2 Poems by John Cole

BURIAL

Thirty-six swipes
to turn off the alerts.
Thirteen minutes to delete the apps.
Forty-seven stabs at the ground
to dig the hole.
Twenty-three hefts and stomps
to pack and tamp the soil.
Five hours of battery life.
Three hundred and twenty-three
unanswered calls.


THE WOODPECKER

A
Bird
Can
Delight
Even
Forest
Ghosts
Howling
In
Jest,
Knock-knocking
Lightly
Meandering,
Nesting
On
Parched
Quills,
Ransacking
Solemnly,
Tap-tap-tapping
Under
Vast
Woodlands.
Xerothermic
Yodeler.
Zigzagger.


Bionote

John Cole was trained as a composer having completed his music studies at the University of Victoria (1989) and Simon Fraser University’s School for Contemporary Arts (1993) in Canada. In 1999 he received a two-year Monbusho government scholarship to study under Jo Kondo at Elizabeth University of Music in Hiroshima (graduating 2006). He has made Japan his home and currently teaches contemporary music at the latter institution among other universities in Japan. He has been devoting much of his time to writing poetry which is often informed by his music practice. His poems have appeared in The Lake, Poetry Pacific and Eskimo Pie.