David
Fraser B.C.
Fraser B.C.
I am a member of CPA and would like to submit my poetry
collection for posting on the CPA Bookstore. I already have the
CPA banner linked on my web site
http://www.ascentaspirations.ca/authorlinks.htm
Going to the Well
ISBN 0-9736568-08
By David Fraser
2004; 94 pp; Pa; Ascent Aspirations Poetry,
1560 Arbutus Drive, Nanoose Bay,
British Columbia, Canada
V9P 9C8.
$14.95
About the Book: Testimonials and Reviews
This publication is David Fraser's first collection of poetry.
Whether writing poetry or short fiction, David examines
characters struggling with time and entropy, with relationships
and with finding meaning in lives often caught up and stagnant
in their own existence, their aging and their loss. Many poems
deal with the dark side of the human condition as a political
protest to man’s inhumanity to man, and to man’s blatant
disregard for our greatest resource, Mother Earth. However
within this dark perspective there is tenderness and hope and
lyrical imagery of what life wonderfully can be.
"David Fraser looks up, looks around him, takes in his
surroundings, and does a good job of reporting on nature as a
vital restorative element in our lives." - David Chorlton
"David Fraser's 'Going to the Well' is a remarkable journey filled
with a zest for all that life offers. His poems surprise, delight, and
enrich the reader. They truly deepen our understanding of the
human condition...all in all, this collection represents a most
impressive debut." - Vernon Waring
Sample Poems:
Blackberry Picking
These sharp, honed razor stalks
sprouted up and mixed with broom
coat the scars of land disturbed.
Their stalks reach up and cling to trees,
stretch in tangled barbed islands,
a refuge for quail and rabbit,
snakes and mice.
I wade into the thorny waters
to pick those plump rich berries
just a stretch away,
a scratch away, a curled hand,
two subtle fingers reaching up beneath a leaf,
the juice of picked berries staining
them, rich and red, purple in the shade.
The canes move and grip my hat,
claw at the cotton shoulders of my shirt.
I pick with either hand,
held in a cocoon of time,
lost in picking,
Lost in all the tangles of a life.
I eat a few; the juice exploding on my tongue.
The dogs, tired of chasing rabbits
sit in the long dry grass beside me.
I feed them berries
and they, too, begin to pick from the lower stalks.
We gather together,
the hot sun of a blue sky and a breeze
much a part of us
berries, dogs and me.
David Fraser 2003
Previously published in Ygdrasil, Nov. 2003 and in the collection
Going to the Well, Ascent
Aspirations Publishing
Fossil Hunting
(Hornby Island)
The tide is out across
the beds of cretaceous shale
among the scuttling crabs,
over smoothed boulders,
’round jagged erratics.
exposed, I wander among
ochre stars glinting in the sun,
eel grass flat, sea hair and rockweed
where shield-backed kelp crabs move,
mossy chiton cling.
The slippery walk flat and low
across the Georgia Strait
beneath the blue pleasure of the sky
where seal pups play
upon their rocky jut of solitude,
where two eagles perched apart
fish from rocks.
and all around,
a wealth of snowy peaks,
our island heights melting
fresh water to the sea.
The continuous margin of the strait
sparkling in the vacant expanse of air.
hammer-handed, I search,
choosing not the smooth granites
that can break my wrist
but dull concretions, gray,
smooth or barnacled,
formed ’round some nucleus;
a stem, a stone, once living things,
an ammonite perhaps; Aha!
a crab carapace
formed delicate within the rock
before human feet stepped ashore.
Maybe further down the beach,
a mosasaur, its curving neck,
razor teeth held
captive in the stone.
I sit with my discoveries and dreams
far out at sea
on my glacial-carried seat
amid the muck of time,
the here and now and then.
David Fraser 2004
Previously published in Ardent,
August 2004 and in the collection
Going to the Well, Ascent Aspirations Publishing
Ascent Aspirations Publishing www.ascentaspirations.ca
ascentaspirations@shaw.ca ascent@bcsupernet.com
Member of the Federation of BC Writers
http://www.bcwriters.com/
Member of WAVE Publications Cooperative
http://www.wavecoop.com/
Member of the Canadian Poetry Association
http://www.canadianpoetryassoc.com/
Member of the Canadian Federation of Poets
http://www.federationofpoets.com/
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