VERSeFEST 17

VERSeFEST 17

By Lukasz Lukaszek

copenhagen, spain and les trumps unies

have forgiven this city's mother,

her nature too skeptical,

moods so shifty

like a bad relationship,

and welcomed vancouverites and edinburghians

dressed in Hawaiian tease who thought of vacation,

saw none of it,

then altered their plans for verse's sake

because church going and truth reading

have one thing in common:

some of it is about faith

and the other about listening.

the unfortunately hidden aspect

of our local literary scene faired well

in the hands of folk who reached them out

to birds stuck to oil in a state of red,

where the demand for orange is great.

some filled minds with danish pastries

as well as first Ulrikke moments, her

bopping, grooving, making this a capital reading, indeed.

there were others among les fous du ville,

bards mistakenly princing Kerouac

all loud and angry, hoola hoop curls

with a better view than vision, and Canada's

most dangerous poet proclaiming,

“poetry will save us

for it brings us

back to the sensuous body of language.”

unless it’s translated, then we're just

stuck with a ton of cliches.

and if Vanier could talk, it would talk about

Sir Dennis’ “monkey shit stained brown Buick”, property

of the uncle sitting in the clean laneway, while he

stones butterflies to talk in CapCity's two

official languages: political and poet.

activists! poetry needs you | no time for guilties or the weak:

it’s about recital of the fittest,

digging must be “forbidden like storming

banks or parliament,”

notes from the detained must be composed and gentle,

but strike! when necessary like the defence missions of

united nations that sound good on paper, but are not poems

themselves and distract populations with deadly blossoms.

Jordan was Abel to get it right - turn off the lights with

creativity aflicker and voice loops meaning to say that

no matter how much the indigenous speak, nobody hears it.

while the activists fought, the lovers fucked generously,

poets peed first when Madhur had to go,

Kayla licked wounds caused by toxic masculinity

and a Cannon fired x2 into the humble air of Alabama,

where dollar Bill ate all the crocodiles, had nothing

to do and lived in a polluted well.

some frolicked onstage, others said club soda

was the drink of alcoholics, so we drank beer instead

and the Czar of Britain’s Columbia spoke of the real struggle

and blockbuster closure as well as double tapped hearts.

if we've learned something, it is to not sit quietly,

perched like birds, words can wipe existence, launch wars

and to write is to make them protectors of common folk.

Ask Mehico - racism is still alive,

but where is it really from?

no mansplaining needed for it hits home when a woman

slams it down with,

“sexual assault is the only thing men alone can solve.”

you'd think she's a Lounatic, but tell me she's wrong.

The Truth Is that “God’s busy with seven billion other crazy folk,”

and “night falls as night will, out of nowhere,” in Ireland.

In Ottawa, “there’s not a cloud in the sky”... and it’s snowing.

Photo by Andrew Macartney, 2017