Candice James is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets and Poet Laureate Emerita of New Westminster BC.

She is the author of 31 books of poetry and founder of both the Royal City Literary Arts Society, and the Fred Cogswell Award For Excellence in Poetry.

A Matter of Punctuation

It comes down to a single moment
cloned from a bit of history
from a box inside a box, inside a box,
where my poems are layers of skin
hidden inside my bones.

The birds of silence have landed
with broken wings
and taken up residence
inside the ever-changing
hours and minutes of my mind
where the seconds keep winding down
past the limits of the metronome
that has become my life.

I still have my words
and a vague memory of a haunting song
that plays like a rain dance
stolen from an indigenous dream.

I imagine the movements,
supple and static,
as I mime the names of the dead
for no reason at all except
to pay tribute and respect.

Tears punctuate my sentences
and form rivers in my story
as it heads toward the silence of the lake
I know awaits just around the bend.

And suddenly there it is…
The flowing story of my life
and the lake that holds
all my punctuated sentences.

And there it is ….
The end. Period.

Ink Stain In The Rain

The cruel wind scrapes and rapes
the soft, supple, satin drapes
in the cave of evening shade.
Under gun metal sky
cracked, splintered and dry,
we play our tragic masquerade.

On the mantle of doom
and foreboding gloom
we reach for this feeling we’re chasing.
We can’t quite grasp enough of it,
just a quicksilver touch of it,
this dream Daughter Time is erasing.

Then, I feel your heart slip,
so I tighten my grip,
on the trembling lip of this storm.
Your body’s a river,
a fast running shiver,
and I can’t seem to keep myself warm.

Engulfed by the ocean
and fading emotion
you let go of my hand.
Tide sweeps you away
but bids my heart stay;
nothing is as we planned.
Waves wash me ashore;
lips parched evermore
never to taste yours again.

Love letters and pain
left out in the rain
became a faded ink stain.

Now – days without sun.
the moon’s come undone
and I…
I’ve become the rain.

Night’s Beaujolais Wine

In the heartland glitter of sage and shine
night falls like dark red Beaujolais wine
hiding the beauty and scent of the rose.
The sky’s eyes flutter then slowly close.

Beneath the sudden descent of darkness,
clouds fall to their knees and start to undress.
A sacred vibration awakens the sky
as throngs of angels slowly pass by.

Then the night’s dark Beaujolais wine ebbs away
into the dawn of a sage and shine day.
The dew on the rose fades then disappears
as the sun reaches down to dry her tears.

Hazing above the horizon line
I flow in the wake of a smooth white wine.
Swinging new songs I sway with the old
as the heat of the music abates and grows cold.

Life on a string, spun then unspun,
the day’s growing weary and coming undone.
I’ve had my glory my time in the sun
I’ve passed the baton; my race has been run.

So long I’ve sojourned in life’s lost and found.
Now, moving through lights, music and sound
I stand in the quick of night’s Beaujolais wine
in awe of God’s grandeur and noble design.

One Last Shot of Scotch

My only desire now:
the taste of single malt Balvanie Scotch
burning the edges of a crystal glass
glowing in the candlelit end of days.

Memories of the sweet slake and harsh bite
of its liquid satin crashing my throat
frame the old days and old ways
I’ve long since laid to rest.
Or have I?

I keep braiding the loose blonde curls of today
with the tight black strands of yesterday’s dark.

Favoured foot forward, I step gingerly
onto the broken-stone pathway I built
with the damp sins and shattered mirrors
I left scattered in my haphazard wake …

I’m searching, still searching desperately
for that one last shot of scotch
before the candle flickers,
fades,
burns out.