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TOPS regularly features member poetry on its website and for this round, poems have been selected from TOPS' Stanza Break Series chapbooks numbers 1 thru 10. So far TOPS has published 20 Stanza Break Series chapbooks for its members. Poetry from numbers 11 thru 20 will be put on the website at a later date. If you would like a chapbook published, check out Stanza

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Grandma's Quilt

threads of love
tenderly joining
squares of memories.

stich by stich
square by square
become a

comfort quilt

wrapped around my
tired shoulders
warming, soothing
stich by stich
body, mind,
and spirit
against life's
bitter winter.
---
Comfort Quilt of Poems - Stanza Break Series # 1

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Annies Album

In white ink, the names
lovingly penned
beneath black & greyed snapshots
where life is frozen
in single frames of time.

A face, reminiscent of my own
stares back at me, lens eye view
of a young girl, not yet troubled
by the peculiarities of love, her lips
slightly parted, brown hair blowing
in invisible wind and on her mind
a romantic encounter that leads
to the path of respectable love.

Annie, at 17, it says
but that tells me nothing.
I want to sieze the image
shake it back into existence
and learn the whole story.
---
Annie's World - Stanza Break Series # 2

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Two Seagulls

Two seagulls battle
over a scrap of fish

A loon calls
across the quiet lake
so quiet.

In soft rain
his wet lips
look enticing.
---
The Web & The Medal - Stanza Break Series # 3

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One Fine Morning

One fine morning, heartbeat fading,
I stood amongst a field of daisies,
Each one perfectly formed,
Vibrant and brilliant with colour,
Like a scene from a Monet painting.

Standing alone,
Feeling the warmth of the sun's rays on my back,
The wind against my face,
The smell of fresh spring air,
Listening to the rustling leaves,
Sounding like a million rushing rivers,
A whisper in my ear.

Peace and tranquility filled my soul,
Like the calm before a storm,
Beams of white light shone down on me,
Much larger than life itself,
One fine morning.
---
From The Outside In - Stanza Break Series # 4

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Our Lady Of The Night

She forgave. Her dark shroud-
songs could be heard
in the recesses of Nature.
She wanted to be noticed
and put on trial for love.

She softly whispered.
She made no sound.
Music could be heard drifting
over the silent dusk.

The trees sought anonymity
in the corners of the street
a young girl ran by,
pursued a ghostly entity
through the arches and the dark
streets, under a golden Moon.

I approached her and she condoned
my cruelty and my wish to avenge
those long since dead, long since
retired into the vacant night.

Our lady of the night had special words,
modern expressions - even the evening
cast itself as she hurried by
when all was quiet and bereft of activity.
Lady-feminine aura - the scent of her body
in the wind and the carnal identity
pervaded the air.

The sacred night - the sense of others
being with me as I walked the street.
My constant companions being
invisible sensed entities.
---
Lady Of The Night - Stanza Break Series # 5

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The Green Man - Part 1

Before the song beyond
spoke to us
I sent down my immortal root

Down through virgin soil
to show what strange love
his green leafy life has to our good.

(How this kindly greening grinning smile
lights our story with rosy fire flickering
on the edge of his knotted crown)

And onward through the ancestor's hills
where, with harps akimbo,
men and women sang eternal praises to his timbre

Before the mower swung his sprightly sickle
the beloved's sacred ray sired the grain
summoned by Nature's new eternal dawn.

---

Though no luster, nor shining
bade me plunge on
my faith compels me to live secret and dim in him.

Before our days of glory and sin
and the long expected healing to come
I pushed downwards through ancient neural spirals

And touched upon an infinite mind
whose truth and wisdom gently unfolded
great mysteries more complete than I imagined.

I became a druid and a pilgrim
my heart beaten into gold
by gentle feelings pure and sound.

---

I sank my root through
cruel mother's thorn and scorn
my choking voice weakened
from the pricking of his heart.

Your furrowing fingers caressed my agony
and seeped into my secret life
the promised blessed tincture of his sap.

Now folding away the angels' wings of thought
the thorns of misery return
and chill your once potent heart with mental strife.

The green man deserted and denied
my root dangles limply from within a grave.
I see the earth falling into a great sleep.

---

To dream with Isis of Osiris' hunt
for his vital member to reclaim
fated to live apart from his sacred seed.

Before the waters parted the void
our union was the immortal seed
a red rose, that blossomed in the desert.

Here at the horned gate of remembering
his holy branches bid our journey begin.
Our immortal seed exalts and rises with him.

My fiery rose spirals upon the rood
embracing once again his root
that gives the night its dewy repose.

