Author Archives: quillfyre

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About quillfyre

I'm a poet and member of the League of Canadian Poets published in Ottawa journals and online. My poems have received Honourable Mentions in Arborealis 2008, Ontario Poetry Society, and the Canadian Authors Association National Capital Writing Contest in 2008 and 2011. I began writing on a manual green Olivetti typewriter, but I don’t miss having poems flavoured with correction fluid and cross-outs.

Day 5 NaPoWriMo Becoming

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Floating

Floating (Photo credit: gibsonsgolfer)

Today’s NaPoWRiMo is to write a “firsts” kind of sports poem in honour of Opening Day (baseball reference for those who are not so inclined) or a poem about another first… or not. My poem, though I hadn’t started out to, is rather a blending of a sport and a first…

Carol A. Stephen

Becoming

Slide into the water, slick, slither
away from the sides of pool.

slice the surface and pull down
against water’s tension, feet

feathering, propelling forward
a steady glide of crawl to

the other side, then touch, turn,
push off the wall and

back the way you came.

Then float, facing the ceiling,
contemplating weightlessness,

buoyancy and bounce, the way water
licks softly at your skin,

the way skin remembers.

Carol A. Stephen
April 5, 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 4 Write a Blues Poem

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Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a blues poem. This was rather a fun one to do.

Carol A. Stephen

Moocher Blues

Don’t want that man hangin’ round my door
Said I don’t want that man hangin’ round my door
Bringin’ me that heartache like he done before

He bring me his laundry, he bring me his trash
Yeah, he bring me his laundry, he bring me his trash
He bringin’ me down when he ain’t bringin’ cash

Don’t want that man hangin’ round my door
No, I don’t want that man hangin’ round my door
If he ain’t good for nothin’, he ain’t sweepin’ my floor

He sleeps in the mornin’, then he’s readin’ all day
I said he sleeps in the mornin’, reads in bed all day
He ain’t good for nothin’, jus’ gets in the way

Tuesdays he packs up, takes himself off somewhere
yeah Tuesdays he packs up, takes himself off somewhere
Come payday Friday, he creepin’ back up my stairs

Don’t want that man hangin’ round my door
Said I don’t want that man hangin’ round my door
Bringin’ me that heartache like he done before

Carol A. Stephen
April 4, 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 3

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Carol A. Stephen

 

 

 

Today we are to write a wedding poem, and it’s supposed to celebrate the wedding, I know. But I just wasn’t feeling quite that way:

 

Un-Epithalamium for an Unwedding

There could have been a wedding.
There was a certain meeting of the minds,
both living in worlds of word and rhyme,
a hum of language, clever tongue riffs.
We might have written our collaboration poem,

1893 wedding

1893 wedding (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

a later-life unfolding, celebration and ceremony,
a song in the key of nurture and safe haven.

There could have been a wedding.
There were painted wooden roses,
two plain gold bands, the dress.
The list of guests was ready,
the invitations bought.
There could have been a wedding.
There was not.

Carol A. Stephen
April 3, 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 2

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Carol A. Stephen

Well, I wrote it and then forgot to post…Today’s prompt is to write a poem inspired by the song that was #1 the day you were born. My song is Heartaches, by Ted Weems (although the version I prefer was much later by The Marcels) The song is rather angst-y …

Happy Heartaches to You Birthday Song

I was born under the sign
and sound a heart makes
when it aches
with the burn of lyric
into memory, the sacrament
of kisses that sear into flesh
stigmata of love song
an anthem to heartbreak
that only the 1940’s evokes
if you’re old enough to remember
you now wish you could forget.

Carol A. Stephen, April 2, 2012
On April 13,1947 Heartaches by Ted Weems was #1