Poetry by Bruce McRae

                           spablab CC



Can You Spare An Emotion?


We were so poor we had to eat ourselves.
We wore patched and sad expressions.
The angels were evicted from our purses.

Back then, post-debacle,
home was a can by the side of the road.
We’d steal crumbs from the mice,
who’d only snatch them back again.
You were well off if you could afford to be lonely.

In those days we’d fight for breathing room.
We’d argue over scraps of wrapping paper.
We’d stoop as low as drinking another man’s water.

Tough times, we couldn’t spare an extra word.
Just a kid, I had to walk nine miles through snow
to get to a point in the far distance. ​

​

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).

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