Poetry by Julia Florek Turcan

               ​kelly bell photography CC



Atikokan Lullaby

Blue karenin eyes blaze out
- godless -
over the old tenement building
Rowhousing,
whose grotto-crawling staircase shivers in
the misty ice of dawn; where
silhouettes of cigarette beggars stretch on
into the blue wet light of new day; where
young not-yet mothers bear down darkly to
take in the brutality of brothers
while white-knuckled fists
take out ink blotted clumps of
matted hair and raw 
staring secreted cherubs greedily
cry out for more; where
screaming sounds of electric sirens dispatch.
But not for them.
For them
icy moan madness dilutes to dull thud,
replacing Grim Touch with
fetishes and cheap rum for 
pretty painted monsters
who open legs like lips
and roar.



Julia Florek Turcan is a writer from the Northern Canadian village of Atikokan, ON, currently residing in Winnipeg.  She has performed on local and national stages including the Winnipeg International Writers Festival and the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Her poetry appears in Contemporary Verse 2, The Literary Review of Canada, antilang, Northern Appeal, and other generous publications.