excerpt from

High Steel
by Gary Geddes
2008*

from Falsework(Goose Lane Editions)

Might have walked the tightrope
in another life, another country.
But, hey, this was Canada,
post-war, pragmatic, not given
to acrobatics. I stashed
my tights and dreams in the attic
for another generation, donned
boots and hard hat, stood in line
for bridgework. Two weeks later
I was promoted to the front line,
connecting. Not my calling but
lofty enough. I felt angels brush
my shoulders as I strode the beams.

excerpt from

Burrard Inlet Ships
by Russell Thornton
2013

from Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain (Harbour Publishing)

At a window overlooking water—container ships
and bulk carrier ships lying at anchor
framed in front of us. They’re always there,
I hear a voice say. As if the ships were the same ships
that sat there twenty-four or forty-eight hours ago.
As if, in the middle of the night, the ships did not
arrive and drop anchor at exact latitudes and longitudes.
And tugboats did not come and bring the ships to dock,
and other ships not arrive and take the first ships’ places—
in the middle of the night. As if the ships were not
emptied of what they brought here and loaded up again
while the ships’ sailors took their hours’ shore leave
to go to a bank, visit a doctor, talk with a priest,
buy a blouse or bracelet for a woman back home.

Mill Yard Sounds
by Kuldip Gill
2010

from Valley Sutra (Caitlin Press)

That bricolage of mill sounds,
a screech of each saw-cut as the head sawyer pulled down,
the rolling gears of the log-haul,
the whistle to shut down as men moved lumber
down the greenchain, and everything dripped water.
The hemlock, fir, cedar sawdust rose cumulus and turbaned
around heads of mill-men, the forklift driving in and backing out
its burden locked in its arms, and the horns of the honking truck —
a driver impatient for the load of lumber. The chainbelt
clanging as it conveyed clumped wood and bark into
the burner, smoke and embers fssting and spitting.
They sat on the lumber with tin lunch buckets
open, eating curries, achars and rotis in the sun.

Great Moments in Construction: The Plumber
by Kate Braid
2016

from Rough Ground Revisited (Caitlin Press)

The plumber gives excellent service.
We’re all impressed by how early he gets to work,
how late he stays. We tell him to ease off
but he insists he doesn’t mind working Saturday—again.

Later we find the note with flowers
for the nanny in the basement suite
signed Love, The Plumber.

excerpt from

One by One
by Karen Shklanka
2016

from Ceremony of Touching (Coteau Books)

Years ago, when a patient died,
I went down to the river at night,
my husky howling into the wind
with me. Now, sometimes I cry,
sometimes I don’t.

Nobody told me I would
remember the face of
each of my patients who died.
I wish I could remember every face
in detail, every voice, and listen
to their words. So
that I could read each name,
bring them to me.

Busking
by Barbara Nickel
1998

from The Gladys Elegies (Coteau Books)

We play near aging cheese and scattered rice,
among the pumpkins, gulls and smell of fish,
breezes, clatter jesting on my face,
the jostles of the crowd and passing swish
of silk unseen. Our lines of music join
the cappuccino screams, juggle above
a pile of ripe tomatoes; seeds spill down,
and juice and music mash up in a sieve;
Mozart, the people shout. I laugh as doors
open, wind snatching notes and rumpling clothes.
Our cases on the wet and sticky floor,
the clinking coins on velvet, crumpled bills.
Beside my violin, a tiny boy
is moving to the shadow of my joy.

The Poet Keeps a Jar of Commas on His Desk
by Eve Joseph
2019

from Quarrels (Anvil Press)

THE POET KEEPS A JAR OF COMMAS ON HIS DESK. THEY
look like the sheared ears of voles and are as soft as apricots. Late
at night, blindfolded, he loves to take them out and play pin-the-tail
on the donkey while his wife and children are fast asleep. He plays
his sentences like fish in a stream, tickling for trout with curled
fingers. Commas are hearing buds he places deep inside his ears. After sprinkling them liberally, he waits for the first sprouts to unfurl.
In summer, on hot, dry days, he strings them on the washing line
between the tree in the ear and the shelter built out of longing. Get
close enough and you can see the little hairs quivering.

The Artist
by Patrick Lane
1996

from Too Fierce (Harbour Publishing)

These are the shapes he wants, the map of
the wilderness he searches in, the driftwood
he finds shaped into the beasts
that are his dreams, the broken
weathered to resemblance by some wind
inside his mind, the imagined mountain
in the stone he climbs,
the peace he feels before descent.

Four Treasures
by Andrew Parkin
2000

from Hong Kong Poems (Ronsdale Press)

First they took my brush:
I wrote with my own hair.

They stole my paper:
I wrote on walls.

They confiscated ink and stone:
I wrote in blood with a bit of bone.

[Note: The traditional writing implements (brush, ink, stone, paper) were sometimes called the scholar’s “four treasures”. The fifth was a sword.]

Small Song: Anger
by Jan Zwicky
2005

from Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences (Gaspereau Press)

I open my books
but they are closed to me.
While I slept, an iron gate
descended, and in one night
was seized with rust and thorns.

Like magic, then,
the notes of the violin
drift through the broken stones, dissolving
the knotted vines, the stems,
the hinges and the bars.

theatre under the stars
by Diane L. Tucker
1997

from God on His Haunches (Nightwood Editions)

can you smell the cold summer sky
the sharp metallic scent of stars
spread like silver jam on the toasted night

surely you smell it, like dew settling late
on the hundreds of chairs when everybody's gone
except us, we're just shadows, uncast by the night

after all that brassy music, dusty artificial light
cheeks and lips painted red, red
all this damp blackness is our comfort, our refuge
this cold, lightless spot where we don't have to say a word

Embouchure
by Kevin McNeilly
1997

from Embouchure (Nightwood Editions)

You get as good lip service as you give.
Chops will ever out the fake: the put-on
line never cut grace notes from a sloppy
wad of clams. Trued up, a well-flubbed phrase ought
to betray nothing more than lacquered horn,
the schwa blat of hand-polished, open brass.
Style takes care of its own; chops make the rep.
An off mouthpiece can cut you like shrapnel.
Know the hard limits of your instrument,
and work its righteous edges. Be the pro.
Then come the call, let rip a proper lick.
Commit.

waiting
by George Stanley
2013

from After Desire (New Star Books)

— I’m waiting for a poem.

— It’s like waiting for the bus. You know the bus will come.

— I don’t know the bus will come. All I know is there’s a sign here

that says ‘bus stop’.

— You may have to flag it down.

— I’m not flagging it down. I’m waiting for the poem that stops at this bus stop.