ETHAN VILU - POEMS

Ethan Vilu is a student and writer from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Their work has previously appeared in Peculiar Mormyrid, The Trinity Review, and The Velvet Tracksuits Magazine, among other publications. They are on the editorial team for NōD Magazine, and they also run a fledgling speculative fiction journal called Trouble Among The Stars.

​In World Versus World

Represent yourself
through abstraction

take what is given
and use it

polygon - the azure water -
virtual reality - rapidly losing blood -

get called by your vile name
while waiting for death
to take you

but there’s such beauty -

get up again
rattle your chains
storm the castle

hack and slash
the mind of the oppressor

take
what is hidden
and give it light

​

Ark
​

The flood, primeval
destitute population suffering

typhoon-blown cadence on
gingkos and bushwillows

battered planet thoroughfare
carefree waters rising

nothing but fraudulent vanity
exiting palace of death

but wait - 
slanted mahogany hatches

wide frame of silent auburn
gifted with buoyant foresight

gallantly floating from Erebos
leaving the face of the Earth

saving us two by two
saving us two by two.

​

Trireme
​

 The sheets fly
with gusts from the pantheon
the oars play
inter-cultural aeolian scales
as the vessel moves
hatches upholstered with luxury
shifting through space and time
one thing
               for another
                                and back again

​Lines composed on reading of north american buddhism

Ironweeds in the sunlight 
     ravenous woodpile eating maggots 
and marigolds, drawing no breath 
       from decaying matter. My father 
sways in his chair, tells me about 
   cross-country trails in cottage country 
and we drink apple cider.

burning down log cabins
cutting down bamboo    for coffee filters…

self referential jokes
     hidden zines and blue roses
in a zendo
     “zen” in everything
How did
        these fucking people
                             get the money?
black coffee and red roses
cold water glows
because it is wanted

thinking of theology
                     and marigolds…

We pose for photographs.
The gardens are (of course!) 
wilted, frozen over.
Someone makes jokes, 
another captures the candid.

I’m wearing a new hat that
I bought. I ask for a photo
with just you.

​

​ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI IN THE DESERT…

...pining 
             away
                     smiling...
                                    no one was with him.

Is it bad news?
Is it bad news?
Is it bad news?

We’re throwing coins as an offering
to the demigods of equity
cursing out the entanglement
of finery and friendship
taking in
              syncretic nothing
by ourselves
              surrounded
by loved ones…

             Lonely as fuck
             With my friends

What’s up?

------

Pride and ghostly prejudice…
stags walk in an otherwise
empty hallway - the sound
of strings permeates the room
and the airy mountain road

roto-violin in starlight
                             moons and mountains
                     the endless games…

a theology of tears
a theology of ghosts
a theology of never-ending

komodo dragons on vacant land in Port Hardy
tulip gardens and rain clouds and pain
dharani screaming chanting under the bridge

merciless viola cry
   signalling the absolute end of everything -

FRANCIS’ PURE LAND -
                 
                                the well of destruction.

​