Speaking VolumesWhen it grabs you,poetry is a bookon a pinhead:pricking your soul,scratching your mind,dancing in your brain.Cheating Angel The wing of a soultipped the sunthat tilted the earth.The...

BLACK AND BLUEMaybe, it is a colourtwo shades darker thangrief black. It hasa blue cast to it.It goes through the hues:possibly; perhaps a littledeeper than black – and,perhaps; possibly a taddeeper...

Sampierdarena, 1990Do you sometimes remember the night you were born?Rosalba was our gynaecologist of choice.She smoked incessantly, little flickerings of ashtransforming her consulting room into a...

Mike Montreuil writes "The following was written in response to Andrea Porter's Coniston.  You'll see why once you start reading it..."CONISTON, ONTARIO, CANADA1.I pass byon my way to...

IN HIS BEARD A COLLECTION OF SWEET BREADOn the emergency roomtable a bearded manbeing examined wasfound with ants in his beard.Each ant carried crumbs of sweetbread, which they could notenjoy...

we should all be cynicsI'm surrounded byidiot optimistscynical is the onlyway to be.Mom says shemisses someonesaying, "I love you."I told herdon't miss it,they're always lyingshe laughed...

RumoursThey said she was a witch –The old woman at number forty-nine,So we never played ball near her houseOr chased her cat.The crowd outside the chip shopMoved when she appeared,She never said...

Coniston*1. The Ferry The child on his father’s lapreaches out, touches the water.He trails a finger, sucks it.It tastes of old rain, he says.It tastes of not the sea, deep,slowness, town scouts...

FULLNESSSomething breathingrises, falls, tides pulled by sentiencewisdomher lipsparted as if beginningspeechor receiving toucha song playsacross the empty fieldsbreaks like brookingson the way to...

On the first night of the dark moonIn Bolton,In a basement,In a tall black room with a hard black floorI listened,To a woman,To a tall dark haired woman dressed all in blackReading poems,Long dark...