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From the archives

Carbon Copy

In equal balance justly weighed

Dangerous Grounds

Coming soon to a democracy near you

Tax and the Canadian Psyche

Elsbeth Heaman in conversation with Shirley Tillotson

 

A sudden thaw arrived in late December —  lasted

upwards of a week.  The coloured lights in windows,

 

hung from eaves, and strung round yard-art sleighs

and reindeer gave our fog-filled street the cheerful

 

kind of menace found in nursery rhymes and fairy

tales, old literary nonsense books — anatomies

 

of dreams. Since then we’ve had outrageous weather —

gale force squalls and whiteouts, set new wind chill

 

records. For two months straight we’ve nested

in our heads, worn heavy socks and sweaters —

 

the snowpack on the ground a kind of mythic

presence. Today a red-plumed bird on our big

 

backyard maple — a valentine to see us through

to spring. Old heart, the cold won’t last forever.

Phillip Crymble’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Malahat Review, Arc, The Fiddlehead, Vallum, Contemporary Verse 2, Riddle Fence, Poetry Ireland Review, The Hollins Critic, The 2011 Montreal Prize Global Poetry Anthology and numerous other publications worldwide. In 2007 he was selected to read in Poetry Ireland’s annual Introductions Series in Dublin. Not Even Laughter, his first full-length collection, will be published by Ireland’s Salmon Poetry in 2012.

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