​Don’t tell me about the stadium lights,
tell me about the grass.
 
Put on your shoes
the train doesn’t run there anymore
the streets gleam like linseed oil.
 
When my throat closed,
I couldn’t eat the plates of cookies or the casseroles
and I had no way of using all those cut flowers.
 
Don’t tell me about the stadium lights –
tell me about the parking spaces
and the leaning trees
and the lying down
on the other side of the bayou, where the on-ramp
bends to meet the interstate.

Previously published in Passager

​Heavily discounted
Trying to get rid of it
Has a beautiful smile
          All the while
Going through sadness
Laughs at your jokes
          Never pokes
Fun at your opinions
Always keeps the peace
          Never speaks
Out of turn
A true blank face
          Can’t trace
Its own concerns
Great for parties
Crowd pleaser for sure
Mask for sale
DM for details

1. 
I looked for The Truth in every face 
               dug into eye sockets and soft flesh 
                            to Know Things and                           Be A Good Person and                          Fall In Love 
until the world was horrific 
               and still incomprehensible 
               and my fingers and the faces fell apart 

2. 
Some days I'm wise to unquantifiable edges 
               trace a plane of someone else 
                            fiingers through hair I hold my peace 
                            when nothing catches 
my own heartbeat quiets 
                when I stop watching strangers breathe 

3. 
The world rockets past and I stand with aching mind 
                but the muffled 
                                             blurriness… 
with broken hands I resign myself to 
                eyes-half-open wisdom 
                           true and                                               beautiful and                           thuddingly indistinct 
​

The chaos of the world will never cease
beating at our sanity through the nights and days.
Within ourselves is where we look for peace
 
to face the scorn, the not-good-enoughs, the hate
piled onto us for rainbows and cultures and races--
the chaos of the world will never cease
 
to amaze me, even though I come late
to this land. We’re starting over, finding the way
within ourselves. It’s where we look for peace
 
in the midst of difference, find a fate
better than the death of our voices, when we pray away
the chaos of the world that will never cease,
 
but we can cease to invoke chaos. Set straight
the haters, the naysayers, and tell them, maybe today,
within ourselves is where we look for peace
 
instead of broken pieces, om mani padme hum the irate
into Zen, my shouts into smiles, your nays into yays.
The chaos of the world will never cease,
but within ourselves is where we can finally look for peace.

I was there when it was just you and me in a small apartment.
I had six beautiful kittens there.
 
I was there when you married.
I was there when your first baby was born.
I was there when that baby started talking.
Her first word was my name.
 
I was there when you moved to a new city.
I was there when your next baby was born.
She loved me, too.
I was there when your little ones started school.
 
I was there for chicken pox.
I was there for piano practice.
I was there for birthdays.
I was there when those kids became teenagers.
 
I was there when you brought another cat into my home.
What were you thinking? 
 
I'm slower now, especially on stairs.
I'm stiffer when I walk.
I don’t like to be carried.
 
I'm 20 years old now.
You say I’m elegant and wise.
 
I am checked on and talked to throughout the day.
You bring my food and water dishes beside my basket.
 
My time is coming.
I feel your sadness.
I feel your love.
 
You were with me when I had my kittens.
You were with me when I passed away.
 
I was cremated.
I was placed in a little carved box with my name.
You talk about me and you will remember me always.
What an honour,
 
to be the first of many.

About Barbara J. Rodrigues
​I am a retired mental health therapist who loves reading, writing, live theatre and travelling the world. Cats have always been a very important part of my life.

It is another world. 

The snow lying along the  
golden brown branch of the cherry tree. 
Luxuriates, stretches like Pippen   
upon the woven red, purple, green throw  
on the distressed leather couch.  
Warm colors lure us like  
fire in the pizza oven. 

She casually tosses split firewood into the Brick Oven,  
making coals, cooking pizza layered with cheese, tomato, sausage.  
A human circle of pizza dough lopsided and laden  
heavy with hot bubbling flavors  
baked into each other joined by heat,  
delivered by a guy in biker clothes and dark glasses  
to tiny tables, crowded bums almost knocking stuff off. 
Santa comes with a small plate of  foil wrapped chocolate,  
panna cotta, moist and soft in the mouth with our $4 half pint lattes  

He comes twice a week texts a photo of the lasagna to his Nona.  
The old guys crowd around the tables talking  
like they own the place.  
The girl with a wine red ponytail squeezes  
her tight jeans between the tables,  
the black haired Pizza Priestess  
presides in Italian mystery  
over the mouth of the oven  
delivering and receiving.  

I have walked onto a set,  
a play or sitcom. 
Italians, South Asians, Africans, 
olives, flowers, sourdough bread,  
baguettes, vinegars, coffees.  
Pasta fresh on Friday afternoons,  
coiled in nests one nest per person,  
with homemade pasta sauce 
special because of the sugar and fennel seeds.  
​
To Marco, whose office is the table by the window,  
I say, you should know I bring all my friends here. 
To me whose spot looks directly into the fire, 
he says, you should know I love you.

My body was brimming with a sanctified light —  
like a fluid overflowing from the basins of my skin.  
The organic vessel which tried to contain me was now turning inward,  
and as a consequence, a collision had occurred between the flesh and the soul.  
The somatic torrents brought my consciousness to its knees; it pleaded helplessly, then  
in brief and sudden minutes washed away into a thousand seas.

There was no longer any distinguishing movement which I could sense with any ounce of 
clarity. The human form ceased to coexist with this new posthuman id. 

