Landmarks by Ken Belford

for Si

Up is north and now that I’m older
and more complex, more close
to the rising and the setting -
there are two countries, one
at the top edge of the map,
the other at the bottom.
When the current increases,
so does the field, and the spin
of bodies and waves in the night sky
are landmarks used for direction.
If you go up the river
until you come to the end of it,
then go down the valley where
the water flows the other way
for a long time, you will see
what I mean. I was repelled
by other things and you, a primary
direction in the form of a turning
point, were an outside influence
that flipped my poles.

The Lyric Launched: George Sipos

A newly released book of poetry by a Prince George literary mainstay:

George Sipos, Anything but the Moon , Goose Lane

George Sipos, until recently, owned and ran Mosquito Books, an independent bookstore. He now works as General Manager of the Prince George Symphony Orchestra. He is acutely aware that life, in its strangeness and beauty, will always elude whatever he can say about it. The tension between the humble recognition that words are in-adequate and the insistent urge to capture what he sees and feels gives Anything but the Moon its blend of quiet reverence and meditative urgency. In lush lyric poems about driving in his truck or listening to the sounds of a henhouse, Sipos reflects upon how everyday ex-periences slip through our fingers, never to be fully understood or articulated. The rhythms of his poetry are beautifully shaped to the arc of seeing and thinking.

For Prince George Citizens by Rob Budde

                                 close to
cottonwood siphons, traveled
in the blood valley and lakes 
they stay where bills dissolve
and families of mergansers 
reform from them

the air is a cipher;
the sidewalks crack with those already left

how a river might slice through
your heart as it outlasts its function—that affinity
to the sculptured moose with sunglasses,
the gargoyles of too much beer,
northern hardware holding on

the welcome here--the pick-up
pulls up exhausted holding the newspaper headline high:
the big men are coming to town tomorrow
and the streets are blocked with living

lettering on the old diner still in relief
proclaims that moss is filling our lungs
sucking out the beloved toxins without our knowing
 
you see, the going back is hardest, wheels
on the future paddle past the bank,
trust in disbelief and the way stones float