By: Samuel Guest

a walk spanning several blocks

morning doves shuffling
along front lawns as
cardinals recite poetic
verse in flocks of three to five

the smell of burning
firewood follows my
stepfather and i around
every bend

before we turn onto the street
corner where my mother and stepfather live,
i spot a massive
tortoise carved out of wood

large rock for a shell
front arms lifted

the quiet conductor
of this radiant spring evening

###

chickadee doyen
virile plumage

observes tractor mutiny
from the safety of a
chain-linked fence

regarding the spectacle
as if it were the same
stage in which his ancestors

perched in bafflement
while the world turned from
thimble to junkyard

###

entertain me
flaxen stallions of friday
play the lyre
tow your heart although it is heavy

slough a week’s worth of
dead alligator skin
rubble under the mire

true eloquence is in birdsong

i don’t know when, but i’m
going to vault this mess
of modern technology and lassitude
for the intrinsic

has a wonderful flow to it
goodbye to the pig shit ordinary
cudgel to the immutable multitude
the prosaic
that which quashes
euphony at every corner

plummet to the pastures of melody
medley is unity

watermark cirrus is infection
and deceiving

did i paint the sky
with cinderella’s skate

perhaps a faerie
acknowledged my inner cry, and
responded with an incantation
of aerial resplendence

below my balcony, the cherry blossoms’
wayward weaving plays the right strings
baroque

after four o’clock in the afternoon
the late spring is pristine
somnolence bordering on the divine

###

Samuel Guest is a Jewish/Canadian poet, author, and educator who was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning dis/ability at the age of seven. Some of his poems have been featured in Half a Grapruite Magazine, Montreal Writes, and Peeking Cat Poetry. His first collection of poetry “The Radical Dreams” was released back in April of 2019. He lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.