“However strong his opinions and theories, Bashō’s primary allegiance was to the living moment and its accurate, full-hearted presentation. 

Of the formal requirements of haiku, he said, “If you have three or four, even five or seven extra syllables but the poem still sounds good, don’t worry about it. 

But if one syllable stops the tongue, look at it hard.”

~Jane Hirshfield, The Heart of Haiku (On Matsuo Bashō Japanese Poet)

* * *

While in the Woods

Today near the fern grotto just passed the garden, I walked over a stone bridge & watched the creek. I said a prayer of thanks for flesh & released salmon bones from my lunch to the sea where I noticed the blue of the sky. 

Today near the rocks overlooking the inlet, I sat on a bench, itemized each transgression & blood spot. Where I savoured each one, I noticed the taste of copper on my tongue. So sharp & delicious. 

Today on the labyrinth green shoots emerged. My bare feet became friends with the dust. Where jays tousled my hair as I walked, I noticed the requited love of cedars. 

Today in the woods by the rusted-out tractor, I stopped for a slug as large as my thumb. I took off my clothes to feel the sun in the clearing & stood as tall as a stag. Antlers grew from my crown, my chest broadened with light, where I trampled the serpent & drank tears of the jackal. 

Today in evening I sat by the water. An otter played himself tired, swam up beside me. He asked for a smoke & said, Careful to not hold on so tight. Where we built a small fire on the rocks & burned three letters tied with twine, I noticed the fragrance of lavender & the Star of Bethlehem rise. 

Published (pending) CanLit

* * *

A SMALL KINDNESS   

(After William of Aquitaine Returns by Luis Alberto de Cuenca)
  
 
I am going to make a poem out of nothing. You and I took the train into the city. Sat side-by-side you reached out your hand towards my thigh then pulled away. I said, do you even want me here? You raised an eyebrow then got lost in your phone. This will go into the poem which is bound to be short.
 
I am going to make a poem out of nothing. I flew from the sunshine west to lift you out of eastern darkness. I held your hand as a handsome police officer escorted us down a long hall. Your eyes hollow from weeks of not eating. The family of ducks—I pointed out in the courtyard—will go into the poem which is bound to be short.
 
I am going to make a poem out of nothing. On that bright lemon-scented ward, we played cards and did word searches. You smiled as a young woman, in a checkered dress twirled, and laughed in front of that blaring TV. I searched through rows of letters for the word forgive. All this will go into the poem which is bound to be short.
 
I am going to make a poem out of nothing. I sat in the hotel room next to the white noise of the highway as you climbed out of the shower. You stood in front of the mirror, inspected your protruding ribs and hipbones. Our embrace—one final act of kindness—should go into the poem which is bound to be short.
 
I am going to make a poem out of nothing. We roamed racks, till closing, in that empty department store. We tracked down t-shirts small enough to fit for your long flight home. You laughed at my joke, the one I told on the beach a million years ago. Our laughter, startling the infant in the stroller next to us, will go into the poem which is bound to be short.


Published Grain Magazine (A journal of eclectic writing) Vol. 52.1 Fall 2024

* * *

Peter Went Away 

And then there was the time my father showed me the photograph on the boardwalk next to his best friend Peter. Shirtless, slender, muscular arms and flat stomachs. Peter behind my father holding, and my father leaning into. Or the next photo when Peter lifts him up to carry and cradle, embarrassed laughter screams from the rollercoaster behind them. Or another as they point to a third young man–unseen–taking the photo while they shave in front of a small mirror and enamel tub. White towels around their waists. 

And then there was the time before he joined the navy, before the Korean war, before my father was gathered into the company of sisters, a wife and a mother-in-law. Before he became a father too young and unable to hold down a job. Before the photographs and letters began to arrive and pile up. 

And then there was the time they shared a coded language. Late days of summer at Grand Beach. After the others had taken the train back to the city they shared a small cottage on the lake. Just a room with a hot plate for a tea kettle, coils for mosquitos and nails in the wall for wet bathing suits. 

And then there was the time sat next to each other by the fire under the treetops reaching for the night sky as secret as stars. Did my father, that summer before Peter went away, let his shoulders relax as his friend shifted closer and leant in to place his palm against my father’s clean-shaven face? Did he turn to let his friend kiss him for the very first time?

Poetry with Pride Magazine, Belfast Pride, July 2024 

* * *

I wanted to kiss you once 

the night before gathered in the apartment      table crowded with candles      books and glasses gargoyles      a shelf of planks and cinderblocks hauled up all those stairs. Wet coats piled on the green couch we found by the dumpster soon to return. Men      brothers      lovers lean against the wall or each other while you move from one group to the next      stop      a moment turns with a dance      eyes wide.  

Today on the beach      guitars     drums      laughing sarongs tied like laundry      merchants sell trinkets glitter blue and red in afternoon sun      under a carnival umbrella we lie on a blanket parallel another group of men only slightly rearranged. We tease and swap silent gossip. I offer food knowing it’s not your kind too much refined this or that. Walk slowly now      sand sparkles at our feet washed clean      we step into ocean      water slaps buttocks      backs to the sun      face punch of brilliant green against such blue. Again      I did not reach out to place my hands on your shoulders      pull you toward myself with a gentle spin. Did not feel the press of your clean skin on mine as we turned to face the setting sun. 