We listen to see if any leaf
has made the least motion or reply
of a new love story sung by Nature's complete kind.
---
The Green Man - Stanza Break Series # 6

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I have a song to dance

I have a song to dance,
with morning meadow and blooming daisies
with buzzing bees and floating mist.

Shiny sunrays tickle my fingers as your touch,
soft breezes blow my face as your caress,
green grass trips my foot as your tease,
gleamy dew dabs my lip as your kiss.

I wave my longing and greeting
with lavender scent,
I twirl my gladness and happiness
with crystal dreams.

I have a song to dance
in the morning and at night,
to dance with the clouds and stars,
to dance upon my secret,
to dance like a princess.
---
Jasmine Star Light - Stanza Break Series # 7

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UNDER THE CROSS

...........Like a wise, early penitent
...........Thou sadly didst to him present,
...........Whose interceding, meek and calm
...........Blood, is the world's all-healing balm.
...........Henry Vaughn, "St Mary Magdalen"

Henry, the death of your blood
Brother brought you Jesus and
Pity for Mary who forsook
All men for one, drying his feet
With her dyed hair after she
Anointed him with pistic unguent.
Born of a bottle? A sermon calling
The cross anguish beyond human aid
Leveled me in that church so fashion-bent!
Like a wise, early penitent.

Surrounding me, flowered hats nodded
In Easter frippery while I,
Off the bottle, and in my bones,
Felt the wood's height, width, depth,
Heft slung over my shoulders.
Sobs made me a public miscreant
Sniveling and snot-faced,
All sense of pride erased
Facing the Harvard-taught cleric, spent,
Thou sadly to him present.

And to you, Mary, me. The preacher
Smiled at his sermon a wrap,
Then blushed at my rapt face
That my scream-for-Jesus neighbour
Shoved in front of him, I silently
Chanted the twenty-third psalm,
God's table blocking my enemies,
Aghast at my visible grief. Holy
Rollers too weird, where was my Realm,
Whose interceding, meek and calm.

Shouldered my special burden?
Jesus, whether real or myth,
Your hand's out there, without doctrine,
Dogma, mahogany pew
With brass plaque. A fragile faith
Based on the unseen needs no qualm,
No script demoting the Magdalen
From first apostle, wife, to fetch-it-gal.
Hear the crusader's battle-cry psalm:
Blood is the world's all-healing balm.
---
Rebels With A Cause - Stanza break Series # 8

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Listen Girl

We are the denizens
of a mixed commune
undisguised in a niche
barely touching
portieres and policies
the forfeited questions
on voluminous lips.

elemental thoughts
between flint and frost
dream democracy
just before the insane question
period.

the stroke of a pen
makes headlines
confessional contact
scandal in reverse
a flash of the fundamental
purposeful and clear
erasing sharp certainties
watchful for congregations
inflates in hot air
on vast, lonely avenues

least the shivering light
embossed and circumscribed
impervious on the marquee
twitches like a firefly in heat

my world has come to know
there is enough
conventional surface
right-at-home correspondent
view your ground unfettered
---
Rebels With A Cause - Stanza break Series # 8

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Fifty

When I am fifty, I won't cringe at the number
like with 40, 49 and every digit in between.
Almost overnight, I won't be able to read the fine print
I'll sport dime and dollar store demi-glasses gleaned
from assorted towns and villages, and when I boldly
attempt to write without them, the scrawl may not be legible.

At fifty I will celebrate damp, orange early fall leaves
swish through them on the forest floor, borrow a red
Irish Setter, and wearing a beige, cable knit sweater,
in snug new jeans, romp among the trees with the dog,
just like on the front of an old Sears catalogue back when
nature graced the cover, and it didn't arrive six months too soon.

When fifty, I'll whistle the Pierre Berton theme song
in honour of our scribe who left at 84, career spanning
fifty years, Canadian icon living in this century
fifty books created for us, recording our history
so we remember, and no one under fifty will recognize
the tune, though it stuck in my head once for several years.

When fifty, I will understand the value of my days
the finiteness of time, the importance of decisions
and futility, will not waste precious hours running a circle
into dead ends, crashing barricades, squeezing into moulds.
What does not work will be left behind. I will concede
that what falls easily into place is meant to be.

In the mirror, looking past silver threads on top of my head
I will see authentically, though magnifying demi-glasses and brownies
make me large, another Alice in the looking glass. I will drink
hot tea and eat oranges that come all the way from China,
and chocolate covered almonds.
When I am fifty, nothing else will change.
---
Rebels With A Cause - Stanza Break Series # 8

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