Kirjahaku

When the second eyelid drops and the veil is drawn back, and the seeing beyond Beyond begins, and the senses begin to sway and sing...this is the magic in the poetry of Gordon R. Menzies. Drawn from keen, lifelong observations of his fellow creatures and crafted with a unique, sensual touch directed more often than not towards the worship of the Divine Feminine embodied in all women, his words embrace the experience of living beyond the breath, beyond the tentative limits of touch we allow ourselves as we move through the world.Take up his generous glass, and drink deep...

Impactful lamentations and sensual soul song dug from an earthy, visceral existence and a pensive, youthful penury...these poems include some of the earliest works of the Canadian poet Gordon R. Menzies. As when a skin drum is struck repeatedly and the sound of it echoes through the world loud enough to feel it in your very bones, so too here is what resonates from a natural man of letters when life sends wave after wave of challenges and ambuscades on his intensely personal and winding road above the earth. He's found many things beneath the stones. Embrace the brooding mind of a wild wordsmith untamed...

So many see Time as a thing linear, and Place as static and solid. It comforts them to have this understanding because both their touch and their sight ends with surfaces and cannot go beyond. The mouths of these are always moving to assure themselves, and each other, of the reality of their presence and in so doing they fail to hear the echo of those who passed before...those who are still speaking. Poetry is unbound by these human constructs. Be silent. Press your lips together. Hold your breath, and listen.Here, with his careworn pen, the poet Gordon R. Menzies will tell you what he's heard.

The smoke from a breakfast fire drifting with morning mist along the still surface of a lake a dawn, the sudden splash of a fish on the silvered mirror beneath the sky...old whiskey, sweet pipe smoke, hot oatmeal and solitude... The work of Canadian poet Gordon R. Menzies resonates with these rustic images of refuge and contemplation. He has collected words from Woody End and the Greensward, the Bay of Nymphs and the Bay of Sleeping Muskies and patched them together for you with fishing line and feather on the Isle of Grimhold, his crucible and sanctuary.Fill your pipe and your glass, and listen to the lake murmur in his song...

Certain precious things spill down from the mountains in the night, wander listless and hungry through the dark, layered greens of the lodge pole pines in the upper marches before making their way down past the roar of cataracts to the quiet places where dark drippings from the stone collect like lost dreams looking for a dreamer. This is the country of bears, where poetry lingers and where a Canadian poet like Gordon R. Menzies collects words hiding beneath the rocks and caught in the Old Man's Beard that hangs from every tree, sifting the air for more.Here is a worn, weathered leather backpack heavy with western treasures...

Come canoeing on a lake of blue tears and Memory beneath the mirror of a mournful, morning sky filled with the faces of women in the clouds, loving and indifferent. Dip a tin cup into the shimmer of reflection, and slake your thirsty hearts and minds with the cool waters of contemplation. See yourself beneath and above the surface, exploring the layers, while Canadian Poet Gordon R. Menzies' paddle guides the way through the blue and the glistening...always listening, listening.Close your eyes, feel yourself pass through the edges of the elements...arriving where you need yourself to be.