But I remember      the night rain blew so hard it turned my umbrella inside out: You against the wall beside the old table and broken chair. Me across      turned right angle to face them and you. I got the feeling just now      I said      that I want to kiss you. I don’t know what to say      you said.     So I didn’t.


Poetry Pause, The League of Canadian Poets Website, September 2024 

* * * 

There is in Me 

There is in me the strophes of a thousand poems. There is in me the leaves of grass now turned to dust. There is in me the song and hope of the damned. The light of a thousand suns, the rush of a thousand rivers through canyons, the roots of a thousand trees reaching for stars toward oceans and the company of my dying cetaceous brothers and sisters. 

There is in me the quiet boy who played with dolls and kept house in the forest, the perpetual teen insatiable and unquenchable, the gray man now thick in the middle who no longer looks down in fear. There is in me an old man who settles to drink tea and watch English Bay evening light from a seat by the window. 

There is in me a thousand invisible gods. Come Yeshua! Come Mohammed! Come Siddhartha! Come Omega! Come Kali! Come Miriam! Come Yahweh!

There is in me the song of your history. The spectres of those returned from the second war. A thousand soldiers and sailors under the piers of Battery Park groping in the dark on their knees, choking on forbidden desire. There is in me the shouts of the queens who stood a mile high on Christopher Street, who first threw drinks and then threw bricks. Enough is enough! 

You, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, of Radical Faeries, of whistles and denim shorts, of tight white tee shirts and black boots and rage. Silence still equals death! Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS! Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS! Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS! 

There is in me the song of the patient ones who waited resting on slabs of marble to be washed by the tears of strangers. There is in me the smoke of a thousand funeral pyres. A thousand lovers whose ashes anoint my brow, whose white bones sing in the morning breeze like wind chimes. 

There is in me a thousand ballads sung in a dark key under the green light of a birch glen. Of young sons, wasted cadavers, left in Gotham’s dark towers to die alone, bones covered in scabs, feared by heart-broken mothers who longed to hear: It’s okay, you can touch him. Pre-deceased by lovers and legions of friends, left like biohazardous waste in garbage bags on the side of a parking lot for some blessed stranger to come telling lies enough to get them in the comfortable ground. Numbered like stars, these boys–my fathers–died half the age I am now, standing before you alive and pumping blood with saliva and semen crashing waves fresh over the shores of a thousand lovers without apology. 

There is in me the song of the martyr. The dead who become fiction’s fodder:

Kenneth Zeller
Joe Rose 
Owen Williams 
Yves Lalonde
Conner Copeman 
Jordan Smith
Aaron Webster 
Sean William Kennedy
Raymond Taavel 
Scott Jones
Allen Schindler
Brandon Teena 
[           ]
[           ]
[           ]

Matthew Sheppard strapped high to a fence in the dawn of the Wyoming range. Risen this Easter morning. There is in me the cry: Not one more dead fag! 

There is in me the touch of forgiveness and forgetting, having stayed away so long. Mother and Father and rising now before you to make tea and toast and sit together in a warm room, reach to open a window and say nothing. Passed penitence, knowing your second childhood is soon coming to rest upon you. 

There is in me a thousand days of gardens green and shaded where I lay in solitude or in cherished company, intoxicated by the fragrance of forever, first upon the grass and then below, my Grandfather’s beard soon to tickle my very own nose. 


Received an Honourable Mention Delta Literary Arts Society Poetry Contest 2024

* * *

old as the whole world body of mine

this old as the whole world body of mine how can I care for you
this young as the sunshine body of mine how can I share you
this hills in purple mist body of mine how can I celebrate you
this one early morning glory hole body of mine how can I create you

this scandalized body of mine how can I tantalize you
this battered body of mine how can I consecrate you
this lonely body of mine how can I enfold you
this stigmatized victimized body of mine how can I free you

this unheard body of mine how can I scream you
this deaf dumb & blind body of mine how can I receive you
this punished & deserted body of mine how can I deceive you
this left body of mine how can I leave you

this naked & bruised body of mine how can I glove you
this empty headed slow & steadied body of mine how can I love you
this starving & thirsting glutton of a body of mine how can I feed you
this desecrated degenerated segregated over medicated body of mine how can I heal you

this kissed body of mine
how I miss you

this one long drone of a poem of a body of mine how can I write you
this bloodied stoned cold sober body of mine how can I sight you
this tired old whore of a body of mine how can I know you
this hopped up tweeked out booze plied body of mine how can I slow you

this iddy biddy boy child body of mine how can I grow up you
this holy roman catholic church body of mine how can I hold up you
this orphaned one & only son body of mine how can I father you
this plucked & shaved Jesus Christ saved body of mine how I have bought & sold you

this suckled mother fucking doubled over body of mine how can I bother you
this EKG’d HIV’d gob-smacked ass-slapped bare-backed body of mine how can I pleasure you

this once in a lifetime one long life line body of mine
how I treasure you

Published 2021 The Holy Male

* * *

The poet's mother as a child
(after Carl Rothschild’s Neighbourhood)

