Poets Reading At Before Oblivion Book Launch May 18th

At our event, sharing the stage with me, will be 3 other local Edmonton poets reading for a maximum of 15 minutes each, between 8 and 9 pm. 

Here's a short glimpse of their work: 

Collin William Horrocks

The light of a thundershower:

the kindness of strangers.
The totopos compliments of a man just met
but was friends of friends yet.
I eat an hour before a birthday dinner at
a little piece of mexico in canada’s king city of small world.
The dirty old town smells fresh from the shower.
Pointless abundance of salt and gravel washed away making room and board
for the wild rose flower.
Still another half hour.
One more cerveza.
Summer here will ruin my day
Summer here will save my life
Always has always will
Plosh! Maybe be one of my favourites.
Boots in a puddle, trunks in a pool;
A loveless plotless story told. To think,
If I had gone on a trip with friends we may have
had enough time to spend an unromantic afternoon together.
I’ll just get drunk and wash my feet
listen to white noise to fall asleep and feel like myself again

Matthew Ryan Evans

Devin Edward McCawley

Fallen Cherries

fits of serenely placed words
smattering through & splashing across a blank slate
wiped clean enough times
it's starting to wear through
struggling still
to find the pattern in this obscene absurdity
plumbing the depths of this & that emotion
until everything can remain unfelt
loss is a strange mistress
at once reassuring yet continually unfamiliar
a taste lingering on open lips
wafting through the mind
with a sanguine stench
of feces, & blood, & rot
messages scrawled carefully in the dust
etched in my mind now
as our last real missive
orange pekoe tea stains
ringed everywhere you left your mug
while slouching in another opioid induced nod
burn holes in your last remaining t-shirts
from fallen cherries
off dangled drum cigarettes slipping from unclenching dentures
it's true that the smallest things matter the most
when noticed
but why then is it
the tiniest of moments bring me crashing down
as sand sieving through hands
frantically trying to catch every particle
& hold onto it
for just a moment longer