There was no description beyond one word, "amalgamation," which could define my 
predicament. An amalgamation of ecstasy and architectural vanity, that is.  
The cornucopia of techno and MDMA was felt with immense proclivity.  
It was this fission of currents which pushed me beyond my human limits —  
becoming what no one else could conquer, namely posthumanity.

However, a suddenness struck me in those moments of bliss;  
a tension was present between the serenity and the momentum of our spectacle’s trance.

It was out of this daze from which I glanced towards my communal associates.  
The herd all stood bowing in reverence, in deception, and in coordination.  
We were all just simple automatons.  
And so it was made clear: the libido always directs the masses towards praise.

Libido in modernity is no different than the libido of antiquity; 
the only freshness was its use of emptiness to scorch the world with electronica & dance. 

Such a dancing ritual, with a pagan nature, allowed the voice of one to free itself.  
For the night was now juxtaposed against the honest purity of the day.  
This was the sight I identified as Dionysus’ only remaining relic.  
The moral truth I found was that of celebration, Eros, and a pleasant indifference towards 
that which was good and evil. 

I had felt Dionysus mix my ego against the vacuum of insanity,  
watching the one overcome the many. 

It was this maximizing effort to reduce every multiplicity to a mere excess which allowed 
my soul to breathe; 
it was a felt pleasantry of reverberations against the moral tables of our day. And thus,  
in the wake of shattering those falsified idols, new truths were birthed in sonic light.  
It was as if the astronomical twilight ached through our dances. 

This was a release that no ascetic could reach;  
only us hedonists could taste it for the briefest of moments. 

And in order to indulge the moment, we drank Rumi’s wine, bringing a new God to our eyes!  
This new god was beyond man, for no man could see what I saw that night.  
I saw a posthumanist vitality that only the drugs could reach —  
partitioning away my ego, I met all I had wished to be. 

Yet,  
after the jungle rave had ended, there was no residue left to salvage. 
I had lost my profundity, and so I was forced to realize,  
when I awoke the following morning, the stupor clouding my mind would disappear.  
I began to understand that only in brief, fleeting seconds does the nihilist savor his time. 

Grief kicked open the door, he’d been smoking again
—the smell of my father at lunchtime—shouted scotch!
Stunts your growth, he warned,
or was that caffeine? Anyway
 
he shouted because he was short. Please,
don’t tell him that to his face--
Grief throws a pretty good punch.
 
Disappointment, elbows on the bar,
stirred the pink umbrella in her drink, thinking
orange juice from a can, and no Malibu rum,
but what did I expect from a place like this?
 
Hope turned from the jukebox,
Katrina & the Waves, the twenty-second time
today, another bag of loonies
and walking on sunshine.
 
Bobbed back to the barstool,
getting up is getting harder
she sank as Grief gestured
for another round.
 
Make it three he growled,
and they raised their glasses.
 
To what are we drinking? Disappointment
peered from under the brim
of her Mother’s hat.
 
Grief grunted, the lump in his gullet
made space for Hope
who cleared her throat.
 
To the future? she waited…
 
and they nodded and clinked--
to the future! They’d all drink to that.
  
Appeared in issue 163 The New Quarterly

About Kerrie Penney
Kerrie's words have appeared in The New Quarterly, Pinhole Poetry, Funny Pearls UK, the YYC Poet Laureate project This Might Help and the Globe and Mail. She is currently working on a book length manuscript mapping the road to crone, and is the creator of the Secret Heart Broadcasting podcast.

​The rumble of towels turning
while the washing machine
hums its heavy work.
 
The Saturday soundtrack
as beyond, life moves slowly
with scarves and toques
pulled tight--
my windows still frosty.
 
The cat sleeps next to me
her snores
another melody;
 
I stay quiet
enjoying the concerto,
letting my coffee
go cold.

About Theodora Sterling
​Theodora “Theo” Sterling (she/her) is a queer writer from Alberta who always carries a fountain pen and journal everywhere she goes. Her work has appeared in WestWord Magazine, Funicular, FEELS Zine, and elsewhere. She occasionally posts poems (and cat pictures) at @CupsOfSilver on Instagram.

There is a sudden
shift, like a tear in the
universe. Something

unsettling, the fabric
has been torn, ripped in half.
Good versus evil.

Throughout time, there have
always been winners and
losers. Don't the victors

write the stories. There is a
heaviness, like darkness
has come. Light has faded

It's a paradigm shift,
upending the values we
hold dear. Dreams deferred.

Blood has been spilled in
the name of political
jargon. Spilled onto

the streets, overflowing
fountain like Caesar's dream.
Brutus silencing

his friend in the name
of glory. Hate is a disease.
We must not fight hate

with hate- although the
desire is strong. Humans
are not perfect.

We cry, fight back, scream
into the void. Who will hear
our cry for freedom?

Who will hear our heart
beating, the love emanating,
vibrating sounds of

helplessness? We want
things to be easy, for others
to give us the answer.

But life is a mystery,
and we don't know all the
answers to fight it.

We just know that we
can't sustain the energy
to hate each other.

How exhausting is
the struggle for peace. We
try to reach for a

Solution. It has
always been within us to
change. To shift our mind

to something more
desirable. To something
greater than ourselves.

We can love each other,
love an enemy, love instead

of Hate.

Love will always
overshadow hate.

It's
stronger
within us.

We just

have to
​
Believe.