When grazing through lush poetry thickets of Accomplished Canadian Poet Norman, you are sure to be hugged by biblical allusions, lyrical consciousness, patriotism and the promise of life. Chad Norman is a Canadian Wordsmith carrying within his soul caves, a country of his birthing, the land of his dreams, the land of his cultural revolution, the land of his freedoms, Canada. His poetry is unique, enlightening and refreshing. His tightly knitted verses are a concoction of optimism, doses of love and droplets of promise and the resultant is moral consciousness, freedom and belonging. NORMAN is a well-traveled and internationally acclaimed Canadian Poet. TIME OF THE POET REPUBLIC is proud to be associated with this International acclaimed Writer, prolific Poet and Spoken Word Maestro CHAD NORMAN. Together We Rise– (Blurb by Mbizo CHIRASHA).
THE FLAGLESS FLAGPOLE
Today I can’t care about
the intrusive news of the world,
and I can’t care about
the life of a younger man seated
beside a bench I enjoy as the finches
share songs with a sun I can’t care about,
only use as a hope to warm the back
of my neck where the wind
remains cold under the collar
I leave open in order to not care about
the stranger walking by, asking
himself, along with the wind and sun,
“Do you really think I am stupid?”
At this point in the bike-ride home
I can’t care about the chem-trail
left in the blue sky above us, an
us I want to care about
only if we begin to take the time
seated out in the open where
we can be seen, bald-heads, ball-caps
on backwards and forwards,
burkas, niqabs, hijabs, turbans, etc., all we use to adorn or admit to
ourselves this is who I must be,
this is what I follow, what I believe in
if you will, what I wear allows a
tiny look into the self I am trying
to keep sacred, but what I wear
is meant to hide nothing other than
what we all were told to keep hidden,
boy and girl, man and woman.
Today I want to care about one thing,
a longing to be a Canadian…
being born here, or having had
the courage to choose this country
and somehow find the way,
to eventually stay on some land,
some perfect selected property.
You will soon own, soon call
a piece of the planet your new home.
WHERE THE PATH IS MELTING
How quiet can a child be?
Please, please, bury me
with Hope Sandoval singing,
“In To Dust”
as the singer of Mazzy Star,
as the world becomes more bizarre.
How quiet can a man be?
Thank you, thank you, hear me
with only these words,
my words, no famous singer,
just me, saying these lines,
just the world ignoring the poet.
It is day now, so daylight talks,
in among all the voices of Winter
lodged where cold isn’t a brute,
but when I recall that child
asking for so little when so little
I love how much I don’t know,
I don’t want to know.
Done with the branches’ strengths
you come up the driveway
with perfect legs, playing yourself
through strings and power
left to a song you know I know.
The one left of where the pen sat, yes,
over in the drawer you protect
where the child & man have laughed
over and over because life gives
of course, gives each one a bit
of daylight and darkness.
Something someone will find
out in the middle of a field
where snow drifts over old footprints.
The melting path of all planning
to leave homelands being bombed
or lied to, taken from their children
they believe Canada can help raise,
can help to get to the other side
where a piece of clear ground is found.
No snow, no wind, no opposition
to them simply hoping
to stand and not slip on
any wish to have them fall.
THE BROKEN GARDEN
for Doug C.
Never mind the nightly or morning news
it isn’t worth watching, or wasting
the time you call your life, to be
in front of the screen you pay too much for,
and finally say, “I have had enough of
Eden being a garden I am to tend,
Adam being some guy I must admire,
Eve being a leader of women somewhere,
and that poor innocent tree
with one branch some serpent chose.”
I’ll say it again, ” I have had enough of
being called a sinner for the Cross,
for a Christ they have all wrong,
not a man I choose to see their way,
and all the Commandments used to
hold us back, keeping our humanness
from a fuller involvement, letting minds
get beyond a book God had to self-publish,
had to rely on us to try to get through
without going to the mirror for a search,
a search of a face ready for some love.
