SurVision Magazine

Karma


He dreamed of feathers

Scarlet red
Glossy black 
Blazing white

Of birds stacked so high
Despite their singularity 

They became an otherness
In their massive uniformity

Fifteen feet
Beak to talon

They say work
For the whole

The love you share

Builds a tower
Changing seven

Broken and dying trees
To parrot and penguin

Generosity fashions a chain
With a simple act of service

Hearts can bloom here
Even in this bare
And naked ground

The whoosh
Of their wings
Is silenced

By their recognition
Of something
So much bigger than themselves

This sequence of life built
In this bleak landscape

A facsimile of jungle
And arctic tundra

Through the creation
Of a panoply of colours
Blending as one

They become a frieze
 
And then they release their pose
Individually and plainly marked

Flyers
Burst like confetti
Into the grey sky

Leaving a memory
Of brilliant silhouette
And form




Film Noir


She stood irrefutably calm between
the couple's cobalt auras
sure of their impermeable boundaries.

He didn't cover her
gleaming proclamation
of nakedness

with his jacket,
just drank coffee –

as if a prodigal daughter
shone less than the son.

The wife was unsure of herself,
couldn't identify her confusion

even refused to give eye contact
to the steely representation
so brazenly gleaming in the night.

Not someone
The Mrs.
or the old man

could reckon with
in their constricted bodies.

He looks away
as if this woman

will disappear too.

leave him and his wife
just standing on the verge

of asking for a glass of water,
or saying don't walk so close

 to my thick, impenetrable borders.

Because of this feminine intrusion,
 
they must now both 
witness
and  proclaim.

She stands without judgement.

They are nailed to the floor
by their inability to cast a shadow,

or exclaim their humanity
in any given way.





The Choice


Someday I'll climb a golden ladder
to raise me up from the muck
oozing into our earth, sea and sky.

One that will carry me above
the black tar bursting
like pus over our land.

Daisies and fish are obliterated
because of human omnipotence.

Where do we go
in the bluster of winter
when the sun can't shine,
blocked by the mantle
of pollution and apathy?

Write your wishes
to our land in blue.

Fill up the sky
with fierce oaths
to end this battle with greed.

Hear the swift call
of the earth
stripped bare of purity.

I'm balanced at the top now.
Afraid and grieving.

The rain mixes with poison 
falls heavily into the dying
lakes and streams.

Let the polar bear
and Monarch butterfly
take back the long night.

Say no to whim
and stop

the desecration
we have all fashioned

from pointless desire.




Judith Neale is a Canadian poet, mentor, educator, opera singer and spoken word performer. She has published six collections of her poetry, including A Quiet Coming of Light (Leaf Press, 2014), Splendid in its Silence, which won the SPM Publications (London) Poetry Book Competition and was published in April 2017, and Cantata in Two Voices (Ekstasis Editions, 2018; with Bonnie Nish). A new collection, A Blooming, is due from Ekstasis Editions later in 2019. She has also published her short stories and has been a finalist for The Pat Lowther award. Her poems were shortlisted for the Gregory O'Donoghue Poetry Prize in Ireland.