From the Archive: Liisa Ladouceur (CAROUSEL 25)

Staff/ September 22, 2020/ Poem

LIISA LADOUCEUR

Warren Ellis’ Violin

Because poets are like shoes
best when foreign
and in translation
all of ache is lost.
Because sad songs
can only say so much
in four minutes twenty
and life is too messy
for such pretty mouths.
Because words can be warped
by lips, fits, lisps
and voices drowned out
in dark rivers and bars.

Play on
your ocean songs.
Fingers singing
bows for knives
piercing the skins
that hold it all in.
Those nights we puked
up desire, stumbled ashamed
crumbled, humbled
by love’s lost names
those dirty deeds
when we were bad seeds.

Apology, we have no strings.
With wood and wire, suspend us
our bodies liquefying, flying
in the smokey air above.
Wherever you are, we love.

Liisa Ladouceur reads Warren Ellis’ Violin (2010)

Liisa Ladouceur is a writer, producer, amateur stand-up comedian, recovering poet and the Digital Director of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. Her books include Encyclopedia Gothica (ECW Press, 2011) and How to Kill a Vampire: Fangs in Folklore, Film and Fiction (ECW Press, 2013). More: liisaladouceur.com +
@LiisaLadouceur on Twitter

Warren Ellis’ Violin
appeared in CAROUSEL 25 (2010) — buy it here