© 2015 Jude Neale

Jude Neale is a Canadian poet, vocalist, spoken word performer and mentor. She publishes frequently in journals, anthologies, and e-zines.She was shortlisted for the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize (Ireland), The  International Poetic Republic Poetry Prize (U.K),The Mary Chalmers Smith Poetry Prize shortlist (UK), The Wenlock International Poetry Prize (UK), The RCLAS International short story and Poetry Competition (Canada) where she placed second in both categories. She was long listed for the  Canadian ReLit Award and the Pat Lowther Award for female writers for her book Only the Fallen Can See (Canada), shortlisted for Editor's Choice, Hurricane Press (USA), highly commended for Sentinel International Poetry Prize (UK) she placed second in the prestigious 2014 Pandora’s Literary Collective Poetry Competition and was highly commended in the Carers International (UK). She  achieved honourable mention in the Royal City Short Story Competition and and was recently shortlisted twice for The Magpie Poetry Award (Canada).Jude was published in A Kind of Hurricane Presses Best of 2014 Anthology (US).  Her latest book, A Quiet Coming of Light, A Poetic Memoir (leaf press), is shortlisted for the 2015 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and two of its poems were nominated for the coveted Pushcart Prize (US) by two different publishers. One of Jude's poems from this collection was chosen by the 2015 Guernsey Literary Prize (UK) and will ride with thirty three other winners around the Channel Islands on public transit for a year.

An Extravagance of Colour Suite

Notes after an Exhibition
Lauren Morris

Adagio

If I stare long enough
at the creamy extravagance
of tulips you gave me

I cry at the blurry, shimmering beauty
of someone else’s need to tie me up.

You disappear from my thoughts gradually,
a yellow Cheshire cat,

padding soundlessly away.

Today you leave the scent of lemons and skin
on the sheet where you  recently lay,

and I can’t tear this membrane that binds.

Your love is a rock in my throat,

yet I want to press
it close to  my heart

and wait for this scar to fade

into a thin white line.

Lento

We sit on the porch
talking in grey whispers
unsure of the night.

You kiss my surprised lips
though they are faded with disuse.

A change
in the weather
would be all
it would take

to ring the blue Danube moon
sitting on the broken stone wall.

Allegra

I hunger for beach glass to gather,

polish and make gifts for our night.

Its fire will burn
the unending questions
of where do I come from or where do I go?

One thing’s for certain,

this sky holds its secrets,
like a bowl of blood oranges 
holds the rust of the day.
.
Maybe I gleam more, now
that you’ve reached me,

for I open before you and say

hold me           
like this       

till I feel my skin settle.

You smoky-eyed figment
of uncommon bliss.

Rondo

Once my small dimpled fingers
plucked buttonhole daisies and weeds

from the backyard lawn,

before we visited my mother
at the Nanaimo hospital.

Dad scrubbed my face pink,
with the rough flannel cloth

so that she would know
someone still had control

over my solemn young life.
I knew she wanted us

and not

you,
mis-taken baby brother of  ours.

We stood together,
Mum's motherless children

under the gaze of her second floor window.

I blew three magic kisses,

and hoped to penetrate
the insoluble view

of brick and curtained rooms

with my milky clutch  of yellow dandelions.