Poetry by Bruce McRae

                 Jarrett CC



Against Your Word


A hard fall into winter,
the year’s final act, chill
weathering shrubbery, light
a precious asset, darkness
come to hold sway over the land.

And a single thought that wanders off,
left by the roadside, that follows
train tracks, that camps on the outskirts.
A single memory washing its shirt
in a cold stream’s heavy water.

Be it a word or scent.
Be it the day you said you loved me.
When you crossed your heart,
scouts’ honour, but never loved me.

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Dead Metaphor


The morgue is a beehive,
a factory making dark honey.
It’s where we store the raven’s feathers.
Where death goes when it’s sleepy.

The morgue is a hole nicknamed Corruption.
Former gods come here to marry their errors
and it stinks of disillusionment.
Such a divine abode, its reluctant citizens
the colour of old money and tartar.
They who only whisper when they speak.
A hoarse cough in place of laughter.
A bone that crumbles very like a sigh.
Death has painted every drain and knife
the colour of mothers mourning.

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Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,600 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ (Silenced Press); ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’; (Cawing Crow Press); ‘Like As If’ (Pski’s Porch); ‘Hearsay’ (The Poet’s Haven).