ANDREAS GRIPP

2 pm without a laptop

The ink in my pen has dried.

There’s residual dark
that makes opaque
the barrel’s translucent
shaft,

teasing me,

conveying the illusion
that it’s full,
gassed
and ready to scribe:

at fifty frantic strokes
for every
half-a-minute
of time,
scribbling down
the impromptu poem
that somehow popped
in my head,
about some basket-lunch
in Springbank Park
with the would-be
love of my life,

swatting the bugs
and evading the ants,
delousing invaders
of the minuscule kind,

making it
a metaphor
for enemies
ready to wreck.

After several invisible
scratches,
loops
that furrow the white,
my poetry fades
unbirthed
as I have nothing
by which to write,

the words departing
like picnic crumbs
on the backs
of an army of black.

Andreas Gripp

ANDREAS GRIPP

On Your Beauty

And when the starling's song
was heard
along the trail we walked,
it failed to draw my mind
away from your
melodic voice;

and when you wondered
if you had such beauty,
I said that yours was always there
just like the things we take for granted:

the inch of sticking snow
on naked trees;
a prism bending light
and splitting colour;
that unexpected violet
poking through
the thawing ground;
the wonderment of sound
the time a harp
is strummed on stage –

and your tenderness
of touch,
your slender arc
of hips,
your fluttered blink of eyes
and ease of laughter –

these, yes these,
forever more so
than the bids
of birds and man.

©2009 Andreas Gripp

ANDREAS GRIPP

Andreas Gripp is the author of 13 books of poetry, including
Perennial: Poems Selected & New Volume 2 (Harmonia Press, 2011)
and 11 chapbooks including Under the Evergreens (Harmonia Press, 2011).
He lives in London, Ontario.

Poetry by Andreas Gripp has been published in a number
of literary magazines and anthologies, including
Ascent Aspirations, Literary Review of Canada, Carousel,
Van Gogh's Ear, Canadian Zen Haiku, Arborealis:
A Canadian Anthology of Poetry (Vol. 1 & 2)
and Goodbye Billie Jean: The Meaning of Michael Jackson.
He has read at various literary events in Ontario, including
The Art Bar series in Toronto, The I.V. Lounge series in Toronto,
LitLive in Hamilton, The Poetry Cafe in Oakville,
The Poetry London series in London, and The Sasquatch
and Dusty Owl Series in Ottawa. He has shared the stage
with a number of award-winning poets including Molly Peacock,
Anne Compton, Suzanne Buffam, Olive Senior, Penn Kemp and
John B. Lee among others.