Dan Lukiv

The Toll Bridge, poetry Dan Lukiv

Previously published as Over the Shoulder, bibliographic poetry (LukivPress Online, Quesnel, BC, 2007).

An excerpt

Arctic Killer

Polar bear:
Hiding,
With a paw,
Your black nose
(Ingenious)
As you stalk prey.
You're eidolic,
A Portuguese man-of-war,
To the flesh
You eat.

Photographer-pilots
"Captured" you
In your white desert:
Click.
But you,
In an 8 by 10 paradox,
Weren't there,
Like a Hollywood vampire
Without a virtual
Image.

Even infrared fails
To capture you
Who,
Like a black hole,
Harvests solar heat
That black skin
Absorbs.

Ultraviolet film
Exposes you:
A great,
Black amoeba,
As unphotogenic as
The small,
White seals
(They too are
Heat-absorbing miracles)
That you eat.

You stalk men-
You,
The most beautiful
Of all bears
(Some say)-
Just as Nimrod
Stalked men
In war-play.

In a zoo-cage
You're adored
By awe-struck children
("He's so cute!"),

But in the wild,
Face to face,
You're a gargoyle
With teeth
That kill.

Various poems in this collection have appeared in one or more of Authors (Canada), Green's Magazine (Canada), Word is Out (Canada), canadian content (Canada), *spark (Canada), CHALLENGER international (Canada), A Journal of Contemporary Canadian Poetry and Poetics (Canada), Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream (USA), Hidden Oak Poetry Journal (USA), So Young! (USA), The Poet's Corner (USA), Neovictorian Cochlea (USA), Poetry Magazine (USA), Poetic Voices (USA), The Journal (England), DeepSouth (New Zealand), The English Teachers' Online Network of South Africa, Artslink (South Africa), Electric Acorn (Ireland), and Redoubt (Australia).

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.