Barbara Black
Barbara Black, Poems and Collages
Barbara Black writes fiction, flash fiction, and poetry. Her work has been published in Canadian and international magazines including The Cincinnati Review, The New Quarterly, CV2, Geist, and Prairie Fire. She was a finalist in the 2020 National Magazine Awards, nominated for the 2019 Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and won the 2019 Geist Annual Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest. In 2017 she won first prize in the Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition. Her poetry was awarded first prize in the Federation of BC Writers 2018 Literary Writes Contest and has appeared in numerous anthologies including Hologram: Homage to P.K. Page (2021, League of Canadian Poets), Voicing Suicide (2020, Ekstasis Editions), Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds (2020, Caitlin Press), and Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees (2018, League of Canadian Poets). Her short story collection Music from a Strange Planet, will be published by Caitlin Press in 2021. She lives, motorcycles, and gardens in Victoria, BC. Find Barbara at her website or on social: @barbarablackwriter (Facebook) and @bblackwrites (Instagram).
Oh wow
says my father's table mate
it's spinach soup today I say
and he turns to me and says
oh wow, it's not bad I say as he
puts his spoon in like he's
digging a hole to tomorrow
and he smiles at me
like a birthday boy
my father probably thinks
a small kind of oh wow every time
he sees me because I look so new so
sweetly unfamiliar and I don't doubt
that a tiny oh wow goes up his spine
like a bubble in a vertical level to
land somewhere in his brain
where it bursts
into a millisecond wow
when I know in the span
of a crippled synapse he knows me
oh wow life leaps across
gaps between one foothold
and another and still
you don't drown in the
rushing water but there is
no map for the other side.
Serenity
Insistent bird call drills my brain.
What is the rapture of one note?
Coffee makes a river down my throat.
Serenity. All I want is serenity.
Yesterday the chicken next door
warbling her egg into life,
with diva arpeggios,
Bo-awwwwk! Bok-bok! Bo-awwwwk!
High note bobbing like a wonky balloon.
All I wanted was eggs and bacon.
Waffles. Maple syrup—the real thing.
We work so hard to contain ourselves.
I only want to succumb.
I want to be that haiku
where the frog jumps in the pond.
I want to be the air
between the pond and the frog.
The space between leap and land
where rules of physics don’t apply.
Serenity. Simplicity.
Blue berries in a pure white bowl.
Purple hands. The sweet lie of summer.
Some people think, without god
there’s no mystery. No.
There is only mystery,
I tell you. Only mystery.
Attention au Feu
Because you are deaf
You cannot detect melody
—Sordeau
Lightning in the courtyard. Forked light: tattered, strident, unrepealable. Birds fall like stars, struck from the violet sky. Their feathers sizzle. No bird descends on me, although I stand out in the open. You do not hear my voice.
After the lightning strikes, I ignite the house with my flaming hair, resplendent with flame and cinder. This is the required gesture. Tomorrow, I’ll conduct a Saint Joan’s Mass and resurrect the birds. You will no longer recognize my voice. Lightning quickens my words. My new language will burn you. Attention au feu!
When is a sparrow like an eardrum? When it hits the ground.
