9 Poems by Candice James

Degrees of Depth

I wait
         While a lonely violin
         Whispers softly through the shadows.

You approach,
         And suddenly,
         The world is a symphony.


And Now

I have come to these dreams
from the convertible fallout
of torn canvas paintings and prayers,
a pastel palette of color
sashaying into your brilliance,
blinded by the light at first
then slowly moving into
the comfort zone
of your muted shades
and tepid tones.
And now if it is God’s will
we will blend magnificently
into the coveted masterpiece
of true love, true love,
on earth as it is in heaven.
On earth as it is in heaven


The Significance

In the grandiose scheme
of great beginnings
I choose to walk
the less travelled path
of minor beginnings
and undecided endings.

Somewhere in the middle
I know a significance
is hidden in plain sight.
I know I’m getting close
to finally finding it.

     My breath slowly fades
I grasp the elusive significance:
     The meaning of life.

A Lark Rising

I saw a Lark rise
beside the quiet lake
on a misty October morning.
It swerved and careened
across the dawning sky.
A surreal ink blot
painting a treble clef signature
for the song it was silently singing
to the music nobody will ever hear.
It was too beautiful for the world.
So, I tucked it away
in a diamond studded satchel

and placed it in
the sacred canyon of my heart.
I saw a Lark rising
beside the quiet lake
on a misty October morning
deep in the heart
of the dream I was dreaming
deep inside the dream I am.

Inside the Dream

In a crowd or with someone else,
I always sit alone in my solitude
waltzing yesterday’s shoreline,
skipping blurred stones
in a long ago dream
on a beach who told me
the ocean’s real name.
I open my eyes
to see the dark better
and I close them to see the light.
A beginning is an ending
already beginning
and an ending is a beginning
already ended
inside the dream I am.


Wounded Directions

A bullfight
could not have been as brutal
as the boxing ring
we voluntarily entered.
Bruised, battered and beaten,
we did not die in each other’s arms.
We lived to limp away
in opposite wounded directions.


The Dead Come to the Door.

It’s been slightly raining all night.
A few minutes before dawn,
Crows rustle in their nests
and cry out for the sleeping sun.
Wet branches begin to glimmer.

Seconds come and go,
linger, then break up,
slippery like eels,
impossible to hold on to.

The dead come to the door.
Some knock..
Some just stand there in silence.
Gone for years, still they come and stare
into the bleak and glint of my heart.

They touch me with the wet moments of past hours
and the rapture and well-worn sorrow of bygone days.
Days lost and yet somehow rediscovered.
Is this madness or simply another side of love and regret?

We talk. We laugh. We cry
and then the sound fades to a whisper
before it dissolves completely,

I stand on a desolate pier
rainbowed with the oil
of a shimmering thought
passing back and forth
in a tango of tandem.
Locked into the eye of the hurricane
I feel myself slip-sliding into oblivion.
As the wind takes my breath away
the sky clasps my final heartbeat to its chest.

And just as I start to vanish
I realize I’m not going anywhere
I haven’t already been.


Water and Rain

I long to go down to the shore again:
to hear the water speak to the rain,
to see the seagulls fly on high,
to hear the sadness in their cry.

The days of life are beginning to fade,
an age-old stain on invisible suede.
The mast now hung with ragged sail.
The long and winding path grows pale.

The sky-blue skies have turned to gray
and soon my soul will fly away.
And I long to go down to the shore again
to hear the water speak to the rain …

Down to the Crescent Beach shore again
to hear the water speak to the rain.


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.


Bionote

Candice James is Poet Laureate Emerita, City of New Westminster, BC CANADA. She is a visual artist, singer-songwriter and author of 33 books of poetry. She is a member of the League of Canadian Poets and founder of Royal City Literary Arts Society.