My submission to the Toronto Quarterly

Michael Lorne Leard - Michael has been writing for 15 years, and believes the idea is as important as it's execution. He has been published in Quills Poetry, Carousel Magazine and Monkey Bicycle among others. Currently, he continues work on a collection based on the concept of loss, and its effects on the young.

unacceptable

i've been told
it's unacceptable
to dwell
on echoed words
stained with blood
from flesh torn to pieces
by words ripped from poems
read aloud into a mouth 
dark with want

no longer am i to
linger in burning vineyards
singed as the wings of icarus
or extinguish flesh flames 
in water
used to cool your
fevered forehead
the night we roamed
a fairy tale
never written

i've been told
these things
are unacceptable

instead
i turn to craft

gloria 
curls of fire
bold black eyes
sun singed skin
beautiful
60 stories tall
with answers
i write her into my arms
to my bed
face frozen with longing
legs lusting for stability
hands rake flesh
strawberry lips quiver
two bodies one
cupped as hands
then
silence
the loneliness 
of stranger sex
and awkward rest
sleep

i wake
and erase the whole affair
somehow now
unacceptable to me

Michael Lorne Leard


kingfisher

the room is quiet now
only the scent of lust
ghosts loitering air and i
perched at a table by the window
are proof of life
the locals are coming for me
torches ablaze
sicles in hand
i have their princess soiled in my bed
the scents of outrage and boiling blood 
rise from beyond woody hills

asleep on the bed
she’s motionless
legs apart
open to me
she is beauty
bruised brown skin and
bite marks on the small of her back
make her love me
broken flesh
makes her need me
i’m a virus in her indian heart
our lines mixed
the damage done
still 
they are coming

she was mine for a time
in a moment of raging release
wide-eyed, tight gripped and panting
foreign
a queen wrapped round the 
milky body of an aging poet
a beggar 
while she rests
peacefully
nakedly
they are coming

like smoke on moonlight
i disappear
gone when she wakes
she’ll be thankful
not for having me
that i was gone when they came

the flames crest the hill now
they arrive to find me gone
hands high in the air 
they cry
injustice

black and blue
my wings spread wide
soaring
above the tree-line
i’m the kingfisher
slicing through fog and rain
i leave her behind
making my way south
trying guiltily to escape suicide
on the hills of jatinga

Michael Lorne Leard

the lovers 
The lovers formatting:



the lovers
escape
to grass
together
merging
steps
step
hands
hand
mouths
mouth
faces
face
mInds
mind

trees
reach
embrace
with branch
buds blossom
new petals
sticky kisses
feet 
foot
root
they fall 
ground
melting
body
soil
seed

the lover

we can only
observe

Michael Lorne Leard



In the hours since last we spoke

across an ocean 
a portrait was unpainted
oil thick brush 
spun over
rosy cheek
plushy pink
pupil
strokes birth blank canvass
ghostly white

my hair has grown
voice went raw
i’ve aged
a little
you wouldn't notice
like you i’m still alive

in the Midwest, 
a dance was undanced
tender tendons snapped 
under pressure
toes unwilling to bend
broke
Music came 
briefly
and the dancer lay 
outstretched on the floor
rhythm gone for good

it’s silent here
the darkness screams
electric
window-light climbs rippled ribs
to embrace my failures

a poem was written
Words spit to paper
ruin it
to bruise it
the author lost the thought 
abandoned the exercise
the work became snow
called it art

the morning came
uninvited
as it always does
the calendar rolled
like a titan
dragging down the dream
as it must

In the east
a friend was lost to 
another
drowning
water hugging a body 
like a wet suit
Forcing out warmth
tides unkind 
as loss

I've slept
More than I expected
Drifted more than I hoped
even worked
Eaten
Cleaned

a moncton a man 
was arrested for child 
pornography
the lady upstairs lost her 
cat to cancer
a heart attack in the food court
then there was nothing

in the hours since last we spoke
the world united 
indifferently

Michael Lorne Leard


Confession

i ran my hands across
your sweaty naked
breasts
stopping only
briefly 
at your nipples
swollen
sticky
freezer burnt
gumdrop's

dismissed

shoulder
smoke
you've finished with me
and begun working a
marlboro.

i keep the souls
of twelve 
catholic priests 
trapped
in a shoe box
under the bed
for moments like this
when i lay naked with a 
woman who hates me for 
loving her
and i have enjoyed it

i must confess.
i must confess.


Michael Lorne Leard