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J.J. STEINFELD


The Rusty Toque | Issue 4 | Poetry | February 15, 2013

TWO BEWILDERED ELEPHANTS COLLIDING


The photographer collapsed
as his camera from another age
floated upward slowly
like a bird that has not yet learned
fear or evasive movements.
No one standing in the vicinity
(and there were hundreds
even though I stopped counting
at seventy-five)
knew what the photographer
had photographed or why
he was now on the sidewalk
testimony to abstraction
and defeat or worse.
Then there was a loud sound
two bewildered elephants colliding
followed by recriminations
and cursing that made
all the humans blush
and not one questioned
why the larger of the two
colliding elephants had
perfect diction and the other
a camera wrapped in its trunk
that was worth ten times
the fallen photographer’s
now forgotten camera.
I never knew this street corner
to be so eventful or busy
but the world does seem
to be twisting into new
shapes and directions
climate change or manipulation
by higher intelligences
from other galaxies
I’m not sure exactly what
but I’ll leave the theorizing
to the high-paid scientists
and twice-blessed prophets.

Poet, fiction writer, and playwright J. J. STEINFELD lives on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published fourteen books, including Anton Chekhov Was Never in Charlottetown (Stories, Gaspereau Press), Would You Hide Me? (Stories, Gaspereau Press), An Affection for Precipices (Poetry, Serengeti Press), Misshapenness (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions), and A Glass Shard and Memory (Stories, Recliner Books). More than 300 of his short stories and nearly 600 poems have appeared in anthologies and periodicals internationally, and over forty of his one-act plays and a handful of full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States.
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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
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    • Issue 6 >
      • Poetry: 6
      • Prose: 6
      • Reviews: 6
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      • Masthead: 10
    • Issue 11 >
      • Poetry: 11
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      • Visual Art: 11
      • Comics: 11
      • Contributors: 11
      • Masthead: 11
    • Issue 12 >
      • Poetry: 12
      • Prose: 12
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      • Visual Art: 12
      • Contributors: 12
      • Masthead: 12
    • Issue 13 >
      • Poetry: 13
      • Fiction: 13
      • Nonfiction: 13
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      • Comics: 13
      • Reviews: 13
      • Contributors: 13
      • Masthead: 13
  • About
    • Masthead
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    • Meet Our Editors
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    • Chapbooks
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  • Special Features
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