Poems - JP Melville

Water Buffalo 1990 and Today jp melville I asked a water buffalo one day If it knew That the world was divided into two halves: Haves, have nots. Buffalo, belly deep in mud, rice paddy water, Produced forlorn eyes. Buffalo munched on her cud Of rice straw, Said nothing. Sitting beneath a mango tree I lit a cigarette, Inhaled Exhaled slowly. Buffalo swished its tail To chase a small bird That had landed on its back To peck at insects.

Alberta Hull Ottawa 1994 - 2019 jp melville Hull, across the river from Ottawa, between the Alexandria bridge and the Champlain bridge, sitting by the river, on a rock, on the river bank. An old man walks past me, his eyes searching the sand and gravel and then looking off to the distance downstream, he kicks a can and ambles on. My entire time here has been spent leaving; I will miss nothing. In fact, since I left Thailand, Benin, Kosovo… so many places, that's been years and years an eternity it seems, much of everything has been, or has felt, a distance removed. I watch the busses and cars roll along over the bridges and on the road on the far bank and I see toys filled with animated manikins. I see the tall apartment buildings and I know that inside them people laugh and weep and worry and watch television and apply cosmetics. I am unmoved. A seagull takes off from the wharf and f...