Nicholas Lea

Nicholas Lea is a poet and person living and working in Ottawa, Ont. He has previously published in Ottawater, M-Pty Magazine, Spire Poetry Poster, Bywords Quarterly, and two Peter F. Yacht Club anthologies (above/ground press). He has also published a chapbook entitled, "light years" (above/ground press) and was one of four featured readers at the Tree Reading Series: "Ottawa's Hot New Writers."

Knot for Naught

Not makeshift.

Not even made-to-measure.

Not like gnawing on the throbbing

hang-nail of love.

Not like sun-hungry doves

on a beer-run.

Not like a dog, overlapped

by his own pedigree.

Not, especially, like Dylan Thomas

on wobbly axles.

Not like the moon fleshed out.

Or yer mom in yoga tights.

Not the crackle of the gravel.

Not (no way) the staggered chakra.

Not the spoons of vicissitude; the forks

of fortitude.

Not unlike Wordsworthian locutions.

Not (in a trillion years) the pistol-

whipped solutions. 

Not to say: knot for naught, 

but really … come on. 

---

Dear, You

“Kids: Be idle. Your world depends on it”

      - Anonymous 
 

You’d be jealous. 

To be here in the un-yoked

momentary blindness. Not

missing giggling past the porno

shop or arguing the missed

jurisdiction of our coolth—saying:

“I’m going to sight my sets a little

higher” … 

Here,

blossoms drop bombs on the un-

soaked notion of a sick ocean;

a frolic in the zucchini field

under

a tough

sun. 

Forget finding obsolete teeth

in the street: fresh-blooded and flesh-

flecked. 

Scratch rescinding into night, pushing

our children to the thrum of something

vicious.  

No stopping to browse The Terror Shop:

Thick in the Business of Innocence. 

In this battered matter (of fact), your

envy would brim, spill over—no …

vehicle your every whim.