new year to you too!
No qustion that you must be hip; my musician friends didn't get it at all. :)
I really enjoy your poems - every single one I've read.
Chris,
This is so great, coming from an award-nominated Canadian writer.
My only award in journalism, not fiction, was from the Ontario Weekly Newspapers Association.
The piece was about my dog. I ended the column, frustrated with old Nigel, who would come home, woof-woof,wag-wag, and leaving a mess on the floor.
I had said I felt like shooting the son of a bitch, and that last line gave me an Honorable Mention. :)
Hi folks,
First, an announcement. After the cancellation of my sustainable city column in The Coast I approached Halifax Magazine about running something similar. The result of that meeting is that I'll be doing a longer feature for them every other month on key environmental issues in Halifax. I'm excited to take this theme to a new audience. Watch for the first piece in their April issue.
Second, another announcement. I started another blog (because there are so few of them). It's mainly there so I can still vent on the environmental stuff that bugs me most, now that the column is gone. So if you've got that Sustainable City jones...I've got two pieces up there so far, one on the Idle No More movement (First Nations Rights and water protection), and another that I co-wrote with sustainable energy expert Brendan Haley proposing a national sustainable energy program that would work for all income levels and transform our energy economy. You can see both of those at http://www.ecoinnovators.org/halifaxenviro.
Lastly, as I mentioned I'll be doing more news for The Coast. Here's a review of Trevor Adams' book Long Shots: The Curious Story of the Four Maritime Teams That Played for the Stanley Cup (http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/long-shots-the-maritime-teams-that-played-for-the-stanley-cup/Content?oid=3602953), and two more stories about the Idle No More movement by First Nations people fighting Stephen Harper's government for their rights and for environmental rights: http://www.thecoast.ca/RealityBites/archives/2013/01/10/idle-no-moore-halifax-gets-active and http://www.thecoast.ca/RealityBites/archives/2013/01/10/idle-no-more-megan-leslie-supports-native-movement.
Happy Friday!
Chris
--
Chris Benjamin is a freelance journalist, fiction writer, CBC News web writer/editor and columnist. He is the author of Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada, winner of the 2012 APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award and finalist for the Richardson Non-Fiction Prize, and the critically-acclaimed novel, Drive-by Saviours, winner of the H.R. Percy Prize and shortlisted for Canada Reads 2011 and a ReLit Prize. In 2006/2007 he worked as a journalist in Ghana. He shared an honourable mention in the 2009 Canadian National Magazine Awards. Chris has also written for The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Chronicle Herald, VoicePrint Canada, This Magazine, Now Magazine, Canadian Dimension, Halifax Magazine, Descant, OpenFile, Arts East, East Coast Kitchen Party, Third Person Press, Nashwaak Review, Pottersfield Press, Rattling Books, The Society, University of Waterloo Press, Z Magazine, Briarpatch Magazine, Coastlands, Progress Magazine, Rural Delivery and many others.
http://www.ecoinnovators.org/
www.chrisbenjaminwriting.com
http://twitter.com/benjaminwrites
Chris,
Captain Environment lands on his feet. Good.
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