The Writers' Collective

happy evening everyone – i wanted to post some more new, great work from our wonderful members.

here are two poems by Brenda Sciberras. Enjoy!

~

100 minutes with an author

 

We are like magpies, preying

on every clever word uttered from her lips.

Pen in hand scribbling notes,

writing every syl-la-ble, believing

she has the answers, an antidote,

a cure for writers’ block.

 

She will feed us confidence,

validate our thirst for knowledge

on how the craft is done. Spark

an epiphany, become our salvation.

What works for her, will work for us.

 

We peck and peck, try to unearth

the secret, decipher a foreign alphabet,

crack ‘The Code.’

Tell me the music you listen to

when you write, (so I can listen too)

then I’ll write just like you.

 

We are a pathetic flock, an audience

of wannabes, hanging on to every

word, literally. We wander home uncertain

of who we are, clutch pens and write

poems littered with food and birds.

Repeat words like flutter and peel, call

them our own, wait for the next author

visit to inspire our belief in transference.

~

 

Vision

 

The pelican silently soars over

head, above the lake reflecting

its shoreline of leafy birch & poplar.

She is almost heavenly – mystical.

I don’t know what made me

glance upward may-

be her shadow moving

across my bleached-white

page empty of words.

I’m amazed at what I can see

with my new eyeglasses.

Her orange bill & pouch,

wings stretched out straight,

seven feet across, black-edged

jagged feathers – oily

ready for water. Can she

see me down here watching

her graceful gliding – her

majestic matinee?  I am swallowed

up in thoughts of having vision.

The clarity of the universe -

of the words I can see

upon the page. The pelican’s

slow decent from my sight

keeps me wanting more.

~

Brenda Sciberras is an alumni of the University of Manitoba, Manitoba Writers’ Guild Sheldon Oberman Emerging Writers’ Program, the Sage Hill Writing Experience in Saskatchewan, as well as the Banff Wired Writing Studio in Alberta. Her poetry has appeared in The Collective Consciousness, Room of One’s Own, Contemporary Verse 2, Rhubarb and in the anthology A Cross Sections: New Manitoba Writing.

 

Katherena Vermette