Poetry inspired by Vancouver, B.C.
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Cafe's are great places to get a start as a poet. Vancouver, B.C. Canada has some wonderful ones. I remember sitting in the audience in La Quena, listening to the poets. Poetry read on-stage takes on a dimension of human communication unseen since the early storytellers. Looking at the poet's body language struck a chord in me. Quite often I would take out a pen and paper and write furiously. One day I was at the Glass Slipper in Vancouver and Gerry Gilbert, a well-known poet, was doing his "Radio Free Rainforest" radio show live. At intermission, he came down from the stage and asked me if I'm a poet. I said, "yes" and was put on the radio a couple of weeks later. We became good friends and he would show up on his bicycle and call up to me in poems. We'd go for long walks around the seawall, talking poetry. I ended up accompanying him on my flute at poetry readings. One day he did a set of poetry about fireworks. He blended my flute playing with a soundscape of the fireworks celebration on Sunset Beach and used it as a backdrop to his poems at the Glass Slipper. Someone in the crowd must have been inspired a bit too much. Next morning we learnt that the Glass Slipper had been burned down, unfortunately, in the night after the poets left. They say words are more powerful than swords.....maybe they start fires too. Here's to starting the fires of the mind and heart . . .
Excerpt
GREEN DREAMS
Emerging from mist-filled mornings
Where birds sang in muffled cries
And ancient trees rained green dreams
And mossy memories
Of times before our days
Standing stout in western winds
Blowing towards the east
Where golden grains grew
And waved hello
To the rising sun
With wayward love calling travelers
To look for new roots
On treeless prairie plains
And Napoleon stood firm
Across the troubled sea
While ancient trees watched
And grew stronger
Settled beyond the peaks
Newly born
To the earth in labour
As the soil pushed and cried
A millennium of learning
With blood flowing red and blue
And ancient trees
Raining green dreams
In the mist-filled morning
Now what we might ask.....
A people’s heart can be found in their poetic words. In history men and women have stood firmly upon their soapboxes and street corners, rallying the deepest beliefs of people to rise up and be heard. The poetrypages.com has offered that voice a new
