Poems by Bruce McRae

“Dreams Are For Dreamers”

This old bed

has seen better days

and told different stories.

This old bed

resembles a sack

of broken clothes hangers.

As far as portals into sleep go

this bed has went.

I’m on the rack.

It’s the iron maiden.

This old bed is an early grave,

but death won’t sleep here.

I won’t sleep here.

Who knows who has?

This old bed,

like the raft of the Medusa

surrounded by sharks in a bloodied brine,

the gods of death haunting the lives

that none of us survive.

You drift off to sleep at night

and one morning

your eyes don’t open.

       “Fact From Fiction”

Gaia begat the Titans,

who begat the Olympians,

ensuing angels falling from their gilded perch,

coming to Earth in the guise of mortal wounds,

dressed in the ballgowns of misplaced miracles,

clumsy as ducks walking,

shivery as schoolgirls in autumn.

It’s like describing a colour,

referring to one and another,

Lazarus both asleep and in the wraps of death.

A lamb in a wolfish cowl

and smoking candy cigarettes.

When two truths cross each other out

and you’re marked with the stain of decree.

 

 

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island, BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,400 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press), ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’ (Cawing Crow Press) and ‘Like As If” (Pski’s Porch), Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).