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Doreen LeBlanc: Two Poems

Doreen LeBlanc: Two Poems

Edward’s Pout

Why the pout Edward Hopper?
Your many self portraits interchangeable
Turned down mouth
Empty eyes
Stoic
Sour
Brooding
Not a hint of a punch line
But always impeccably dressed
What lies beneath?

Your marriage to Josephine, Jo
Reads rather contentious, tumultuous
Yet she was your subject
Diminutive
Combative muse
Bedraggled nude
Expressionless
Perhaps eating from tin cans
Transformed you both to granite

Brushstrokes of simplicity
Your artistic gifts portrayed loneliness
Dark shadows
Deep thoughts
Solitude
Isolation
Until you created coastal scenes
Where you found light essence
And release

 

Musings on “Little Goose Girl” by Millet

What have you seen
Simple thatched house
Generations of simple folk
Who patched your humble walls

The geese at your doorstep
Years of harvest and famine
Like the seasons
And phases of the moon

Within, the acrid smells of your hearth
Beside you the giant tree
Your sentinel
Why does this interest me, you ask
Oh, I feel your heartbeat

 

(Poetry Workshop at Boston Museum
of Fine Arts, French Pastels, with Regie Gibson)

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The MFA Is Opening a Dreamy (and Rarely Shown) French Pastels Exhibit

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Copyright© 2020, by Doreen LeBlanc. All Rights Reserved.

Doreen LeBlanc lives in Massachusetts and spends time in summer and fall at her cabin in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where she was born. Inspiration bubbles up out of the river and sea, streams down the mountain, and comes through family stories and the beauty of Cape Breton and her Acadian and Scottish heritage.

 

New Poem by Doreen LeBlanc

New Poem by Doreen LeBlanc

Arriving Home

When I cross the harbor bridge, I’m home.
In awe of intersecting sky, river, ocean,
mountains sloping down to fields,
wild roses, Queen Anne’s lace.
I inhale them with all my senses.

Arriving at the cabin, I catch my breath.
We ran through these hay fields as children.
Here my grandparents worked the land,
sea and woodlands without rest.
Now it is our summer haven.

Afternoon sunlight streams into the kitchen.
I look for the great bald eagle up river.
Instead, a tiny hummingbird
hovers for an instant,
looking in the window at me.

A short walk to the beach,
Two cousins come over the rocks.
As always, we are on and on about
what the weather promises,
ripening blueberries and family news.

Next morning crows and seagulls call.
So familiar and comforting
in the golden pine bedroom.
Outside fairy handkerchiefs
lie in the dewy grass.

Close to my roots.

Copyright© 2019, by Doreen LeBlanc. All Rights Reserved.

Doreen LeBlanc lives in Massachusetts and spends time in summer and fall at her cabin in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where she was born. Inspiration bubbles up out of the river and sea, streams down the mountain, and comes through family

 

 

 

Caves of the Thousand Buddhas

Caves of the Thousand Buddhas

Inspiration from Cao Jun’s 

Hymns to Nature Exhibit

 

Volcanoes are ancient teachers
Rising up from the magma
Core of planet earth
The effluent bringing forth 
All the swirling elements of life
Choking out gaseous 
Fiery energy and chaos
Creating oceans and rivulets
Mountains and savannas 
Landscapes for the tiger 
Spewing lava and ash
For the delicate lotus
To break through 
Reaching to heaven
Painters and poets 
Are modern interpreters 
Of universal truths
Written in calligraphy 
Hidden deep within the 
Caves of The Thousand Buddhas 
All of humanity
Reaching toward the sky 
With brush in hand
Creating their own reality
On blank silk canvas

 

 

by Doreen LeBlanc

 

Copyright© 2019, by Doreen LeBlanc. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Doreen LeBlanc lives in Massachusetts and spends time in summer and fall at her cabin in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where she was born.  Inspiration bubbles up out of the river and sea, streams down the mountain, and comes through family stories and the beauty of Cape Breton and her Acadian and Scottish heritage.

