While we breathe ideas of freedom
and speak those ideas whose time has come to be spoken,
as we journey to our Ithaka’s
assuming we know our path and time and fate,
our lives and words and voices
stand up, stand out, and invite sunlight
into the grey dust and shadows
of what was once unspeakable.
I am Charlie, we are all Charlie,
Allah is appalled.
You will have to shoot us all.
Can you shoot us all?
Category: poems
Jump to safety
In our next-to-last dog years *
when ten thousand people
per day are turning sixty
in the hottest year on record,
can we settle the history
of our family stories
make some word parachutes
so we can jump together to safety?
* We can measure the time we have left in the number of dogs we may be able to have – one dog equals about 14 years.
Pattern (song lyrics)
For ten thousand years
since our evolution began
we created genetic blue prints
that are more or less the same.
Threads
I want to wear jewels
and armour glittering
reel in the threads
of a life story
examine them for truth
and lies deliberately told
In Response to Triage
Contributor to In Response to Triage – a collection published by the School of Music Poets (2014) in response to an exhibition of paintings by Karen Bailey, who was a volunteer appointed military artist with the Canadian Military Forces at the Role 3 Hospital, Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan. Published online and in print.
Taking space in the air
Your words burn,
and you reach for space in the air.
You speak for truth and knowing,
or a version of truth,
and a version of knowing,
Inventing Siberia
Inventing Siberia is a collection of 15 poems that emerged from a journey on the Trans-Siberian railway from Vladivostok to Moscow in July 2013.
Published online and in print.
Contact: renew.sandra@gmail.com
