​​​​2022 Emerging Young Artist ​

                 Engagements and Events

Time 

Sometimes in life, things do become boring.
And also, prickly - like the thorns on a rose.
We don't realize the minutes are soaring,
And with time, everything grows.
Life will disintegrate, time will perish--
So you see—time does cost.
In our minds, memories we should cherish.
Because if it's wasted... ​it's all lost.
​

​Age 13, Budding Writers, TDSB

Tattoo

MNSUNATEM

Firefly

​Last night the rain spluttered upon my pillow
Cracks of thunder willed me from slumber
Like the clomp of hooves at the sledge
I vow never to fall off course again
To dream of only beautiful things
The wild I was and the wild I am
Words born from flourishment
Under lush earth at midnight 
My mother’s hand 'til dawn
O'er the ground that shifts
With each unbridled step
Giggling girls at my waist
Like sparks of patio lights 
Look—fireflies they point out
And all things that are beautiful
I could capture them in a zippy poem
Keep them tucked in this sunny heart
For the mighty pen that goads me 
And this mind that was crazy 
Long before the threat of it
All things beautiful 
Stay with me
Return anon
Hurry before
I catch you again

Run

Mind in mud and rain
Inner child scuttling 
Hands and hooves 
Playful hideaway in
Bold forest labrynths
Green tender ungulates
Mapping trails and tracks
Low in the hollow lands
Marathon of wonder
Dire in the trench of
​Your rout and loss
The starter pistol
A plague on the marrow
Seizing blue frozen hearts
Vapid head of a hunter
Slurping like a louse
Let the terrors take you
Towed with a heavy noose
Into vaults where you brood
In the swarm of your own rot
Beetles and bacteria 
Bestial infestation
Half-open eyes
Ungulate
Sweet baby gazelle
Manifest emergence
Catapult far and long
Like a nimble hurdler
Bound from the bog
Spring forth of soil
Mush
​Accelerate
Run run
​In hysteria
Into the aurora light

The Flyer

cheerleader like a
flyer at the summit
captain of her vessel
her quip brash tongue
as quills scripting tales
of daggers and rapiers
unwavering soldiers
tarred and feathered
in steady ululation
ashes from ashes
phoenix emerse
​the gulabi gang
dancing in pink
plumes of
​blood
​

​Starbucks 

​#293 printed on Starbucks cups for The Way I See It initiative 
by Desi Di Nardo


​Poetry on Lake Simcoe

Picture
We were oceans apart when I met you
On my way to a blackened hell
You swept by me
A wingless angel
And pulled me up
To keep me from sinking
I sat on invisible alae
Stunned by your strength
You carried me to loftier dreams
While I scattered old dead skin
Like fragile snowflakes
Pale white shells
Floated down 
Lighting up the sky
And drifted from memory
Like a cold winter song
Skimming dancing flitting
As broken pebbles do
We smiled and wondered
On whose tongue they would fall

A Path for Trees ​

There’s a photograph of two rows of trees
And in between a path like a road
Cosseted by the fleece of falling snow
Impressed on us alone
 
I wonder how we can say with certainty
The trees were planted in this fashion
Or why we choose to imagine a footpath
Carved for us alone
 
When at the end of the open living space
Our eyes are deceived by shadiness
Under rows and rows of further pines
Fixed for us alone
 
Nothing is said of our trodden thoughts
Expect nothing on the far-off walk
Except for the long and lone way out
For us and us alone​​
​
​

Summer Fling

the memory of us in a bubble
aloft in a fragrance of our bloom
floating freely on the passing tide
on a yellow mat and blue horizons
those eyes catlike describing to me
ever-so coyly what this jolt means
the four of us handstands on water
wisps of dog caught at the sideline
cottonwood puffs airy as sunshine
wafting on sun-kissed shoulders
just when everything is in transit
to wake beside you one minute
your warm limbs against mine
 smile spreading in your bed
the summer to live for
i want now tomorrow
to play catch today
falling in sand dunes
burying this mad wish
a place of barren lakes
and the next day empty
as if we were never here
​

Beautiful Vagabonds 

I am not the piston in the flower or
The bulging seed throttled by pollen
But a separate figure expectant and
Cupped by the shape palms make
Holding sumptuously to the fragile
Killings – crickets, bees, and moths
The soulful water strider apparently
Impervious to deep mirrored waters
And the lotus lilies rooted in mire
Look up at me
Look into me
I am the wind-loving swallow
Lighter than the air itself
Rippling my whole transience
Renascent by the threat of rain​
​
597457_vagabonds_MA EngLit.doc
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Demise of Her

​​shhh
below me
somewhere
sidling stealthily
is a small, sullen speck
rearranging pictures of me
replacing me with shadows
perfecting most of my poses
slithering, slinking, slowly
she is frivolous, and fierce
she spies at the window
slyly, smugly by herself
snooping, staring
she is below me
sticking to walls
singing and smiling
consoled by her voice
sullying my space with
her serpentine presence
she will never know
she can never be me
because way down
below me, she
doesn't exist

​Canadian Moose 

Florence loves to smile from her bald toothless head.
Her thick fleshy body pushes out against constricting clothes.
She waddles in and out of stores looking at clerks.
Her jelly smile rests on you for a moment,
Then without deliberation, 
Sinks quickly back into its asinine grin.
Volatile, catapulting threats, mocking you with her eyes,
She disarms you. 
Wanton streetwalker of a time long ago,
She now sails proudly through the crowds
Flashing her low deep fatty chest,
Waiting for applause,
Wanting to be photographed.
She is the moose you see strewn along Bloor Street.
Emblem of our city, she stands erect,
Taunting, parading her flag, claiming the streets, 
Laughing at the silliness of it all.
English Translation by Desi Di Nardo, published in La Rivista di Studi Italiani
G. L.
Desi Di Nardo, oil pastel, 35 cm x 35 cm (Toronto, 2008)

Poetry on the Way

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