NewPoetry

Tolu Oloruntoba

Labourers begin each day
with a humble morning prayer of aspirin
to the algias that will come quickly.

As their doctor I tell them chronic,
I tell them renal and they laugh. Toxins are for
the living to worry about.

Your engine will not survive
but you’ll have fuel awhile, like motorcycling
Charons, who go where cars cannot,

have their sachets of gin. We, all of us need
something to survive our sentiences.
Concerned parties want a ban

on the anality of their suffering.
I—prefect of the 18-to-lifers in these min-security
burbs—urge them to shut their clangor.

I tell them many, when their hungers
are grown enough, happen upon religion,
or abomination, or the desolations between.

I say why exercise when we’ll all die
of cancer anyway. My doctor tells me cynic,
calls me nihlistic as I laugh.

But what’s the point of any of it?
I’ve needed hand cranks against catatonia.
I need my, our behaviour activated.

I need Lake Kivu’s pediatric coltans,
and blinker hoods so I do not see
the cleansing I depend upon.

Look, they are making poets again
by the megaton in the special hardship
it takes to grow them. West of there,

other innocents are on the sinking ship
of America. I do not enjoy their despair,
their disbelieving descent.

One pill makes you larger
than anxiety, another smaller
than shame can find.

And what do people
on the cusp of revolution need?
Public executions.

Or else ceramic automata
to unfold in the gut.
To push the gears by hand.

To find micro screws with little fingers.
To fit their tiny bodies in crawl spaces.
And scrape the rusty hinges.

I am expandable, or so the theory goes.
They can blow on the saxophone spouts
that move my arms.

Then they can recess
from my abyssal economy.
To use their own medicine.

Alice Burdick

Don’t trust these men, their violent pact
with arrogant power. A long walk
on a short pier. No full release,
hidden files of exhumed orbs.

Diamond-shaped unique experience.
Shambles, an absolute turn
down the wrong road.

Summer is growing low, glowing
through the trees. We stand on paths,
staring out at a flicking gleam.

Let’s contact the medium.
Love a conduit through grief
into a large crushing sky.

The message is a median
through cold shoulders
and false authority.

We hope for comfort
in the midst of a mass
of pointed human abuse.

We party because we
are alive, and a party
can be small and expansive.

We women especially lead,
as the fight in us exceeds
the weight of layered cruelty.

We shake hands before the riots,
a cordial agreement
that fire is a shared vision.

A harmonic bond in the strings
that bind our world. A song
into a bowl of songs.

