Tag Archives: North American Review

“Running With The Wolves” by Bruce McRae

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An hour of joy, an ounce of sorrow.
This monumental moment, in part and in whole.
I’m being touched by moonlight, so a little bit mad.
Moonstruck and nightblind. Gone the way of the wolf.
I’m lying in a loony half-light and recounting the myths,
the stories we tell ourselves in order that we might carry on.
Meaning imbued over coincidence. Memories shorted.
The past redacted and redressed, so all is calm.
You can put away those nerve-pills and quack confections.
You can rest easy. Write a poem. Go whistle.
A full harvest moon, and you can see into the darkness.
You can sail that moonbeam over the shallows of paradise.
Hang tight, my passenger, it’s full on into morning.
—

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a Pushcart nominee with over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are “The So-Called Sonnets” (Silenced Press), “An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy” (Cawing Crow Press), and “Like As If” (Pskis Porch), all available via Amazon.

Read these other poems by Bruce on Zingara Poetry Review: “Hinting at Eternity,” “Making Do,” and “Stop the Clock.”

 

 

 

 

“Seventeen” by Adrian S. Potter

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Those were better days for everybody
we knew. Electric guitars groaned

 their inherent blues, spilling secrets
we’ve since forgotten. Rain arrived

 in spring and lingered around longer
than desired. Even the stars had a job,

to remind us how nothing dies as slow
as the light of our youth. I confess:

 I never understood what the guitars
were saying, the reasons why logic

 felt flawed, the purpose of our mistakes.
Regrets piled up like trash in the streets.

I let down defenses, ignored the obvious
truths, spent late nights seeking trouble

in the wrong places, just like everyone else.
We weren’t broken, yet; that was the riddle

we needed to solve. Hearts open, parched
throats begging for booze we couldn’t buy

while adults sneered at our defiant spirits,
secretly wishing they still possessed them.

 —

Adrian S. Potter writes poetry and short fiction. He is the author of the fiction chapbook Survival Notes (Červená Barva Press, 2008) and winner of the 2010 Southern Illinois Writers Guild Poetry Contest. Some publication credits include North American Review, Obsidian and Kansas City Voices. He blogs, sometimes, at http://adrianspotter.com/.

 

“Stop The Clock” by Bruce McRae

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I remember,
you were pointing a stick
at the moon.
It was the day before
the wolf bit you.
Near to that incident
with the toothpick.
You were with a girl
who rubbed brass for a living.
I remember,
you had a signed edition
of a box of bags
and were dating an ex-nun.
Around the time
of the break out.
Sure, and as I recall,
you were studying wych elm,
or was it moonwort?
Either way,
that was the same summer
they moved the graveyard
into the secret forest.
Remember?
You had that awful sunburn
and a lung had collapsed;
the very same day
as the mudslide . . .
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Makes you think
real hard.
—

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a Pushcart nominee with over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His latest book out now, ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’ is available on Amazon and through Cawing Crow Press, while in September of this year, another book of poems, ‘Like As If’, will be published by Pskis Porch. His poems on video can be viewed on YouTube’s ‘BruceMcRaePoetry’