The Toll Bridge, poetry

Previously published as Over the Shoulder, bibliographic poetry (LukivPress Online, Quesnel, BC, 2007).

An excerpt

Arctic Killer

Polar bear:

Hiding,

With a paw,

Your black nose

(Ingenious)

As you stalk prey.

You're eidolic,

A Portuguese man-of-war,

To the flesh

You eat.

Photographer-pilots

"Captured" you

In your white desert:

Click.

But you,

In an 8 by 10 paradox,

Weren't there,

Like a Hollywood vampire

Without a virtual

Image.

Even infrared fails

To capture you

Who,

Like a black hole,

Harvests solar heat

That black skin

Absorbs.

Ultraviolet film

Exposes you:

A great,

Black amoeba,

As unphotogenic as

The small,

White seals

(They too are

Heat-absorbing miracles)

That you eat.

You stalk men-

You,

The most beautiful

Of all bears

(Some say)-

Just as Nimrod

Stalked men

In war-play.

In a zoo-cage

You're adored

By awe-struck children

("He's so cute!"),

But in the wild,

Face to face,

You're a gargoyle

With teeth

That kill.

Various poems in this collection have appeared in one or more of Authors (Canada), Green's Magazine (Canada), Word is Out (Canada), canadian content (Canada), *spark (Canada), CHALLENGER international (Canada), A Journal of Contemporary Canadian Poetry and Poetics (Canada), Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream (USA), Hidden Oak Poetry Journal (USA), So Young! (USA), The Poet's Corner (USA), Neovictorian Cochlea (USA), Poetry Magazine (USA), Poetic Voices (USA), The Journal (England), DeepSouth (New Zealand), The English Teachers' Online Network of South Africa, Artslink (South Africa), Electric Acorn (Ireland), and Redoubt (Australia).



The author

Dan Lukiv is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). His creative writing has appeared in 19 countries. Recently, he has been experimenting with temporal shifts and narrative strings in his haiku and senryu.