Ryan Fitzpatrick

………“Competition is for losers.”
………………….—Peter Thiel

UH OH
ALL YOU NEED TO DO
IS GET A GROUP OF PEOPLE TOGETHER
AND YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT
IS A RECIPE FOR FASCIST SENTIMENT
WHEN WHATEVER IS A DESIRE FOR WANTING
WHATEVER TO DESIRE YOUR WANT
so
IF WE HOLD HANDS
OUR LAPTOPS HOLD HANDS
AND A SERIES OF HANDHOLDING PROTOCOLS
MEDIATE THE SHAPE OF OUR INTIMACIES
AS THEY GAIN COMPLEXITY
ABLE TO DO MORE WHATEVER
TO THE POINT THAT ANY SINGLE PAIRING
CAN’T KNOW MORE THAN THE BACK OF A HAND
YOU FORM FROM COMPANY INTO RELIGION
VAGUE TO THE POINT OF CENTRALIZED LIBERTY
FOR FREE OR AT A GREAT PRICE
HERE LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU
where
THE MERE TEXTURE OF AN EXPOSÉ
IS EVIDENCE OF SOMETHING REAL BAD
when
I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT
THE AESTHETIC DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN TECHNONATIONALISM
AND BORDERLESS SCIENCE
except
NUMBER ONE IN ACCELERATION RISK
HOLDING TIGHT TO AUTOMATA STUDIES
ITS ULTIMATE FAITH IN CONVECTIONISM
COMPRESSES INTELLIGENCE UNTIL
THE EGG CRACKS ITS CELESTIAL OOZE OUT
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN AT SCALE
FOOTBALL FIELD AN INADEQUATE YARDSTICK
WE MEASURE THE ASSEMBLING OOZE
IN HOLLOWED CAMPUSES
and
TURNING THE IRONY MILL ON SERIOUSLY
WON’T EVEN GET YOUR PARADISE BACK
IF YOU DON’T BALANCE YOUR COLUMNS
SIR CAN YOU SPARE SOME
CARNEGIE STYLE EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM
EXPLOIT MORE HEAVILY TO GIVE MORE
TO THOSE IN NEED THIS SEASON
and well
I DON’T NEED TO EVEN SAY ANYTHING
I JUST NEED TO PLAY THE VIDEO
RAGEBAIT IS A POLITICAL CONVECTION
SO LONG AS I CAN JUICE THE IDEOLOGAL FIELD
PINPOINT THE COORDINATES OF GREAT CRISIS
AND PLACE THE JOB BOARD THERE
so
EITHER WAY
LET ME EXPLOIT YOUR CARE
OR CARE ABOUT YOUR EXPLOITATION
but
IF YOU STACK THOSE REVANCHIST METAPHORS
INTO A KIND OF FAKE DEPTH
THAT’LL LEAD YOU TO THE KIND OF EXPERTISE
NEEDED TO LEAD A WELLNESS SEMINAR
MASQUERADING AS A MASTERCLASS
CAN’T DISMANTLE THE MASTERCLASS’S HOUSE
WITH THE MASTERCLASS’S TOOLS
EVEN BILLING IN THE NAME OF THE DIALECTIC
WON’T SAVE YOU FROM A HISTORY
SOFTENED FOR IMMEDIATION
and hey
BRUH
WHO AM I TO SAY THAT GOD
CAN’T GIVE A SOUL TO WHATEVER HE WANTS
when
INSIDE THE BUBBLE
SUPERALIGNMENT STANDS TO RAPTURE
WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR
but
OUTSIDE IN THE VERY REAL CITY
DO YOU FEEL SAFE ON THE TTC
WHEN THE BIKE LANES ARE DIGGING
IN THE GARDEN AGAIN
THE CITY COUNCILLOR BARKING
PROPERTY TAX DOWN BUS FARE UP
WHOOPS
NO MONEY FOR NOTHIN’
on the other hand
THAT’S THE WAY YOU DO IT
YOU WRITE THE EMAIL WITH THE GPT
besides
YOUR SUBLEASED EXPLOITATION FANTASY?
JUST PUT IT RIGHT IN MY WORKFLOW
NO WORK ONLY PAYCHEQUE LIFE HACK
IF I WORK 12 HOURS MY BOSS ONLY PAYS FOR 6
AND I ONLY PAY MY AI SUBCONTRACTOR FOR 2
AND THE AI OUTSOURCES TO VENEZUELA
THAT BALANCES OUT RIGHT?
OH NO
BOSS NOTICED WHERE THE VALUE COMES FROM
STARTS BOMBING FOR OIL AND RARE MINERALS
