Kim Goldberg is the author of eight books of poetry and nonfiction. Her most recent collection is Devolution (poems and fables of ecopocalypse) published in 2020 by Caitlin Press. Her speculative poems and fictions have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Abyss & Apex, StarLine, Augur, Dark Mountain, subTerrain and elsewhere. She wonders wanders and creates on Vancouver Island.
Circadian
Awake
I think I am breathing again. I think I am
air bubbles. I think I am touching
stiff bristle hairs on narrow feet to trap
water. Who else has
the miracle of walking on
her? Who else can manifest
the water shrew when we need
the brilliance of true black, whereupon
we ask each crow on the seawall to show us
love again
not disjoint orgasms. I think I am falling into
your unmoored dreams, your
starry skies, scarred by
this endless heave and toss of
the sea, a dark beast
asleep.
Asleep
The sea is a dark beast
this endless heave and toss of
its tarry hide, scarred by
our unmoored dreams, our
knotted, disjoint orgasms. I think I am falling in
love again.
I ask each crow on the seawall to show me
the brilliance of true black. Where is
the water shrew when we need
her? Who else can manifest
the miracle of walking on
water? Who else has
stiff bristle hairs on narrow feet to trap
air bubbles? I think I am touching,
I think I am breathing again. I think I am
awake.
The heft of angels
night
a body made of lips
salt wave
my weathered hut awaits
your c r e e p
across moonlit dunes
a heart beats
in a tidepool pushing dreams
through slender tubes
stars unzip
the sea wolf-eels dance
wild and sexy
a tentacle
a tent a cle(ft)
the heft of angels (in me)
on the third day
I discover the estuary
is your brain
building a ship
from stray pinfeathers to map
random outliers
a crow splits
a clamshell on the seawall
releasing a titan
my question
your answer shiner perch
tumble out
Temporal Lobe
Each night, the same. My spectral
street-lit ceiling. A backdrop to amnesia: yours.
It’s had a long run
like a car alarm.
There is wailing on your ward. Clatter
of pushcarts down corridor.
Skin loosens, splits, slips away as snowflakes. Blizzard.
Shadowbox of memories gone white.
You build a paper napkin shrine
to the clean break.
You string beads. Write in a language
you invented. Cheek your meds. Refuse visitors.
Somewhere on Prideaux Street (is it me?)
a phone rings.
Wobbly cusp of dream, tendrils soft as
earthworms tug me deeper.
That time you turned the forest inside out
and a Coho salmon passed me on the sidewalk.
We forget about deep places. Some homeless guy
slept in my basement undetected for three months.
Barbarians pound your gate. Claim friendship. Carnal
bonds. Are turned away by nurses. Wait. Sip hospital coffee.
The one with a headful of empty shouts out
for the one who won’t fill it back up
I can’t come. Am busy running a casting call
for squirrels in Fresno.
Remember: you are the one with amnesia
but I am the one with the dreams.
In a house on Prideaux Street
the lights are always on.
Threshold
On the morning I vanish
the wind dies, a foghorn wails
in the harbour. That feeling of being
shadowed on these deer trails round Saysutshun
the most haunted isle in the Salish Sea.
When I stop moving
I hear the Canada geese feeding
along the shoreline, time’s grainy truth
its architecture of sandstone shelves
and oddly curvacious rock. Installation art
sculpted by wind, wave, story. The forest
never waits, never stops shifting
groaning, clicking, scraping
in the breeze. I keep glancing behind me—
nothing
but golden path of wet leaves
a robin excavating soft white bodies beneath.
This creep of moss inside me
rhythmic drumming
of unseen woodpecker. Her percussion
reveals a cave where Haals the Transformer
slumbers within when not gliding across
the land, turning animals and humans
to sandstone
Disease of the Modern Age
Best of the Net Nominee 2023
It’s January and the snowdrops are erupting
through this scalp of mud and maple leaves encasing
your soft brain of clay. They hover in ghostly mobs,
in quiet nodding herds, their tiny roots releasing
electrostatic charge from the squealing day—sending it
deep into your earthen heart, your lava core, sending it home. Yes
even here, in this grove beside the river, the river arush with
winter’s rage, pounding through sandstone cut
cursing the disrupted harmonies of
your faded dreams, a time before
rough scour of root and rock, the brute force of
early snowmelt unleashed by a million
diseases that reduce themselves to a single
species: ours.
Diseases that reduce themselves to a single
early snowmelt unleashed by a million
rough scours of root and rock, the brute force of
my faded dreams, a time before
cursing the disrupted harmonies of
winter’s rage pounding through sandstone cut
even here. In this grove beside the river, the river arush
deep in my earthen heart, my lava core, sending it home, yes—
electrostatic charge from the squealing day. Sending it
in quiet nodding herds, their tiny roots releasing
my soft brain of clay. They hover in ghostly mobs
through this scalp of mud and maple leaves encasing
January. And the snowdrops are erupting.
Neurasthenia (Greek for ‘nerve weakness’) was a medical ailment that came to prominence in the late
1800s as electrical power, telephone and telegraph entered public use. It was known as the Disease of the
Modern Age and is today termed electrosensitivity. Sufferers seek relief in forests and nature where they
can physically ground themselves and discharge to the planet.