 

Rebirth Comes Soon Enough

Rebirth Comes Soon Enough

Spring Comes to Lake Shanghai, by Wu Li. 17th Century
Spring Comes to Lake Shanghai, by Wu Li. 17th Century

It’s been a long winter. Like winter would never leave. Ever leave. Even though it was fairly mild where I live, the mood was winter for a long time. The mind of winter. The soul of cold. Perhaps it’s the state of the world. The economy. The cultural and political fights. Endless and ultimately boring. Perhaps. That said, spring is here and just in nick of time.

By the way, who is this Nick character and what did he do with Chronos?

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We have two new sets of poems on tap: Doreen LeBlanc and Sean Howard grace our pages again.

 

Altea Reincarnate

Altea Reincarnate

 

Reincarnation

 


Look for me after I die
I’m coming back as a cello
All the emotions intact
With cool low sawing notes
Heart rising in the throat
Brought to near ecstasy
By the sweet caress of Yo-Yo Ma
Gently drawing the seductive tones
From my spruce and poplar heart
With his pernambuco slow bow

Notes of longing contentment
Disappointment
Haunting darkness and spiccato joy
My next life of pure passion
The giving and receiving of it
Back and forth artistry
Cruel agony hot caustic erotic
The darkness and joy
Rich romantic vibrato
Of me
The cello

 

 

Altea


I recall the sound of
dried bougainvillea petals
scuttling down
narrow ancient stone steps
whispering
pink petals bunched
at each crooked turn

Altea held in time
along the Costa Blanca
haunted by ghostly Moors
and feral cats
who roam the harbour
in search of a
tossed off cuttlefish

Altea, rising
in stark whiteness
up up to its
blue and gold heavenly dome
where balconies of primordial tears
flow down on
Mediterranean blue

 

— by Doreen LeBlanc

 

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Doreen LeBlanc lives in Massachusetts and spends vacation time at her cabin in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where she was born.  Inspiration bubbles up out of the river and sea, streams down the mountain, and comes through family stories and the beauty of Cape Breton and her Acadian and Scottish heritage.

Copyright ©2009, by Doreen LeBlanc. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Coincidence in Cape Breton

Coincidence in Cape Breton

Belle Côte Wharf. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Photo by Doreen LeBlanc
Belle Côte Wharf. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Photo by Doreen LeBlanc

 

 

We have new poems from Doreen LeBlanc and an essay from Sean Howard on tap. Both authors hail from Cape Breton, though Doreen splits time between Nova Scotia and Massachusetts now. This is her first publication, and we look forward to more poetry from her in the future.

Sean’s work brings together a host of subject fields — psychology, philosophy, linguistics, science, poetry and poetics — to startle us into reading new bridges, new metaphors between them.

 

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I have some of my own poetry on display in Private, an international review of photography and text. You can see them by clicking here.

 

Belle Côte Bog, by Doreen LeBlanc

Belle Côte Bog, by Doreen LeBlanc


Belle Côte Bog



Nestled in the dense moss
Hanging by threads
In the squishy spongy bog
The ripe fruit
Coated in a
Purple misty fog
Turning bright
Cranberry red
From the warmth
Of my cold fingers



By the Wharf


I stand at the wharf
As the fishermen unload
They know their work
I stand amazed
As my young cousin deftly filets
A mackerel for me
Tossing the guts
Overboard

I know my own work
Back in the city
But it seems stale
As I smell the briny planks
And listen to the water
Lap against the boats
As gulls and terns call out
For their share of the catch

My cousin is a young man
But his hands are
Rough pitted and scarred
Aged by the biting salt
We share Acadian roots
Generations of hard slog
I tuck my cold smooth hands
into warm soft down pockets


— by Doreen LeBlanc


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Doreen LeBlanc lives in Massachusetts and spends vacation time at her cabin in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where she was born.  Inspiration bubbles up out of the river and sea, streams down the mountain, and comes through family stories and the beauty of Cape Breton and her Acadian and Scottish heritage.

Copyright ©2008, by Doreen LeBlanc and Spinozablue. All Rights Reserved.