Whirlpool, poetry

Previously published as The Lead Guitarist, poetry: First Edition: Serialized in spark* (Vancouver, BC), 2000.

Excerpt published in CHALLENGER international (Quesnel, BC), 2008.

Second Edition: Published in An Introductory Creative Writing Program-Monograph Two (Academic Exchange Extra, 2009, January [University of Northern Colorado: Greeley, CO]).

Third Edition: LukivPress (Quesnel, BC), 2014.

Fourth Edition: Published in Creative Writing for Senior Secondary Students (LukivPress [Quesnel, BC], 2014).

New title, Whirlpool, poetry:

Revised Edition: LukivPress (Sardis, BC), 2021.

An excerpt

The Lead Guitarist

From a winter-scarred porch,
I peer at the skyline-
I'm a radar
Scanning for altitude
(Not that you should steer
By radar: that's like inviting rocks
Into your hull).

I see lines of Trans Atlantic
Clouds
As grey as poor rhythm
And as long as Beethoven's ninth.
But I imagine them as
Simply grey beasts,
Or ship-punching fists,
Or strings of blue hearts lost
In Les Paul-pickups-
Pickups that change finger-licking
Scribbles
Into electric licks
And screams.

I scan the blue sky above
The grey lines;
I'm a Malibu surfer
Sighting a dream-wave,
A Cariboo logger
Attacking lunch,

And a sunbather
With red shades.

Before my day ends,
I'll turn the colour blue
Into an overdrive-
Feast,

In spite of the ache-
In spite of /Me.

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.