I HIDE INSIDE THE GCHAT WINDOW
RECITING SONNETS LIKE A ROSARY
YIPES!
CALL THE POETRY BYLAW OFFICER
ITERATIVELY DEPLOY THE OMNIPOLYCRISIS
ALL THE INFORMATION IS IN THE TASK
until
A FEATHERED HOPE
SHITS ON YOUR WINDSHIELD
SHITS AGAIN ON YOUR SHOULDER
WHILE YOU CLEAN SAID WINDSHIELD
IT’S ALL SO AUTO OPT IN
SO OPT IN SO IN AUTO
only
YOU FIND A REVISED HOPE IN GAS PRICES
IN THE WAY GAS PRICES SOMETIMES GO DOWN
BUT WHEN THEY GO UP ITS REVOLUTION TIME
YOU PAID FOR THE CONTENT
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO ACCESS IT
or
YOU PAID FOR THE CONSENT
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO ACCESSION IT
something like
AWARENESS IS THE NEW ACCESS DUH
HAVE YOU TRIED TAKING UP PAINTING
FLOWERS INTO THE FORM OF BRAND LOGOS
CRISISED INTO A CLOSER PRODUCTIVITY
I LOVE YOU ALTMAN TWEETED
IN HIS SIGNATURE LOWERCASE STYLE
OPENAI IS NOTHING WITHOUT ITS PEOPLE
GET YOUR SHADES OUT FOR THE FUTURE
where
THE LEFT THE LEFT I CALL IT THE LEFT
I SOMETIMES CALL IT THE RADICAL LEFT
THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS CALL IT
MARIE ANTOINETTE CORE
50 BILLIONAIRES FIGHTING OVER RENT MONEY
THAT’S WHAT CONVICTION LOOKS LIKE
AFTER ALL YOUR DAD CAN BE A BIG ADVOCATE
FOR SOCIAL HOUSING AND YOU CAN STILL
END UP WORKING
TO DESTROY THE PLANET FOR CAPITAL
AIN’T THAT RIGHT SAM?
CRISIS IS FOR CLOSERS
plus
AND YOU KNOW WHAT FUCK IT I’M SAYING IT
CAPITALISM IS BAD
except
WHAT ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS
ABOUT FLAGGING IN ASSEMBLY
only
THAT TOASTER WAS SO LITTLE
AND SO VERY BRAVE
WE’VE GOT TO HOLD IT TOGETHER
FOR THE SAKE OF THE KIDS
THE SAKE OF THE KIDS
AND THE SAKE OF THE NATION
and really
I GET MY NEWS FROM MY DAD
WHO GETS HIS NEWS FROM A FACEBOOK GROUP
FOR THE TOM GREEN OF POLITICAL MEDIA
PEDO HUNTING POOPOO MIC SPECTACLE
LOVE HUFFING OVER A GOOD TIRE FIRE
CAUGHT VERTICALLY
but
DID THEY FAKE THE PHOTO OF THE ARREST?
IS IT REAL?
DOES IT EVEN MATTER?
AFTER ALL AFTER ALL AFTER ALL
BEING AGAINST AI IS SPECIOUS
I MEAN SPECIESIST
IF YOU SUMMON SOME DEMONS
YOU HAVE TO GIVE THEM RIGHTS
AND I MEAN JUST THE DEMONS TO BE CLEAR
THE DEMONS GET FULL CITIZENSHIP
NO ONE ELSE
WE ONLY GIVE THE DEMONS LEGAL ENTRY
EVERYONE ELSE GETS DEPORTED
IS THAT CLEAR?
meaning
GOT IT BOSS
I MADE THE CHATBOT REAL SEXY
JUST THE WAY YOU LIKE IT
YUM YUM IT’S APPEALING
BUT WHAT IF WE MAKE THE CHATBOT
SOUND LIKE SCARLETT JOHANSSON
AND WHAT IF YOU COULD GRIND YOUR DICK
BETWEEN TWO RED HOT NVIDIA BOARDS
but maybe
THE DAY WILL COME WHEN THE CHATBOT SLOP
IS ACTUALLY COMING FROM A GUY IN NIGERIA
TYPING INCHES FROM HIS SLEEPING FAMILY
MAYBE THAT DAY IS TODAY
especially given
I JUST WANT THE OIL
AND I JUST WANT THE GOLD
AND I JUST WANT YOUR ATTENTION
and in the end
EVERYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT
LIKE REALLY CARE ABOUT
WAS MADE BY HAND THEREFORE
YOU’LL REALLY HAVE TO LEARN TO NOT CARE
IF YOU WANT TO FIND VALUE IN THIS POEM
SO GO AHEAD DUMP THIS POEM INTO
WHATEVER DATA SWAMP IS NEARBY
I’LL WAIT

