Jacqueline Turner

urbantriptychs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i.

stacks compell like a desire to manipulate
complex realities like imagining what might
be in a heart besides blood coursing through

what logos mark this territory to say simply
it’s mine as if corporations could care less
still see a configuration a pulse beating faster

your deep red makes the sky what it is
grey exists and this is what we make of it
your hand reaches in and levels a day upward

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ii.

triple power stacks black fractious
an edge against the sky strips but
connects this vaunted moment to the next

what zings one to another what buzz
up in a head tremors slightly or calls
out loudly with 167 times pleasure

you push and the response is unpredictable
a risk of shock or the certainty of light
leaves you right here looking away, looking up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iii.

lines volt another ephemeral gesture
sounds rise always from leaves and stones
pushed down, pushed around, stepped on

what green blasts through your mind
today a restless wandering carries you
blurs the edges of a scene black dream

you keep a sidewalk crack to slip under or
step over you do not break some momma’s back
an urban beat a wail bursting inside you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iv.

light simplifies a complex grid worn
but illuminated holds a space where
yr hand warms lines above some cloud

what slices a moon open now
or trees ragged in window edges
to mark a tableau render a scene

you pull black forward wash a blue
slightly to set a delicate nature
in the frame of this warmish day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

v.

port city sparks lift or heft
yet plunges at least three times
grey sky or mountain blue or not

what sculptures a port city
more than you sparking red again
up and up tri-symmetric spectacle

you photo doc urban moments like
colour striates red upward yr perspective
pulls forward against a day like mine

 

 * photographs by Ian Thomson

 

 

 
JACQUELINE TURNER

Jacqueline Turner is the author of Into the Fold, Careful and Seven Into Even. She lives in Vancouver, B.C. Her work has appeared in absinthe, West Coast Line, Rampike, qwerty, Tessera, and Fireweed. She has also published a number of chapbooks, her latest, The Ends of the Earth, published in 2009 by Nomados Press. In 2005, Turner was Queensland’s inaugural poet-in-residence at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane, Australia.