In The Beginning Was Their End
The prophecy suggests
the same old sun in the same old story.
That the sky will brighten come morning.
The prophecy tells us, without a doubt,
an infant shall be led by death.
It’s written in your book of the stars.
It’s written in bull’s blood, in triplicate –
that no matter how much you eat today
your stomach will grumble tomorrow.
Panic Sale
Everything must go.
The walls, the lightbulbs, the cat.
Due to unforeseen circumstances.
Due to the unknowable and the unknown.
Prices are slashed. Necks. Wrists.
Every corner is cut and writ sealed,
and still our ends won’t meet.
Still the wolf bays
and snows fall heavily.
How we have longed to fill your orders,
to please you with our company.
How disappointed we are
in ourselves and others.
Planet Of A Thousand Nights
The untold history of light,
as related by its fanatical followers.
Light measured in Roman miles,
Gallic leagues, Persian paradangs.
Bartering with the dark’s age-old cruelties.
And you peering into the wrong end of a telescope.
Up all night, having slept all day,
the secrets of the multiverse there to be had.
A cold night divided by degrees,
and you clutching a lukewarm cup of cocoa,
Mozart playing on a tinny radio,
the light at night coy, teasing, virginal,
stars revising until you’re called into bed,
night-sick, daybreak your bright physician.
About the poet:
Bruce McRae lives in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.
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