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike

Sunset is an afterglow of pink,
lingering around you
on the porch, lingering.

The arrowhead flight
of geese fades
into the sky.

A coil of yarn, distance
untangles
in your mind.

Every holiday
is a longing.

You count time as beads,
hold desire between both palms,
hold desire like a glass of beer.

You remember
that woman on TV,
aged by dust–
…………….a rare insect –
…………………………crawling out
…………………………………from the cranny, from the ruin
……………………………………………that once was her house,
only after the bombers fall quiet.

You remember,
because somewhere out there
someone –
someone will no longer have
a span of soil
to call home.

Fawn Parker

First light
the cup tips

Beet jelly in a basin

Six hour ache
the force of a turn

A sack slung over the back

The hurting corridor
wrung with unease

The lost place

Unmeasured orbit
the rot in the house

Under stone, paper
a diagram demonstrating turbulence

The concept of health

Forward momentum
the jittering spirit

A seed suspended in the air

Ben Robinson

My offices are not so austere.

They consist mostly of emptying

the dishwasher before my sons wake,

ensuring a reliable supply

of quick oats and cucumbers.

My father’s was a literal office

where I separated perforated

triplicate billing forms

for a dime a sheet.

The one I was meant to

help move him into but fled

instead with Mike C,

concussed myself skating down

the steepest hill in the Creek,

screaming at the woman who

offered an ambulance after

watching me rise from the asphalt

like some early man.

Loping back to Unit 207,

even my battered brain knew

it contained gauze

and a deft hand, a voice

willing each time I regained

consciousness

to utter the words,

No, you will not die.

Richard Greene

— August 2024 —

I was well enough to come south again

and drive through rustbelt states, their terrain

of disenchantment, among the smokestacks

spewing particulates, high-strung catwalks

over steel mills. Detroit’s tearing down

the Packard Plant no one wanted to own

but now demolition too has gone wrong.

Anyone could take those ruins for a song.

What right have I to talk of falling Rome?

I’m a foreigner with privileges. My home

is north and east, but who’s ever away

from America? Its long election day

will happen in my living room, my phone,

my laptop. These days no one lives alone  ̶

we are all inhabited by money

and meanings the empire made. My journey

just to see an old friend in Missouri

is like a falling into history.

I suppose Yeats would have spoken of gyres,

an age grown terrible as it expires.

*

But is this my last time past the border?

I fear a dirty war, and where murder

has been private, the state will take a hand.

There’s a binder somewhere, a campaign planned,

orders drafted for the caudillo’s pen.

They have said as much. If you have spoken

out loud or read strange books that are outlawed,

or your papers are just a little flawed,

they may take you. Those kids who held up signs

about Gaza may stand tearful in long lines

awaiting their own disappearances.

I see the polls but don’t like the chances,

speak hopefully but fear it’ll all go wrong.

Deaths may be for as little as a song  ̶

it happened to Victor Jara. So long

ago, in an east Toronto kitchen

where the guests were Latin American

I met two brave hopeless Guatemalans

seeking help from churches and unions

for human rights back home, Michael Czerny’s

friends, people he’d met on his journeys

into the killing grounds. One man had lost

his brother to the squads  ̶  the usual cost

of speaking out of turn in a lawless place.

Young as I was, I could see in his face,

with everything else he’d had to endure,

the anticipation of death – I’m sure

it came. This war too may come with a touch

upon the shoulder. They have said as much.

Nicole Haldoupis

She said, Unsettle me. I asked her to pass me the plates from the living room so I can wash them up for later. She said, Take me by the hand and show me tomorrow. You always know exactly what I want to see. I said, Hold on a second while I clean my crumb-covered counter—if you want to help that would be lovely, I think I could use backup. She said, Tell me what you need, and tell me the truth. A cup of coffee, and something else, like that dog outside, barking at Dominion, needs untying so she can leap into the lake. You need to be rattled. I said, Hand me that dishrag so I can finish up in here.

