BOB MACKENZIE

 

Inept

 

we sit silent

vaguely aware

of people around

viewing us

with jaundiced eye

we shrink

cower

fear these

who judge

and condemn

for we know

our deserts

hope to

avoid them

crouching here

fearfully

seeking peace

which never comes

 

Lilith

 

I'll love you forever,

I said without thought,

and you, without thinking,

accepted my heart.

 

Our love was eternal,

your light my whole world,

my world like some Eden

and you like some Eve.

 

Like lovers forever

conjoined by the stars,

we walked in the daylight

a lifetime it seems.

 

We walked in the darkness

but still I saw day:

I'll love you forever,

I said in the night.

 

I'll love you forever

and forever more;

I'll love you forever,

I cried in the night.

 

You want me to love you

and I always will

through darkness and daylight

and even beyond.

 

Although we are distant

and always alone

I'll love you forever

and forevermore.

Friday Night

 

It’s Friday night and I’m alone

thinking of you and Friday nights

we shared music and memories

and talked of music and of life

in our way outside time and space

the way only old friends can take

shared thoughts and make them diamonds

shining for us on Friday nights

 

Friday night and I’m here alone

thinking of you and nights gone by

spent together sharing something

while time and the night curved around

our words and our music like home

until the sun slipped in the room

to interrupt us with its own news

and I sit and await the dawn

 

Pulp Fiction

 

I’ll write my own paperback

more purple than eggplant

hope it doesn’t get tossed

in some random reject bin. 

 

I’ve thrown off my lethargy

the social barrier I hid behind

while bootlegging the words

of others to the world as mine.

 

Muscle useless as ampersand

my brain has been little-used

but I can be brilliant once more

write dark pulp tales that sell.

 

I’m tired of life on the street

where death waits in ambush.

 

BOB MACKENZIE

 

BOB MACKENZIE grew up near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in rural Alberta with artist parents.  His father was a professional photographer and musician and his mother a photo technician, colourist, and painter.  By the age of five, he had his own camera and ever since has been shooting photographs and writing poems and stories.  Raised in this environment, young Bobby developed a natural affinity for photography and for the intricacies of language. He now lives and writes in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Bob’s writing has appeared in nearly 500 journals across North America and as far away as Australia, Greece, India, and Italy. He has published nineteen volumes of poetry and prose-fiction and his work has appeared in numerous anthologies. For eighteen years Bob’s poetry was spoken and sung live with original music by the ensemble Poem de Terre, and the group released six albums.  Bob's received numerous local and international awards for his writing as well as an Ontario Arts Council grant for literature, a Canada Council Grant for performance, and a Fellowship to attend the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi, Georgia. Bob MacKenzie's novel "The Miriam Conspiracy is scheduled for release Spring 2023.