NONE OF THIS IS A METAPHOR FOR ANYTHING
 
In the car I traced the power lines with my fingers
and hopped over the poles like little toads
real little jumpers like the ones we collected together
before the marsh was condos
that must’ve been 25 years ago today
 
it feels longer
 
we were born under the high watermark
and knew what that meant
 
how many metaphors do you need to make sense of a dying planet?
at least one more? at least one more
 
nothing gets to the point I’m trying to make,
there is no such thing as real sacrifice anymore
the difference between fake blood and real blood
is roughly how much we’ll pay for it

COLONY COLLAPSE
 
Survivors crawl across
withered black comb, invisible
 
apocalypse, sisters wandering
lost in the corn fields, seduced
 
by filaments of silk, the toxic
pollen. Scooping up death--
 
no distinction between friend
and foe, all obliterated
 
in service of unblemished
fields, poisoned bees
 
littering the ground.
The low hum of welcome
 
washed into air,
torn apart by a breeze.
 
Sent down streams
like the limbs of Orpheus;
 
the queen perched on her throne,
wondering who will come to feed her.
 
Regal head tilting patiently,
big eyes surveying the decay. Where
 
is her long train, her cloak
of swarming bodies,
 
tight as tapestry? Gone,
all gone. Her own body
 
meaningless without them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

“Colony Collapse” has been published in a previous version in Hamilton Arts and Letters  and in Under the Gamma Camera ​ (Gaspereau, 2019).

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I LAID THE EARTH'S FOUNDATION?
 
at the heart of garbage
the -away of the throw-away
circling us in:
The desert of the real
            a mouse click away
crack turn schism
salt to melt all winters away
 
where were you when I laid the Earth’s foundation?
you ask
and I build Arks for when Noah comes back

​Khashayar Mohammadi is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer, Translator and Photographer. He is the author of poetry Chapbooks Moe’s Skin by ZED press 2018, Dear Kestrel by knife | fork | book 2019 and Solitude is an Acrobatic Act by above/ground press 2020. His debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press.

VANCOUVER SEAWALL, THIRD BENCH FROM THE WATER 
 
let there be a word for how it feels      to stand
waist-deep in your tide         let it be queer    
as in landfall      as in the constellation of sand on
a lover’s elbow or the lie      that this land could be
owned or queer      as in the way time arranges
the earth    into wrinkles the mountain     knows
no monument can stand longer than the mountain    
already has    let there be language for the unceded
shore yielding    pieces of itself to the outbound
ocean     call it love    without ownership call it
the skin between    my hands and your sand and
her collarbone unpinned   call it queer as in
grace comes   from letting go of what was
never ours         to keep in the first place



Previously published in haunt, Damaged Goods Press (2018).

CLIMATE CASCADE

When a crow chases
an eagle, she’s no crisis
but confidence. Game.
 
Only thirty years
left for chinook salmon. How
many for us? Same
 
river each time you
step in and soak. Hear that long
high note on a passing
 
car stereo. Prime
a pump with your own water.
Skunk cabbage is strong
 
enough to wake bears.
The labyrinth pulls grief's
long impacted tooth.
 
Inland rainforest. 
These gigantic trees have birds
I know. And won’t ever.
 

Tanis MacDonald is the author of six books of poetry and essays, and a co-editor of GUSH: menstrual manifestos for our times. She lives on the Haldimand Tract, on traditional territories of the Attawandaron, Anishnaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. Recent work has appeared in Understorey, Minola Review, and Prairie Fire. 


Statement:
It takes guts to be here, right here, in the violence of the 21st century, dealing with the legacy of the violence of the 20th century. It takes guts to feel toxicity splash up against you and to say, I will name it as I will walk into the teeming world that teems a little less every day. It's not easy but it is right in front of us if we look.

AT THE END OF DAYS

“At the End of Days” is a series of photos which documents evidence of a forthcoming apocalypse. In each photo something prized by humans has been thrown away. In some cases, nature intervenes by trying to reclaim its territory, vines covering an old car, rust on metal gears left in The snow, a leaf on an old chair. Lastly, there are sunflowers picked and placed in an LCBO bag, then left in the compost heap. All of these images show a disregard for nature, a prioritizing of humans over nature instead of seeing that humans are part of nature, and our treatment of nature has consequences on the life of the planet and the continued existence of humanity.

​LAWSON ROY’S PINION ON SYN-THETIC POLYMERS
 
 
Pity the bottom feeders! Lobster might look mighty
but their numbers’ll drop faster than lead cod jigs.
The clams n mussels lap up that nasty plastic crap
drifts cross bottom. Nothin lobster likes more
 
than a big feed of clams n mussels.
I don’t differ—’d rather clams than lobster
any day of the week. Was just up the Dairy Treat
laid into a fine mess all fried up with French fries.
 
Tasted the finest kind, if bites were a tad rubbery.
Looked out cross the lot, saw a feathered ruckus
floatin on the garbage barrel’s overflow
—stupid gull, plastic fork stuck bent in its beak
 
an onion ring ringin its neck.
I would’ve pulled that fork outta there
so ol greedy-guts crazy-head could enjoy its fried treat
but you think that damned bird would sit still?
 
