small hopes
like flotsam in the raging sea
little bits of elusive life
to be strung together
while treading the maelstrom
that we might raft
until the safe harbour
and anchor’s teeth bite deep

The lamp
that shone as silvered sun
has, with time
burned obscurity into the glass
etched with black irony
as fuel for longed for light
a carbon cover
keeping its own child
in the dark and blind

As the days wind down
to my stretch of dust and dirt
I build a body of idea
a network of needed words
with a heart of chipped ice
pumping rhythmic to forever

I spend my nights
under a different set of stars
stars brighter than these dull orbs
that gutter in the dark above
they gutter in the dark inside
my nights are bright as truth
before the pleading blind
healing with fire

IMPORTANT NOTE: Since posting this I have learned via 23&Me and a reluctant but forthcoming mother that I am, in fact, not a Cantelon (by heritage). I am in fact the child of Harry Samuels, a deceased Jewish man from Canada. I have since met two brothers, a sister-n-law and nieces. 

The Samuels last name is recent having been adopted by my great grandfather Samuel Omansky after coming to Canada via Scotland from a shtetl in Chigirin, Russia (modern Ukraine) and after my father was born. So my father’s original name was Harry Omansky. More on this in a far more recent post.

Family Motto – Fortis in Bello (Strength in War) given to ancestor Henry De Cantelu by King William I (William the Conquerer) in 1066 after the Battle of Hastings.

Starting with the most distant and working toward today:

Henry De Cantelu, Ship Captain of Normandy

William De Cantelupe (1090)

Walter De Cantelupe (1120 – “settles” in Ireland)

Nicholas De Cantelupe

Raymond De Cantelupe

Howell De Cantelupe

Timothy De Cantelupe

Richard De Cantelupe

John De Cantelupe (Died 1309) first Baron of Bally Heigue

John De Cantilon second Baron of Bally Heigue

Maurice De Cantilon third Baron of Bally Heigue

Edmund De Cantilon, fourth Baron of Bally Heigue

John De Cantilon

Roger De Cantillon

David De Cantillon (Born 1579)

Valentine De Cantillon

Peter De Cantillon (Finally!)

Jasper De Cantillon

John De Cantillon

John De Cantillon II (B. 1754)

William De Cantillon (1775-1859; emigrated to Canada followed by three brothers. Settled in Clinton, Ontario near Goderich).

David Cantelon

Peter Cantelon

David William Leonard Cantelon (B. Dec. 31, 1889; D. Feb. 12, 1931)

Isabel Cantelon (1915-1985)

Peter James Cantelon (Jan. 1942- Nov. 2, 2011)

Peter James Cantelon Jr. (May 4, 1968-?)

Matthew, Caleb and Isabella Cantelon

Tremble
at the power
of a yes freely given
a yes whispered
unbound and unbinding
holding none but God
to beautiful account
for the sake of the unwilling

fear is the colour
of my night time room
in the faded places
of a lead crush beneath
the x-ray apron
holds me down
showing my secret inside

real bursts on occasion
like a boil or a blessing
into this fictional world
it pours
like acid death and sex
onto lives hard hidden
corpses dead in lies
buried beneath fantasy
from this harsh light
this burning beauty
that threatens to melt
the scales from our eyes
that we might know one-another
and scream at the electric
that is a life bared

I am considering self-publishing.

I have always been conflicted about the idea. Most of my favorite poets are self-published. The industry of professional publishing is really rather recent actually and seems to be swinging back to self-publishing with internet technology etc.

I don’t know.

Something about a cover and binding attracts me. Ultimately it is hubris and ego that drive the desire and also the resistance to it.

I write for the same reason I breathe. So why publish at all? A legacy? Not really…I already answered the question. The bound is held captive and brought into the real world in a way the ethereal web cannot seem to accomplish.

I have never really been big on submitting poems to magazines and collections. After who knows how many thousands of poems later I may have submitted only a dozen in my life.

Maybe I will. What do you think?

it is the song inside
that moves beneath
most frigid frozen flesh
most grey mask of decay
it is the heat within
betrays the failing skin
like a beauty buried
a star in the earth beating
beating a measure of light
that escapes the cracks
humming soft of biding time
’til the singer tears the crust away
and bright heart blazes