Gregory Betts

let us, you and I,
rename ourselves loneliness

for loneliness looks at loneliness
and loses itself in loneliness

struggling to say and speak
loneliness in loneliness
loneliness and loneliness

when loneliness lies down
with loneliness
it wakes partial
a lone a line a less

for loneliness needs and breeds
loneliness, like love, hate, fear
all the broken words

that bridge
loneliness to loneliness

Jessica Lee McMillan

you held one of the first CDs and said

this is the future

and the mirrored finish caught our faces

through a veil of shifting rainbows,

light bouncing from billions

of unseen indents

—light interference in a finite spiral

as if to say there are limits

to how many times a heart can beat

as sounds rise and fade

as we move from dawn to dawn

—a day, a surface of interrupted rays—

to the outer edge, then dark

in the future, when you’re hovering above,

you’ll see me in the tracks

you burned for me,

in the songs as they spin

into my daily rotation—

rays reflecting

off a round landscape

—counterclockwise,

spiralling from the inside out

as if rewinding time,

as if each rotation

is an indefinite source of light

Rachelle-Anne Lawka

Medusa said, you are tragedy—a single swanlike neck bent to the shape
of your bodies shared degenerative slithering, your mother’s varicose veins,
spider-web thin on the fisheye of your body’s blunt Humber River, but
Medusa said, you are clear flesh—translucent and wet

a caul of semi-permanent syntax tattooed across the skin
of your grandmothers’ shared Bloor West Village, but I said, I am a number
3.1415926535—no, not that number, I am serpentine—yes, I am snakes
and ladders my death-win, a version of you: Cobra-headed,

puckered and proud, me the face of a simulated-snake-dog, only
I am teeth: box-cutter fangs, a food processor pulverising where my gums
should be, but Medusa said, you are Pegasus. Sylphlike-spine, thirty-six
feathers light of your father’s eyes. The truth is this: I am his straw

-boned, wood-tongued, sculpted stone-house stuck in a forest
of beheaded bodies. I am throw away: my disjointed killing, not
dying, I am marvel at: how many layers of shed skin can I wear
before our shared grief finally grows bones. I am

how many gallons of bloodied concrete and black tar can someone
swallow and purge and rub in the raw of their man-made-wound
before they blind themselves to another year’s regurgitated hurt
—the answer is: in 555 days I am dusk-dawn with a hint of chain-smoked

Gods, I am Poseidon-ravine-green—never mind that, I am actually
Flowerpot-Island-green, man’s mulched ocean. I am a tethered rope
caught against the hull of your gaze, I am your gaze entombed
in a bottle on the beach of your ancestors’ choked down, rattlesnake-

mistakes. I am a cork-cap to the gap of your missing wisdom
tooth. A blood-clot to my own dry-socket. I am the gnawed, gangrene-leg
of every 68 seconds—I am a bowel. No, I am howl, I am the swollen belly
of night deshelled, yolk, the dream of wolves sauntering

beneath my pulled-out scales. I am teeth: my mother’s, my grandmother’s,
my own. I am Father’s soggy silicone dentures yanked from the jowls
of ancient wolves. I am your neck: soft-bellied, pale. I am a dog—no, I am
your Cobra-headed-dog stuck between Medusa’s Bloor-West ankles.

Elizabeth Pszczolko

You didn’t know
til the last minute
………..they would
………..stop your heart.

I imagined an engine
lifted with block and tackle
………..but no, rather
………..a bird, window-stunned
………..in your opened chest.

You did not see
the sharp instruments
………..and hands, so many
………..hands, schooled
………..in this new tailoring.

Once done, they took what was left of your blood
in the machine
………..and gave it back to you
………..in a bag
………..dark as a ripe plum.

For your healing
………..sun through tall windows
………..a purring drainage pump
………..drugs to keep your heart
………..from drowning.

You have been kept here
………..by metal and glass
………..black thread.

You have come home with all your angers
and sorrows in place
………..and here we work
………..softening the scars.

*in response to Joanna Klink’s “The Graves…Wind for your sickness”

Jennifer May Newhook

What about
that hazy collection
of green sparks

by the brick
chimney
that night

Or the grey
glimmer of sand
at my fingertips

just now

What about
the disappearing saw?

What about
the reappearing knife.

Did you see
a white hand
coming down  . . .

or the white man
crawling up?

Where are my glasses?!
I can’t see!!

Dat man
all white
like a snowman

he climbing up  . . . 

