Amanda Earl : Three poems

 

 

 

snow moon

snow falling heavy from the roof
pigeons doing dives and swoops
I am singing a solitary song
wrapped up in my winter cocoon
sheltered from the woes of the world
watching the ravens’ westward flight
in the early blue light of a January morning
who’s to know if the residents of houses
I walk by are awake and having their coffee
or still dreaming, the glisten of ice behind their eyes
every surface is glowing from tree branch to
sidewalk the moon is faded but still white
against the sky I imagine I am walking alone
across its craggy landscape
I breathe in the cold as cold
as a moon could ever be

 

 

watching pigeons

two white pigeons with wings edged in black
follow the flock, their feathers heavy with snow
they dive, but seem in full plummet
as they rattle and shake plexiglass and metal

I watch the pigeons most winter afternoons
it’s one of the joys of my life, my stillness,
their circles in the sun, over and over again
they go and they come back, they always come back

a few times a week I walk five kilometers and am grateful
I have the strength to walk and believe I do
at the start of the forty or so minute journey
three ravens fly west as I travel south
it’s always three and we meet one another
ravens in the air, me on the ground
moving forward

 

Turning Crow
for Billie

on a ledge, stark black
against fresh snow
returning in the blue hours

once upon a time
in November on her deathbed
she watched as crows gathered

the pain is no longer life threatening
but this ageing body aches
more than it doesn’t

in her dreams she turns crow
a slick backed blue black winged
bird, restlessness transformed by flight

after a night of rowing the air
she leaves the murder to its roosting
shakes the cold from her wings

untucks elbows, uncurls claws into hands
sweeps feathers off the bedsheets
turns night’s liquid black into bones

Amanda Earl (she/her) is a pansexual polyamorous feminist writer, visual poet, editor and publisher who lives on the traditional unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin People.

Earl is managing editor of Bywords.ca, editor of Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry (Timglaset Editions, Sweden, 2021) and fallen angel of AngelHousePress, which is currently running a crowd funding campaign to help pay its writers. You can support the campaign here.

She is the author of over thirty chapbooks and four works with spines, Trouble (Hem Press, UK, 2022), Genesis (Timglaset Editions, Sweden, 2022), Kiki (Chaudiere Books, Canada, 2014; Invisible Publishing, Canada, 2019) and Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl (Coming Together, USA, 2014). Through her press, AngelHousePress she published an erotic novella in 2014 entitled A World of Yes and will publish her poetry collection, Beast Body Epic in autumn, 2023. Her latest chapbook is Fear of Elevators (Turret House, 2023.)

The Vispo Bible is a life’s work begun in 2015 to translate the Bible into visual poetry. To date Earl has made 373 visual poems from 20 books of The old and new testaments.

Earl’s creative missions are exploration, whimsy and connection with kindred misfits.

AmandaEarl.com
https://linktr.ee/amandaearl
https://twitter.com/kikifolle
https://www.facebook.com/AmandaEarlWriter
https://www.instagram.com/earlamanda
https://amandaearl.substack.com
https://zirk.us/@AmandaEarl