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GEOFFREY NILSON


The Rusty Toque | Issue 3 | Poetry| October 12, 2012

SCUBA VS AQUA LUNG

to swim without surfacing
air pops out in long trails that roll

up in cobalt motion, adamantly
plumb with phobia

past slow thighs
black fins
two pairs of human fish caught
in a mighty push
of H2O

what good is sucking air
from a can
if my straw warps past four
fathoms?

who is saving us in this frigid dark?

stuck vacuum of lung, raw in that
cyan glum
biography of a stubborn
sick bastard
who logs too many hours
way down
swamp oxford clumsy
& colourful

light won't slip through liquid murmur
buoyant lust
is truth in soft mud
sway of salt
bright bulb in dark grotto

quick
drag my soggy brain
out of this cold
abyss

FIRES IN THE CANYON

          rock wrinkles
red earth, could be mars
if I didn't have my glasses cleaned
so early.
                   wasted kill pine, black against
layers like ants on a sand-
hill.
         wedge cliffs at the far edge
of where my vision ends, distance
shorter than it looks yet twice
as treacherous.
                            trains stacked with coal snake
endless through s-curves & bends,
noisy river yards below, box-cars
miniatured by the scale of vertical rise
on all sides.
                   it's easy to see why fire rips through
these arid, low brush hills.  too
much parched fuel & a whole lot of oxygen
to stoke the coal.

RATTLES

                  for mum

streets reveal amazing things if you let them.
neon plazas,
heavy feet, occasional alleyway soloist
& a son,
three months since emancipation, wrists thin
as poly rope,
fists like maracas in summer moonlight.

wouldn’t think a boy so slight the definition
of beauty.
you didn’t watch him run hot across the asphalt
into a blizzard.

sixteen years he mutated out of sight.  no more
jangle
of pocket coins, only knocks, hollow tone-wood
& glass & fire.

we flinch at the flicker of lamplight.  around the corner
a car starts,
backfires.  we both jump, 2 feet in the air.  his bounty
is on my head,
his lesions spread down my hands, his face full with
the desire

still so much a part of him.

GEOFFREY NILSON is a poet and musician who at one time went by Geoff but now believes Geoffrey to be more adult. After much youthful procrastination, he is currently completing his BA in Creative Writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.  His poems have appeared in subTerrain, Copious Magazine, and as a finalist for The Malahat Review's Far Horizons Award for Poetry. He will only live in river cities and currently resides in New Westminster, BC.
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  • Home
    • Issue 1 >
      • Creative Nonfiction: 1
      • Fiction: 1
      • Screenwriting: 1
      • Poetry: 1
      • Contributors: 1
    • Issue 2 >
      • Visual Art: 2
      • Fiction: 2
      • Poetry: 2
      • Masthead: 2
      • Contributors: 2
    • Issue 3 >
      • Poetry: 3
      • Visual Art: 3
      • Comics: 3
      • Fiction: 3
      • Reviews: 3
      • Masthead: 3
      • Contributors: 3
    • Issue 4 >
      • Prose: 4
      • Poetry: 4
      • Reviews: 4
      • Visual Art: 4
      • Contributors: 4
      • Masthead: 4
    • Issue 5 >
      • Nonfiction Kathy Acker & McKenzie Wark
      • Drama: 5
      • Prose: 5
      • Poetry: 5
      • Film: 5
      • Comics: 5
      • Reviews: 5
      • Visual Art: 5
      • Video & Sound: 5
      • Masthead: 5
      • Contributors: 5
    • Issue 6 >
      • Poetry: 6
      • Prose: 6
      • Reviews: 6
      • Film: 6
      • Visual Art: 6
      • Masthead: 6
      • Contributors: 6
    • Issue 7 >
      • Film: 7
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      • Poetry: 7
      • Reviews: 7
      • Visual Art: 7
      • Comics: 7
      • Masthead: 7
      • Contributors: 7
    • Issue 8 >
      • Poetry: 8
      • Prose: 8
      • Visual Art: 8
      • Comics: 8
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      • Contributors: 8
      • Masthead: 8
    • Issue 9 >
      • Poetry: 9
      • Prose: 9
      • Comics: 9
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      • Contributors: 9
      • Masthead: 9
    • Issue 10 >
      • Poetry: 10
      • Fiction: 10
      • Reviews: 10
      • Visual Art: 10
      • Film: 10
      • Comics: 10
      • Contributors: 10
      • Masthead: 10
    • Issue 11 >
      • Poetry: 11
      • Prose: 11
      • Reviews: 11
      • Visual Art: 11
      • Comics: 11
      • Contributors: 11
      • Masthead: 11
    • Issue 12 >
      • Poetry: 12
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      • Masthead: 12
    • Issue 13 >
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