"Lift Off 10 : bite-size" and "Lift Off 17 : our own stunned heads"
Lift Off 10 : bite-size
(after Olson)
Was it gurry
or offal?
A bird at sea,
surely
Gulls all over the
edges of my
childhood
Never expected
to be one
The scraps she
throws me
the innards
of a bruised
woman
A Borderliner
doesn’t have
a clue what
she’s hurling
It’s always
too big for
bite-size
And it’s always
filled with a
jelly of raw
hurt
Lift Off 17 : our own stunned heads
This bird was
blindsided
in a cartoon
sky
Feathers blown
out in all
directions
floating
ground-
ward
Like a rain
of fluffy
mass
abandon
And then
fine
white
snow
fall
On the
tops of
all
creation
Especially
on our
own
stunned
heads
Stephen Bett has had eighteen books of poetry published, most recently Un/Wired (BlazeVOX Books, 2016); The Gross & Fine Geography: New & Selected Poems (Salmon Poetry, 2015); Those Godawful Streets of man: a book of raw wire in the city (BlazeVOX Books, 2014); Journal for Breathing Arizona (Ekstasis Editions, 2014); Penny-Ante Poems (Ekstasis Editions, 2013); Sound Off: a book of jazz (Thistledown Press, 2013); Re-Positioning (Ekstasis Editions, 2011); Track This: a book of relationship (BlazeVOX Books, 2010).
His work has also appeared in well over 100 literary journals in Canada, the U.S., England, Australia, New Zealand, and Finland, as well as in four anthologies, and on radio. His “personal papers” have been purchased by the Simon Fraser University Library, and are, on an ongoing basis, being archived in their “Contemporary Literature Collection.”
