K. Valerie Connor Memorial Poetry Celebration

By: Maia Embuldeniya-Fernando

Riding on a dragon to a place so far away

Where the aroma of bacon drifts up my nose,

Where the sound of the ice-cream truck lingers all day,

Where the pure-green grass feels softer than moss.

I feel the breeze rip around my face

I swim in the azure blue ocean.

I taste the salty sea air

I run through the gritty sand

I can see shiny bubbles drifting through the sky

When suddenly I can hear crying.

What is wrong? I ask myself

But at that moment I am brought to the reality of this world.

My baby brother needs a diaper change.

By: Will Ouchterlony

When COVID ends and life’s more funny

This is how I’ll spend my money:

A Nintendo game, a chocolate bar,

Maybe LEGO in a jar.

New green shoes for a boy,

A big Godzilla action toy.

--Two tickets to see him vs. King Kong;

I’ve waited really, really long.

A trampoline and cotton candy

On a beach, someplace sandy.

When COVID ends and life’s more funny,

This is how I’ll spend my money.

3rd: Seasons

By: Zara Croft

Autumn, when leaves dance and twirl,

As the wind blows and whirls.

Many leaves of colour falling,

Dog tongues are no longer lolling,

Since now the summer is gone.

Winter sky, grey and dreary.

Sit by the fire, calm and weary.

In the evening, lay in bed.

On your pillow rests your head,

As spring approaches soon.

Spring mist and sun, rainy showers

Bring delicate, colourful springtime flowers.

Up in the trees, birds are chirping,

Awaiting upcoming summer.

Summer sun, hot and bright,

Damp and misty in the night.

Buzzing black and yellow bees,

Many people do agree

That summer is amazing.

By: Grace Maidment

you are dragging yourself to the lake

peeling your knees like carrots on the rocks &

fighting the water with your body &

in the winter, standing on the ice like it might not matter

if it was even there anymore except for the fact that

you’re supposed to be there looking for someone

& you,

i am looking for you

ii.

you said the last time you went to the ER

was supposed to be the last time

but you can walk now &

they might not let you go but it doesn’t matter

because you can make it to the hallway

where no one can touch you

& when you open the door

we will say look, it’s dawn

& i will say you are so strong but

you shouldn’t have had to be in the first place

iii.

let me tell you how there is more space in this world

than you have ever been allowed to consume

how, on the porch at midnight,

there have been clothes left for you

here is a field, come in

shower & scrub

your body can forget the lake

iv.

listen, you do not have to read their letters

& there is no rule for when to laugh or cry

sometimes things that shouldn’t touch love do

but there is more than this &

there is enough light to submerge yourself in

meaning that i have found you &

still i will keep looking

meaning that there is a safe place to love

& you will come to know more than ghosts

By: Bridget Barton

Dear scarf,

Or more importantly

Half scarf.

I wish I could help you see how beautiful you’d look when you were complete.

The way I was trying to make you.

But unfortunately,

It’s best if we unwind.

We must undo all the rows and stitches that made you into what I wanted.

I’m sure you’re hoping this is my way of saying, let’s start over, but I am a-frayed-knot.

It almost feels like the right scarf, wrong yarn.

We’ve spent endless evenings together, just me and you, working on how to make you fit me.

You came without instructions. You were hard to figure out.

Some told me you are not equipped for the weather I would soon experience.

Others told me to hang onto your last thread.

And without warning, we are here.

You, noticing you may not have enough in you to protect me from the disastrous seasons.

Me, realizing that if you tried, you’d stretch yourself too thin or essentially wear yourself out.

With that said, half-scarf, it’s time to make you whole again.

You can return to being a big old ball of yarn waiting for the right knitter.

And me, I think it is time to repair my own loose ends.

Love always, Bridget

By: Samuel Cooper

Out the back door--no shoes necessary--

I took off into the forest committing

To my mind, committing to solitude.

The organic cathedral corridors of

Medium sized conifers enveloping me

in their quiet solid embrace.

My face was hidden from all eyes.

My feet thumped down, cushioned

By the soft bed of dead orange needles

The occasional one pricking the calloused

Under belly of my young feet.

I keep going, hopping on one foot

to remove the organic spike.

The rhythm of my run interrupted.

I was nine.

My hair was long and wildly blowing

It got caught on the bare spines of the

Green and brown pine branches.

Reaching out in front of me in expansive

Rows of fourteen cent trees planted for profit.

I thwack and smack with sticks,

My chest heaving, muscles breathing hard,

I make pathways:

With each present strike I focus on now

I add to new worlds in mind’s eye.

Worlds of warm easy passion and green peace.

I imagined Star Wars and Luke’s lightsaber.

I imagined Indiana Jones and his whip.

I imagined secret maps.

I imagined surviving in a primitive time.

I imagined peace.

I imagined nothing at all.

By: Caitlin McKenzie

Seagulls are what we thought Jesus would be

Standing on the water and screaming

Following the masses from city to city

They raise up voices to rip the seams from

The coat of perceived confidence

The yellow thread of whatever we aren’t

They women I know wear the sky as a pattern

They fly into their own chests and it must feel good

To soar there, alone and beautiful

Maybe I am beautiful too with

My science fiction novels and cocktails alone

I’m always in my tiny performance

Separating the pen ink form the envelopes

Mail I’ve tried to send to

The people I think of more than I should

And the fear in it fouls the sky and the water

Turns my feathers grey and highlights my scowl lines

By: Lucy Bacon

Lisa smiles, glad she cannot smell the Windex

On the glass. But she's been enclosed so long, for goodness sake,

Who'd notice if she dared extend an index

Finger, and taste a little of the cake?

It's not the first attack, there was a rock, red paint, a coffee mug,

The acid was the worst; price of a life of fame.

But no-one's ever seen her flinch, nor yet a tiny shrug,

Smart, strong Renaissance wife, six children, no mere pretty dame.

Cake-man, he took some trouble in his effort to get close,

He felt his cause was just, his protests loud,

But La Gioconda smiled, like he'd offered her a rose,

Her unschooled bastard artist had done his subject proud.

For countless years the crowds have come; these days they take a pic

Smartphones held high, the Mona Lisa done.

Another group awaits; her glass surround is thick,

They get to see her smile, but then they gotta run.

She cannot choose but smile, she gets the gist,

She's not their type, no-one will try to make a tryst,

They love her, though tomorrow she'll have faded into mist,

A checkmark on their bucket list.

Lisa smiles, but sometimes thinks about her ex,

And endless days and nights, sans smell, or taste, or touch,

Or sex.

By: Angie Rose-Carnegie

I’ve become an organic gardener.

I watch my neighbours in woe.

Chemically fertilizing their soil,

Polluting the environment so.

The mulch I placed ‘round my seedlings

With the dampness started to rot.

The weeds continued to flourish

And the slugs just loved the spot!

The slugs were devouring my garden!

They showed no preference at all.

At the rate that they were eating

There’d be nothing to harvest come fall.

Armed with organic deterrents---

“The Best” ----the articles said.

I sprinkled the ashes and egg shells

Certain soon that the slugs would be dead.

It didn’t deter their munching—

Except from eating the weeds.

Instead of bodies bloated from hunger

They were bloated from vegetable feeds!

Still determined I wouldn’t use poisons

I put out dishes with beer.

With intentions of drowning the culprits

Hoping to end doubting “friends” jeers.

When early next morn’ I inspected

Not a drop of beer did I see.

Drunken slugs were all over the garden.

My “friends” are still laughing at me!