3 poems by Kyle Mullin
Kyle is a New Brunswick-based writer and journalist who has kindly submitted some poetry for the reading pleasure of the frequenters of Unfiltered Smoke. He is a 2009 graduate of St. Thomas University from its journalism program and hails from the Miramichi. He wrote a piece on David Adams Richards last year that was really good.
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FIRST & FOREMOST
First & foremost
A toast to my thirst
like a twisted gift
fed to all those cursed
with lips pursed, sips nursed
in drips that drown
in shattering splatters
found in the sound
of a voice that whispers
deep in your ear
to keep you asleep
in a dream that sears
and stings long after you wake-
what more could it last past
what won’t it forsake?
WROUGHT WITH HALF THOUGHTS
I’ll coddle & covet my writer’s block
‘Cause what’s unread ain’t easy to mock
& what’s unsaid would set the sleazy to balk
At each and every path that could tease me to walk
I dunno much, but I’ve touched on it all
In breezy half thoughts too easy scrawl
That squalor appeased me in long broad strokes
grand notions, penned oceans to keep me afloat
‘Til I’m sinkin,’ ink drunk & skunked to the bone
like dollars ya can’t spend, just only loan
a stench that could wrench the dead in their wake
as drab bad as any could for goodness sake
‘Cause we both know love is so sweet to say
It’s as tough a word to mean as to keep at bay
As gruffly heard or purred in a breath
As a last wheeze teased in a little death
PULPIT GALLOWS
This cheap booze
and deep truths
keep nooses tight
but on these pulpit gallows
their pull fits just right
‘Cause I live and die, by these whims
they’re like my siamese twins-
I can’t break free,
without them breakin me
they’re like syringes for our binges
tinged orange in the fading light
to pierce you blind, out of your mind
as fierce as any and all out of sight
It lies with the braver
yeah, truth be told
A deeper fortune’s savoured
when favoured to the bold
But You can see
straight through me, like spits of rain
I sit like windows on the pane/pain
& they say the tools of the Devil
are idle hands
but maybe being on the level
with that idol’s demands
could be the best fuel for fire
to lift the least higher
and turn a jester to a sire-
& maybe indifference
hasn’t met it’s match since
& those matches rinse,
spark a fire, awash in flame
that crucible, that noose’ll pull
you back from whence you came…
