SAMUEL STRATHMAN - POEMS

Samuel Strathman is a Jewish/Canadian poet and educator who was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning dis/ability st the age of seven. Some of his poems are forthcoming with Trash Panda Magazine, Ethos Journal, and on the Chaudiere Books blog. 

​saturday, april 13th, 2019

a walk spanning several blocks

morning doves shuffling
along front lawns as
cardinals recite poetic
verse in flocks of three to five

the smell of burning
firewood follows my
stepfather and i around
every bend

before we turn onto the street
corner where my mother and stepfather live, 
i spot a massive
tortoise carved out of wood

large rock for a shell
front arms raised

the quiet conductor
of this radiant spring evening

​

​thursday, june 27, 2019

call me an anchor
finding its hook in this page
grand harbour of contentment

my thought processes guiding me
to the greater unknown

the largest portions of my life 
are still ahead of me

i have yet to kiss
my own baby’s face, but have
lived long enough to have
kissed my niece’s cheek, and it
was soft cherub’s kaolin

a skin coated psalm that will
reverberate throughout the next generation

​

sunday, june 30th, 2019
​

aperture in the bathroom curtain
sunbeam cracking through 
the neon windowpane, rectangular

stray hairs pivoting in the midst
of the radiant yellow luster
a ballerina at the end of a salient denouement

performing her graceful dissent,
eventually latching on to a line
between the tiles on the floor

neil young’s twang
echoing brackish earth
on the sound system
gettin’ dooo-ow-own

flush

​