November light in North London at four-thirty in the evening is a Kodachrome delusion. It’s a saturated gold, bleeding but blurring at the edges, halatious, homely, glimmering, and glowing, the crushing atomic, photonic mass of fifty-six hundred Kelvin collapsing vehemently, violently, vitriolically into bruised oranges and peaches, beaten and battered. Miraculous exposure. The coldest ofContinue reading “The Last Rite of Birthright; or, A Letter to Sylvia Plath”
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Squalor Victoria; or, An Elegy for the Shipyards
One night in Calgary, against that great white darkI leaned against a pillar that creaked, warilyAnd stared down the corridor of this old Gothic houseFraming, perfectly, the blue, cold streetsCold with the kind of cold that pulls your face tautAnd feathers the light. Makes her eyes look bluffing.Old Prairie days. Home at last.But is HomeContinue reading “Squalor Victoria; or, An Elegy for the Shipyards”
Singapore
I met a man atop the tallest peak of a tiny Pacific IslandI stared into his pitiless eyes, and he sneered, resentfulBehind lenses that immerse him in reality, artificialAnd labels that brand him with the names and the facesOf a country he’s never desiredAs I laid wailing and failing and crying and dyingHe pressed aContinue reading “Singapore”
Passenger Seat Satellite
If one night, whilst I lie in my bed, the Lord told meThat all I ever had and more would disappearI would never make another movie, never write another wordNever beat on against the currents like liberty told me I wouldNor spread my wings and dive into the valley, abseiling like a birdI would neverContinue reading “Passenger Seat Satellite”
the dollhouse
i carried the dollhouse, safe on my shouldersbowed but steady, beckoned with becomingbeneath shooting stars and satellites, she sat in my seatspeaking such small safeties and the softest subtletiesand as we descended the hill and passed beneath the freewaystars scattered across the river, nightlights in the baysoft sodium like glass across the banks of theContinue reading “the dollhouse”
Armistice
Armistice, armistice, peace at lastHave you learned to love those leaves of glass?Or do you long for softer things, like liberty in the harbourThat call to stretch your arms farther, fartherDo you even have what it takes? To leave those sheets of snow?Leave your boys on a mountain’s edge, say ‘last one, time to go’OrContinue reading “Armistice”
To our absent members.
Ten years ago, in 2015, a ten-year-old Ansel wrote his first screenplay, Wings of Canada. It was an action-comedy feature involving a war breaking out between Canada and a hegemony of Russian, Chinese, and American forces. A whole squadron of characters, funny yet ingenious, would rise up to fight the invading forces, and through theirContinue reading “To our absent members.”
line of best fit 