When she was a girl 
maybe twelve or thirteen
her hair was red

she would not get out of bed no matter what
the autumn morning called 
the chores her mother needed done 

on these days when others 
sailed laundry in back yards
where fences picketed their way 
through dry grass

she would lay in
stripped of her night dress
pale and freckled 

the brother she adored
would grab her from bed 
twisted in sheets

screams turned to laughter
over his shoulder
she would tom-tom his back
kick the air blue 
as he carried her down

the narrow walk 
and toss her on the edge
next to a pile of leaves

while the neighbour 
would peek through lace
with something on her hip
a basket or maybe an infant.

Published in Art and Poetry Anthology, (Issac Waldman Jewish Public Library & Pandora’s Collective Publishers), September 2019

JCCortens reads 'The Poet's Mother as a Child'


Memorial Gardens East Kildonan
(after Carl Rothschild’s Cat and Oranges) 
(JCCortens reading 'Memorial Gardens East Kildonan')

We would picnic on Sundays, once in a while, on Mother’s Day or Thanksgiving. Elm trees tall enough to reach up to where the moon used to be. In the autumn, the leaves would be up to your knees, like a river. I was young. After Bobby died I was the one to rock the baby while Daddy drank beer. We’d eat the olives, pickled onions and sandwiches Milly packed. One slice each, meat and cheese. She’d say: That’s all you need. 

The best years were behind them, she’d say. The winters in the shack on Great Slave Lake. We’d wash the baby in the galvanized tub used to make pickles in the fall. The orange tabby watching from a sun spot beside the stove. Daddy was a fisher then. Like his father and his father’s father–an ocean of time away. Not so many years later, on the bathroom floor, I would hold his head in my lap like a stillborn infant. 

Dutch Elm disease took all the trees. No shade now. Not like in the photo. Milly lying on the grass between headstones–Lil’ and Frank–on either side. Holds a small jar, enamel black as ink she traces the letters and dates in granite to bring them back for another season. She blows gentle as if she’s doing her nails. Her skirt spreads out like a red Chinese fan, the line of her hose traces down her calf like a story. One shoe just off.  

Published in Art and Poetry Anthology, (Issac Waldman Jewish Public Library & Pandora’s Collective Publishers), September 2019

* * * 

Bones
                     with John Swanson 

All those dogs, disappearing.
You meet a stranger on the road
he holds one hand up 
writes words on a stone, gifts it.

Trees beyond the fence, twisted and moving 
a double bamboo gate, one half ajar.
Beside it, the red push button phone.

You wake late to the sizzle of eggs.
Waiting for your cue to enter, you
step to the edge of the porch

study the bones of the garden
as winter frost glitters
you throw the stone 

as far as you can.



From an almost hand, beckoning, (Collaborative poem from John Swanson’s collection of words and photographs, Blurb Books, September 2019)

John Swanson is a poet and street photographer who lives in East Vancouver.

* * * 

Guest House

If I bathe today as then, one kettle of hot water, standing in an orange tub with a sliver of soap and dull red rag, acquainting myself with skin raw and unreconciled

If I bathe you, hot night in Stonetown, weary from travel, disoriented by heat and diesel smoke while students next door play music too loud. I go over to plead for quiet and end up eating chili paneer, drinking scotch by the fire, and answering questions. No, we have no wives. No, no children. Leaving them baffled as the sun began to rise

If I bathe you tonight as that night in candle glow lambent as touch, my fingers trace your temples with precious shards of ice while I sing to cool the heat, lift the dead weight of each limb, wash each finger, softly cup your genitals to kiss your thigh before resting beside you, the bug net shrouding us as frail as light.

Published The Maynard (Fall 2016) 

The Maynard Online Poetry Journal Home Page

For a Dead Friend

Because you showed up like a ghost outside a movie theatre that night and I thought all I had to do was walk up to you and take your hand and with an embrace be pulled underworld 

Because Love and Death battle on the brim of a hat on that guy outside afterhours, little smurfs and plastic army men and Jesus was all: Whoa dude, can’t we just get along 

Because we spent the day posting notices all over town and you said we need a new government this one is killing us and you said you were worried about the trees and the fishes and the eagles and the berries. You said we need a new government and how will we explain the devastation to the seven generations in both directions 

Because I dreamed of you last night. We were on a beach at The Blue Chairs. We started to make love only it wasn’t you anymore but myself and then it wasn’t me anymore but me as an old, old man 

Because I can’t forget the day you died when I asked Rod how you took your very own life then before he could tell I told him don’t 

Because the room is small and corpses are starting to pile up and it’s getting to the point I have to wade through just to eat breakfast. Clear the table from the clutter of finger bones and toss molars like dice that tell my fortune for a brand new day.


Published in The Maynard Fall Issue 2013 

The Maynard Online Poetry Journal Home Page 

JCCortens Home Page