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I'd just like to thank the wonderful folks @openartsforum, especially Raymond Huffman, for supporting my poetry by publishing it on their site. Currently, I have one poem that was featured on the main page, and soon I will have another. I've included a link below. They also feature some stellar visual artists. They have a bunch of themed forums, so if you're a writer, you can workshop pieces in the workshop section. Currently, it's slow, but the more people visit, the more active it will become. 

I've added a link in the sidebar to their site. 

Open Arts Forum | Underwaterworld This is the latest poem they've published of mine. There are other wonderful poets associated with the site. Have a look!

www.openartsforum.com

 

Flowers: Drawing by Trevor Cunnington

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This is a drawing by Cecile Carriere, an artist from Paris, who I collaborated with in 2007. I wrote poems in response to her drawings, mostly in English, but I tried a few clumsy ones in French that she gracefully edited as well. I showed someone in the arts scene here in Toronto her drawings, and they dismissed her as an Egon Schiele wannabe. That hurt my feelings on her behalf, to be honest. Her drawings really speak to me. Perhaps it's because she has a knack for fluid lines, whereas in my drawings, lines are either straight or rounded. I often admire what is beyond my reach as an artist the most. 

This particular drawing never ceases to astonish me. At first glance, all you see is a strange figure in different phases of movement simultaneously. But as you glance at it, there emerge four distinct postures, that seem static in themselves, but when combined give a pleasing sense of movement, almost of dance. You see a person jumping, with knees slightly bent; you see a person standing on one foot (although no ground is indicated), and leaning slightly backward, as if they are losing their balance and about to fall. The combination of implied clumsiness of this figure, and the graceful dance aspect create a wonderful sense of tension and contrast that impels you to fasten your eyes on it for longer. Also, you see a person in the upper left quadrant kneeling and crouched over, and looking curiously at . . . the figures that are jumping, or leaning backward. This suggests the bare bones of narrative. Finally, if you focus on the upper right quadrant, the jumping figure becomes a kneeling figure, but unbent over, again suggesting a different set of movements than the lower half of the drawing, from kneeling crouched over to kneeling and upright. This figure has their arm bent over their head, as if they are scratching their back. The decision to leave out a "ground" creates this ambiguity that lends itself to different movements, and ultimately to narrative. A wonderful complexity emerges from the deceptive simplicity of this drawing that demands more than a glance. Bravo Cecile!!!!

 

Dogs Enjoying Themselves in the Heat

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An ill-omened book

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 An ill-omened book

The deckled edges of the book  

from whence you had just taken a look 

a grimoire of antiquity 

painstaking iniquity  

emblazoned on every page,  

a most dishonoured book 

settling into someone’s neurons 

and the delicate propinquity 

of the possibility of oppositional 

readings of the chef of horrors who cooks 

insurance claims, books,

and the sickled-sins-of-the-father;

a storehouse of horrors 

hiding in the larder, beside the bother- 

some kidney beans, pressing against the can 

of peas and corn, granola bars; a vial of sand 

beside the basil oil, resting all over the land 

beyond the back wall stove stand 

tall and firm among the cloven hooves in quicksand 

 

Down in the silo 

the grains jostle, and a rat snake  

seeks the mice therein  

attracted by the sandy wheat 

piled many times the height of a tall man 

out the stray grains to sweep 

and use all the fruitilities of the hand 

back home on crazy street, the heat-lamps 

warm hot dogs and sausage, 

the smell of meat assaults the sand-wich 

a wasp of a witch, a which way to go situation 

the cross-roads of the hostile takeover of creation 

the ointment rubbed on the broomstick 

An unguent of the ages 

A tool of the sages, absorbed through  

a mucus membrane

hallucinations forthwith, henbane 

belladonna, a full moon on all hallows eve, 

hemlock potluck, liberty cap mushrooms,  

the sensation of shape-shifting  

at the time of the lunar eclipse, drifting 

on a wave of doom as soon 

as the gloom lifted, a mist swiftly 

enveloped the clearing,  

feeling like you’re flying above your body,  

then an electricity-like transmission 

of the self through time-space 

wearing the black cap of the were-cat 

graymalkin, jumpin’ jehosephat  

appear capped in the cemetary  

that doubles as an arboretum, carry 

the alms in a blanket made of elk-skin 

parchment with skeltonics, burnt around the edges 

sedges under siege from the flames 

miles away the earth shakes mildly, 

as powerful spirits are conjured, wildly 

dancing in a circle with shadows running long 

from the campfire, rehearsed well and singing songs 

listening to the profundities  

of a different era read aloud