Nicholas Power

About this Joker 

He’s soft as cheese, as common as a monument

our sanity chagrined, we mourn by his tower

fate pours inspiration like rain in a downspout

if we let ourselves go mute, then he’s our master

He drones on like a nag or a fraudulent Sphinx

jaunty as a cur, shiny as a signet ring

motivated by displays of lingerie – his jinx

she’s never his pleasure, ever his underling

Under expensive new eaves old roofs are leaking

he retreats to his private lair by the ocean

preoccupied by jokes that keep him up piquing

Don’t become entranced by his show, citizen

Hold the mirror to this loathsome phenomenon

Use all your voice, it’s time to become clarion

inventing themselves in lowdown language

uncertain of the reality of every thing

called by serpents and wonders

mauve and striped and wild

yet blue outside the walls

their tone full of giving

winter inside Sunday

every day in the morning

staying quiet in the early dawn

finding their niche in a particular day

awakening from their own dreams

they find themselves among you

neither one self nor an other

sounding their open notes

giving no offense to the sun

their verbs in the present tense

not just some body, not some thing

this pulsing blue vein of speech

all of these pronouns

this harvest of light

we enter their garden

‘Yes, darling, it’s a snake’

then they offer us the apple

so we can become human again

met by the other on this bare ground

with shared language made here

out of the husks of old words

I want a line that’s long enough to hold

the contradictions of public dialogue

to join the ranks of civil resistance

to make room for pro-nouns

and to find the middle way

I want words strong enough

for when they speak up in public

they’re heard amid the talk of scarcity

where the fearful hold the many hostage

differences not dividing us one from another

there are many pronouns and we are all of them

you’re among us taking notes

constantly trying to make

outside like your inside

letting what you know

your trembling self

into what you write

letting your shadow

fall upon your pages

you’re only pronouns

 and you can be all of them

you and they and theirs and ours

anyone anywhere everyone everywhere

September pours over me in syllables

watering my pronouns         the sun announces noon

summons up remembrances of

other pasts              other presents

whole neighbourhoods of people

Broadview          Riverdale             Greenwood

everyone familiar in afternoon light

     particular           leisurely               effortless

as we all walk slowly along

they leans toward their baby

they photographs the shining vegetables

let’s call infinity by a different name

in the clarity of these presences

without any estrangement

adapted from William Shakespeare for Vicki Fraser (1965 – 2023)

I wrote this song when I heard you were dead.

In hopes it will find you in the beyond

and break the news that I’ve lost the thread

that holds me to this world in which you’re gone.

Remember the words of this song, not me,

the one who wrote this out of love for you.

I would rather that you soon forgot me,

to spare you sorrow as you slip from view.

There is no ‘if’ about you in this verse –

the place where love for you will not decay.

When they slide you into the long black hearse,

my love will still be with you on that day.

These woeful words are meant to play the thief,

to make room for love amidst this painful grief.

Our long days shaped by wind and snow
ice encasing limbs of the tallest trees
dangerous sidewalks appear safe
each step measured before taken

We’re worried about rising seas
we must do more than write letters
officials obfuscate in the face of storms
uncertainties can’t stop us from planning

There’s no longer any time for debate
as birds fly inland from the coast
this poem’s not a metaphor
we can still build new dikes

The cities pave over fertile soil
farmland has been left to the wind
in Miami the ocean crosses the road
everywhere flowers drown in backyards

New Orleans rebuilds on their flood plain
and islands in the Pacific grow smaller
we can’t all live in the mountains
or survive on an ark like Noah

It’s not enough to save ourselves
we’re working for our grandchildren
forget the burgers, cars and cheap flights
remember we all live on the same turtle’s back

based on Tu Fu’s reply to a letter from his brother at Lin-Yi
lamenting rains and flooding on the Yellow River
(8th century CE)

I hear them gearing up for battle –

old war-horses brought back

to drill us with intemperate speech.

Mothers and fathers, wives and children

urged on to crowd the roadsides and cheer.

We’re here again, but this time,

mourning.

.

Our cries break amid the traffic,

warn raw recruits to question their orders,

ask them to consider where they’re going.

:

‘We joined young when our numbers came up.

We man the frontier wherever that might be.

And now the old men are sending us out again.

You will soon be tying yellow ribbons on trees.

We’re either in their jails or at their wars

leaving everything to those at home.’

.

Imperial dreams are revived in secret

while weeds grow in the centre of the city

and basic needs of many remain unmet.

We ask for security in our own country

but the young are sent to foreign lands

where blood disappears in the sand.

.

Local reporters ask us gently

if we’ve recovered from the storm.

Have we repossessed our own houses?

Have our neighbours returned?

What do immigrant households face

when clerks are free to discriminate?

None of our friends evaded taxes;

but many are not allowed to vote.

.

Bodies drowned on desperate journeys

lie unclaimed along the shores of nearby seas.

Under grey skies we join the voices of hungry ghosts

.

based on Tu Fu’s Song of the War-Carts