Perhaps, I’ll say it again, “I’ve had enough
of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and
the lot of you, saying this is a freedom,
what some of you may want to say
and may believe to say it is going
to provide a free pass to that place
supposedly under us known as Hell,
but, please, say it anyway, “I’ve had
enough of…”, finally knowing to follow
all of those misadventures is a rip-off
devised and sent to leave you one thing,
the inability to hold out both hands
and help them from the many vessels
they had to board in order to sit
for the hours hope held them within,
hours either upon a sea, or looking
at clouds constantly forming shapes
pointing at this country, our country,
and what you know to be a safe landing.
Regardless of all the heaven stuff
my worries have nothing to do with it,
as a member of the broken garden
if I ever go anywhere after my flesh is done
I ask it is a real place, one where
we all sit and hold hands screaming
a prayer to explode the War Machine.
THE LIGHTING OF A CANDLE
It stands before me
still unlit
unlike the spreading problem
lit over & over because of hatred,
or am I wrong, am I afraid,
hatred is no fool, hatred is,
and I am not wrong or afraid
when it comes to what my pen wants.
I don’t give a damn about keyboards,
or computers or cellphones, or that
unbelievable mouth called Social Media,
I give a damn about my country,
one known as Canada, one worth
giving more than a damn about, one,
the only one I have to give myself to.
The lighting of a candle
now bright, now lit long ago,
well maybe not so long ago
if I put aside any belief in time,
how it seems to be mad to pass,
to leave us another confusion as to
why it passes by day after day
in such an inexplicable hurry.
Please understand our world is not small,
meaning there is room, so much room
for one family, all the families who need
to escape what they call danger, what
we would call a report on the nightly news,
what I need to call an invitation,
“Please come to my country, you know
it is known as Canada, so many have come
before you, families, children, man & woman, who stand somewhere with one match, with one ancient and simple faith,
the lighting of a candle
can be a beginning, can be
like when a child is newly born
and the world becomes borderless,
the world is found in each & every flicker.
CHAD NORMAN lives beside the high-tides of the Bay of Fundy, Truro, Nova Scotia. He has given talks and readings in Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, America, and across Canada. His poems appear in publications around the world and have been translated into Danish, Albanian, Romanian, Turkish, Italian, and Polish.His collections are Selected & New Poems ( Mosaic Press), and Squall: Poems In The Voice Of Mary Shelley, is now out from Guernica Editions.
MEET TIME OF THE REPUBLIC Projects Curator
Mbizo CHIRASHA, Contributing Editor to the Diasporian Online. Chronicler and Publisher , AFRICA WRITERS CARAVAN. Chief Editor at TIME OF THE POET REPUBLIC. Projects Curator at WOMAWORDS LITERARY PRESS. Chief Influencer at Brave Voices Poetry Journal. Author and Editor at Porcupine Quill. UNESCO-RILA Affiliate Artist. 2020 Free Speech Fellow at PEN Deutschland.2020 Poet in Residence of the Fictional Café . 2019 African Fellow of the Ihraf.org. Contributing Writer at Monk Arts and Soul Magazine . Literary Arts Activism Diplomatie at Bezine Arts and Humanities Magazine and The Poet A Day. Featured Poetry Artist at World BeyondWar.Org. Arts Features and Political commentary Writer at Cultural Weekly. Featured African Writer at Demer Press International Poetry Series . Featured African Performance Poet at 2020 Medellin International Poetry Festival. Featured Poet/Writer at INKSWEATAND TEARS Journal.2019 Live Literature Hub Curator/Producer at Sotambe International Film Arts FESTIVAL. 2009 Poet in Residence at International Africa Culture and Development, ICACD). 2003 Young Literary Arts Delegate of ZimBookFair to Goteborg International Book Fair, SIDA African Pavilion . Co-Editor of a three Languages International collection STREET VOICES with prominent Germany Author Andreas Weiland . Featured Poet at Cervena Barva Press Newsletter. Literary Arts and Poetry Contributor to the Zimbabwean Voice of the Voiceless Newspaper. African Participant to the World Poetry Almanac Book Series in Mongolia. Resident Coordinator for 100 Thousand POETS for Peace- Zimbabwe. Founder and Creative Director at GirlChildcreativity Project . Writer in Residence. Global LITERARY Arts Projects Influencer. Published Author and International Acclaimed Poet.
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