I am delighted to present you with a Henry Beissel poem of the poet’s own choosing, chosen before his passing, to represent his work.
You are not in the corner to be punished. This is where the beauty is hiding.
Welcome – how wonderful to have you back.
The poem featured in this issue’s Poetry Corner is from award winning poet, playwright, and author Henry Beissel. His memory is also honoured in this issue in a eulogy, written by his wife, Arlette Francière.
I often come late to the party, so I was not surprised to discover that a poet I had not known in life, and whose work I had not read, would have so profound an impact on me.
Henry Beissel wrote some beautiful poetry. Born in Germany in 1929, he came to Canada in 1951 and spent the majority of his career teaching English literature at Concordia University, where his archives now reside.
My new favourite poems among his body of work, which is vast, include titles that evoke the lyrical beauty and imagery of Dylan Thomas. ‘Dying I Was Born’ and ‘White Spruce’ in particular, offer a Canadian spin on the Welsh poet’s fascination with nature, life, and death.
I am delighted to present you with a Henry Beissel poem of the poet’s own choosing, chosen before his passing, to represent his work.
The poem is called ‘Night Reflections’, and I can only imagine it was chosen as a poetic refusal to go gentle into that good night.
If you’re a poet, please send me your work by clicking HERE.. I’ll publish two poems per issue. The only stipulation is you must make my heart move a little.
~Monique Montgomery
It’s one of the small hours
when the aged die in their sleep
while infants cry out
for consolation at their mother’s breast.
Those on shift now get to feel
the weight of time in every bone.
What woke me,
what drew me to the window?
A face limned dark on dark,
its features washed out
like the weathered sculpture
on an ancient tombstone.
It hangs in midair,
an eerie sketch on glass.
The night is hot
and soundless the fireflies
set off their tiny charges of light.
I catch the glint
of many knives beyond
the circle of darkness.
A throat. A wrist.
Cut. Is it the pain
that woke me and
now withholds sleep?
Recognition always comes
as a shock. A sleight of the eye
has cast the face in the glass
out among the trees
like some ghost of the woods—
my face, pale,
more mask than portrait,
the eyes holes gaping
as black as the flowers
out in the garden,
shafts deep down
where they mine
the ore of nightmares.
I hang there
in the spruce tree
suspended from shadows
hearing in the void
sighs, laughter, screams.
By the pond a bullfrog
throbs basso profondo.
Lovers have long drifted off
into their post-coital utopias.
The stars are not
where they claim to be.
My face is
impaled on the spruce tree’s
spiked branches
where thin and chilly
a faint glitter
etches shadows
under my eyes.
The sky strains
asteroids and meteors,
galaxies and supernovae
from the distant light
and then disperses them
in the dark grey of trees.
I cannot see the trails
a myriad creatures leave
who crowd the dark
with a life richer
than my audio-visual world.
I see only the brooding
night reflections on the glass.
Henry Beissel