 
                                       * * *
 
A damn sin, the trash the tide heaps on the beach.
Out walkin, you come cross banged-up buoys or bits
mangled traps, trap tags n bands, cartons n tainers
pop cans n enough bottles for every last blasted soul
           
chunks of Sty-ro-foam, Zip-loc bags, what we call penny whistles.
Birthday balloons lookin like run-over jellyfish. In all colours!
Bait bags, shell casins, their rubber gloves. All colours!
When I was fishin Millie always made me my mitts.
 
Weren’t nothin syn-theticful—nothin but sheep’s wool.
They’d tighten from dunkin em in the salt ocean each trip.
Waterproofin. Some warm. With the finger in em for firin
the .22 on board in case we run up on any seals.
​

                                      * * *
   
You ever seen that bit on the television? They’re out in the boat
and the young fella’s wonderin what to do with his chip bag
or gum wrapper or somethin or other, and the old fella
he says to just toss er overboard. But where does it go, Dad?
 
Away, son; away. Well, well now. Where the heck’s away to?
Some hazy Atlantic nowhere? That fog’s comin in fast though.
Can feel it fillin my chest, layin on a few extra oil-based coats.
Water molly-cules and an-ti-thetic syn-thetics fillin my cavities
 
sure as I’m breathin tumbled round, broke-down poly-sty-rene.
Nothin much you buy lasts anymore, credibly quick to break.
Then it’s broke it lasts and lasts and lasts and won’t ever rot!
Oh, you know people—don’t they love that ol beach glass.
 
Started makin necklaces outta the stuff, like it’s pearls!
That busted glass is a bunch of trash—way I see it, the start
of a terrible habit. Pieces can be pretty, sure—so! No need.
Pretty as a Coke can. Go get yourself wed with a lobster band.
 
Har-huh-hargh! They tell me it’s all the tobacco I smoked
but I know it’s this fake plastic fog the ocean’s pushin.
Dig up my lungs 50 years from now, you’ll find a pair
of bags fit for carryin your poisoned groceries home in.

Cory Lavender is a white privileged poet of Black Loyalist descent living in Nova Scotia, which is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. His work has appeared in journals such as Riddle Fence, The New Quarterly, and The Dalhousie Review. His chapbook Lawson Roy’s Revelation came out with Gaspereau Press in 2018. A second chapbook, Ballad of Bernie “Bear” Roy, is forthcoming with knife | fork | book. ​

BEE
 
Today I can not tell you
if the photo will come true.
Workers on ladders in an orchard
holding powder puffs to move the pollen
from one flower to the other flower.
What the bee did for free
without having to be asked
without needing to be told.
Furry body going home in golden dust
taking while giving, the world away.

Kirsty Elliot's poetry book True, by Leaf Press was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert award and long listed for the Re-Lit Awards, so she's kind of a loser. She has a homestead on Lasqueti Island but has moved to town so her kid's can enjoy the traumatizing experience of high school. She is presently an elementary school librarian and secretary.

SOLASTALGIA
​View on CBC Gem (Closed Captioning Available)

Short, Lyrical, Dramatic Film
Millefiore Clarkes - Director / Emma Fugate - Producer
13 mins
2019
www.solastalgia.ca

Solastalgia (/ˌsɒləˈstældʒə/) is a neologism that describes a form of mental or existential distress caused by environmental change.

When the panic over global crises threatens to engulf her, Ava embarks on a vision-quest to put things in perspective.

SOLASTALGIA is a lyrical film that explores the anguish that climate change and a global state of uncertainty can impart upon the human psyche.

Ava, (played by Rebecca Parent) a mother of two young children, is bombarded throughout her day with news of global disasters. Over the airwaves, on the internet, overheard at a grocery store - cataclysmic stories of the effects of climate change steadily erode Ava’s inner peace. She acutely feels the burden of guilt for her entire species. She worries about her children's futures. Her mental health is unwinding as she searches for solace and a new perspective.
​
This film is a dreamscape set to the formidable poetic verse of Tanya Davis (former poet-laureate of Halifax). It is a poetic gesture to the vast timeline of the earth and humanity's small but significant place within the web. SOLASTALGIA is a traditional drama that utilizes non-traditional, stock and archival sources for some of its imagery. It blends a straight-forward narrative with a surrealistic journey underpinned with a musical score by Philip Glass, Russell Louder and others.

Funded through FilmPEI Film4Ward program.

GAPING AT THE GROUND WITH THE WINDOW OPEN

we are driving up the side of a mountain
when we run into a lone black cow. she stands
with her knees jutting out of her flesh,
black hide strained bursting, wild stitch holding
together cloudy blood and burnt milk.
you park the car, cutting the ignition, tumbling
out. the air is black exhaust wisping away,
feels dry and flat, cool against the raw wet of
your underarms. the cow lowers its head.
and this is the land of the future, here, the
scraped dry red of the earth, tufts of grass
shuddering in the wind. we walk past metal birds
dipping low into the earth, drawing out oil
thicker than blood, black as anything. watch
the clouds yellowing against the sky,
dimming where they meet smoke, joining
hands only to unjoin them. watch
the sun split itself open like a red, red
plum, sharp against the thickening sky. watch
​bugs claw their way out of the cracks in the
dirt, the way they swarm the nearest sweetest thing.
making our way back to the highway
we stop by the side of a small stream and plunge
our hands into it, steal plums from a nearby tree
and sink our teeth into them. juice bleeds down
your chin, and we wash the red off our hands
and watch it pool at the end of the water,
the red earth clouding into black exhaust,
then wisping away. the cow lowers its head.