Editor : E.D. Blodgett*
P.O. Box 52014
Edmonton
Alberta, T6G 2T5
Canada

Inkling Press is a small, creative, nonprofit publishing company specializing in books which have a limited market, e.g. restricted genres and the work of poets ready to publish their second or third book. It is run by a Board of Directors who serve without fee or obligation.

Inkling always works with a sponsor/author with whom the financial responsibility is shared, more or less equally. Inkling assumes full responsibility for production and distribution.

On occasion, Inkling, in cooperation with its affiliate magpie productions, will commission an audio recording of the text. This recording may be marketed either as an alternative or a complement to the written work. Inkling and the sponsor again share the financial responsibility.

Inkling can not accept unsolicited manuscripts but always welcomes queries accompanied by an S.A.S.E. (or I.R.C.).

Listed below are the titles of recent publications. These include Speaking Flowers by E.D. Blodgett, Petals on white ground by Gerald St. Maur, A well-tempered tellurion, also by Gerald St. Maur, Encounters in This Penny World by Sanford Goldstein, Hitchhiking in the Hospital by Shirley A. Servisss and Drops from Her Umbrella by Laura Maffei.

*University Professor Emeritus of the University of Alberta,
Dr. Blodgett is the author of seventeen books of poetry among which "Apostrophes" won the Governor General Award for Poetry in 1996.

a sudden loud noise
all the pigeons of Venice
at once fill the sky
that's how it felt when your hand
accidentally touched mine

feeling cranky
the palm reader
tells him
she's never seen a life line
as short as his

reflecting in the Taoist smile
a water lily   a slice of the world flows

where the water is distilled with stars so
at peace on its isle the space of night

before the burning bush which goes out
as far as the absence of God   the soul smitten

does not spur on its grief   Moses breathes in
the wild rose that closed and does not speak

The full round moon
      floating toward the lake shore…
the sound of splashing

            sweeping car headlights:
        skeletal birches shifting
    only their shadows

Coming up behind,
you suddenly enfold me
in this universe;
voyaging lost together
I have no wish to be found

On that last evening
before you went far away,
with so much to say
you took my hands and taught me
the poetry of silence

page 19

page 72

Blueberries

perhaps the only thing to do
with a dying man
on a summer day
is to share blueberries

place them into your mouth
one by one and ingest them
slowly and reverently

slice their juices with your teeth
feel the juice suffuse
your parched throat

savour their flesh
their blue taste
as though its the first
ever to rest on your tongue

Halloween--
infant Batman
in my arms
barely aware of this world
that needs saving

shaking the drops
from her bright red umbrella
this friend
with troubles in her past
meets me at the train

favorite
green T-shirt
getting worn thin
looks like this is to be
my summer of nipples

the intimacy of death
in my childhood room
Father's hand
smaller now
than mine

a cloud of cherry blossoms
gusts across the highway
...I hurry home
rush you from the garden
to make love

from our final
seaside rendezvous
only this:
scent of jasmine and brine
I cannot brush from my hair

if you'd been here
you'd have reminded me
about the blue moon
on my own
I forget to look

field of hay bales
and their shadows
the hawk's wingspan

grocery store
the male cashier
handles my melons

tumbling waterfall
in an alpine garden
after the rush to arrive
we drop a penny
into the pool below



needing silence
needing peace
I plough a path
into the whiteness
of a winter garden

your silence,
my silence...
the chirp
of a cicada
in the cosmos


new organist
I weave fantasies
of a life together -
evening light glimmers
through the stained glass lilies

in first full bloom
the apricot tree - joy
in me still


                        a face beseeching
                        before it becomes
                            a water lily


                        winter sunset
                        my shadow far too long
                        for one life


            flooded plain
fence tops show which water
          belongs to whom

Her head
on my shoulder
white thoughts
drift across
a blue mind


Morning bedroom sun
the new leg and foot veins
an updated map
of all the roads
in this particular life