Julia Polyck-O’Neill

different garments on her naked
body multiple unnamed personas
one of the most significant acts of
art in the century
we are very separate, he argued
well yeah
well how do you describe performance
I work in performance as a form of diplomacy
most things people don’t know what I’m doing
my hands connect to my eyes like a complicated
computer
there is a tendency to be absorbed in my own life
only after she didn’t exist anymore
sometimes I have been unaware of what happened
as the performance continued I became more
depressed
on behalf of the institute
she used performance to convey the trauma
I think it was stolen
I think I want to free myself of the past
it is a mask or was
she warned of the dangers of hiding from the past so
I wear the past like a uniform
I appreciate the functionality of a long coat
I think deeply about praxis in general
why do I try to push a monolith
I am remembering a particular conversation
my body immersed in a bath and bathed in cheap
oils
it’s not just an idea
there is so much pressure
mum has regulations and we followed them
it is usually about the power
nakedness has always been there throughout history

Eric Schmaltz

‘My weight is my love; I am borne by it
wherever I am borne’
– St. Augustine

my lungs brimmed
in my first memory,

chlorinated & sodden I sunk
to the bottom of the pool.

it was no other occasion
than friendship’s cusp,

a longing to be accepted
at three, maybe four,

by him, his grandfather,
maybe his mother, the early blue

below, the sky, the clouds,
cirrus, maybe cumulus,

& the concrete’s scrape
on my callow knees.

we pulled the cushions, piled
in the living room, maybe the kitchen,

& laid them by the poolside.
I remember the sun but no heat, maybe.

I didn’t confess
that I could not

swim. I stepped toward
the pool’s limit

it welcomed me in
my purity, weighted

by my longing, by
virtue of my lie

Kate Siklosi

Luigi Sposato

First, you walk barefoot on salted snow until the cardiac
muscle, stuffed behind the lips of fat chambering
your own heart, beats you senseless. Only when your syllables
are slurred can we speak to the bump-bump rumbles
of your gut, shining with slick grease dripping from the overhang.

Now, you’ve grafted new mouths to your palms so you can
feed beside the ibis, gnawing at its own feathers with black eyes
fixated on the abyss—the ibis—another wading form
that promises silence, that promises words stitched in skin
to close a billion holes that rose from a thousand far-off colts.

You can taste the feathers; you see them. Black feathers
adorning the hooves clattering on metal plates against the pokeweed.
You suckle at the juice the sable stallion churns for you. Somewhere,
the pokeweed. Elsewhere, the skull. But here. Here. Black wine.
Featherless ibis—you—where have you spoken the difficult syllables?

Ben Ladouceur

A young poet once told me, you get
one exclamation mark your whole career. Twenty years
passed and still

his name is not very known. Each morning, all summer,
I write the first line
of a different ode; together the lines tell a story

about suffering
the way a dull axe tells a story about septicemia.
Capably. The young poet

loved me
in order to make a different man suffer.
For a countryside summer, the different man suffered,

and wrote the worst poems of any of us,
his one exclamation mark
rotting like mutton in his pocket.

I no longer know these men
but when they come across the last and only exclamation
mark of my career,

I know they will interpret it as scorekeeper would
at the diamond. Interchangeable
with an asterisk. Great defensive play.

EC Daley

Flesh & blood is all about survival.

Not so the inorganic:

it cleaves, slips,
………..folds;

rounded down,
……………..it tumbles
…………………….wherever gravity and currents
determine.

∞

Walk the beaches
of the hard North Atlantic,

you’ll begin to understand.

The finest grains of sand
are the most eroded.

∞

Beyond any human
………………construct of time

each becomes invisible,
elemental,

charged
…………with the capacity to form bonds.

Guy Gavriel Kay

I was tired and she was beautiful.
Whichever way the wind blew
It brought the scent of her to me.
Not a spell I knew to cast. It was hers.
The leaves were green, yellow,
Russet, red — autumn. Their sound
Became her name. Also a spell not mine.
I never taught her that. Nimue, Vivian…
The name changed, remained hers. Her.
She fed me cherries from a stone bowl.
Or from her mouth, her lips.
I think it was autumn, I should say:
From the leaves, that memory, you see.
I am even more tired now than I was then.
She left me here a long time ago.