Linda King


running out of punishments


you make appropriate concessions but will not forgive
that gentle thief of anticipation who brings old hurts to sell
they are packaged like knock-off sunglasses and handbags
on the pavement of canal street and you are made to choose
the door that opens onto a crop of metaphors in sleeping green
at the three corners the past will break your heart show you
how small you were with that target on your back among the
collective unknown a sparkle pure in a multitude of sameness
giving persuasive testimony meant for all manner of survivors
the saints of desperate causes are the few remaining ghosts
who offer their pile of bleached bones to block out the truth



losing compass north

you set your watch to prepositions    reverse your philosophy
about bleeding the verbs    a dull history inside the flames
no words on the body but the particle theory’s halting
the language of authority    the words burn sideways
language circles the wagons in a network of small
sentences    the hydro wire a necklace of crows
with no known recourse for that waiting field



dark blue double down


like random gift giving of nouns in one syllable praise

                interior contents are listed in prime numbers

                                                           they may have shifted


all of this is too much of a blessing
 
       you will need currency reports

                                   before nightfall


                                 the ability to decipher the high-water mark of word making


gather the words from the clearing house

               they will not discount themselves


                                                                                                                put that down to the dilemma of language

                                                                                                                where true or false conjugates every verb

and persuasive phenomena are framed in time

                   like calendar box particulars

Linda King is the author of Dream Street Details and Reality Wayfarers, published by Shoe Music Press. Her most recent collection – No Dimes for the Dancing Gypsies – was just released by BlazeVox Books. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals in Canada and internationally…Lumina, Gargoyle, Fourteen Hills, The Toronto Quarterly, Existere, Room, Envoy….

She lives and writes on the beautiful Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada.
 
 
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