They Will Take My Island

by Darren Bifford

Paul and I consider Gorky’s 1944 They Will Take My Island.

This is Paul’s favorite work in the Art Gallery of Ontario.

He brings me to it after we see Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents.

There’s a lot to admire about Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents.

In a way it’s my favorite painting in the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Something about it reminds me of They Will Take My Island.

The soldiers are so intent on killing all the babies, no island

exists in the Pacific they will not discover, nor in Ontario

for that matter. They say people borne of islands are innocent.

No work of art hangs on their walls. History walks around innocent

in circles, saying let’s begin again and again. The British in Ontario;

the French in Quebec, expect for Gauguin who sails for Islands

where he will live naked and gaudy as he imagines men do on islands

civilization skips. Even here under the cities and roads of Ontario

you’ll find tracks and bones: it’s true none of us here are innocent.

Which reminds me of Gorky’s 1944 They Will Take My Island.

I see my great-great grandfather with a cross and level in his hands.

Listen to the crowds roar! There are no tigers in the land of Ontario.

Herod’s soldiers sail ashore. Every creature in the forest is an infant. 

They Will Take My Island

by Robert Earl Stewart

The gate of your ribs pulled open tonight.

Your chest bleeding some kind of searchlight.

It picks up the grey gull of a boat against the darkness,

the landing party lit white as embers.

You cannot see the man who lies in the hold

on a dune of dried fruit spilled from crates.

It’s as dark as the centre of the sun down there; his thirst

as bright as the centre of that darkness.

Sometimes he looks like that guy you know—

that guy with the boat and the card game.

But most of the time he just looks like the admiral,

locked away in disease from his horde.  

It smells like birthday candles where we watch

from the shore. The lamp in your chest has gone out.

The shorebirds hold their eggs inside like the future,

like a new, dark beach before the prow. 

They Will Take My Island

by Claire Caldwell

After the tourists left, we made a map of Venice

with black licorice. It snowed that year, and our father

painted dead fish in the markets. We took turns

trailing feral cats and ladies draped in winter furs.

The canal slithered past the cobblestones, sleek

as a silver chain. Mother cursed the water

in her bones. My brother built forts for his

glass animals, too young still for the cartoleria

where the man with marbled eyelids told fortunes.

I delivered his ink on Sundays. He stamped my feet

before reading their soles. Our island won't sink
if it's sailing, he'd say every time. I chose to believe him.

They Will Take My Island

by Catherine Graham

Scuttle in the blood cells,
they seed the white beach, crawl
sideways under the skin
with a belly-skeletal undertaking.
Pincer-caught without pain,
they labour up a rogue wave
of metastasis to make the spreading endless.

They Will Take My Island

by Robin Richardson

With slant-eyes, beards and breakable

demeanors they will claim the dust,

sheets, pleated dress, the furnace that

mutters grumpy where I sleep.

Their boots will take the hardwood,

blue clamp of conversation while

I pour myself a drink. The books

will stack self-conscious, spines

will arch and fingers aim to slink

across the grind. They will pine

for morning toast, dalliance

of daylight at the sill; Its coming

and going and showing up the quiet

with a cricket-fiddle; stark and hardy.

They will echo in the hallway, stay

a sliver on the rocks-glass. They will

want the writing, haunt the paper

with their harks and clever inching

inward. They will lift the covers, cull

the frantic musing with their firmness.

They will take my island.

They Will Take My Island

by Gary Barwin

after Leigh Nash & Natasha Nuhanovic

inside, godlike

the eyes of a ukulele

a smaller goodbye

a diplomat’s first duty

to strum

goodbye, ukelele

stray-dog guitar

only a small song

when all we have is shore

They Will Take My Island

by Paul Vermeersch

after Arshile Gorky

My loves are coming. Whether on a raft, or a frigate,

or a longboat with its serpent figurehead,

its sails billowed by whirlwinds, they are coming to my island. 

She is with them, the love of my childhood.

She was a foal lying silently in brown leaves.

She will be something different now,

a stranger to my island, and yet the leaves

are already withering, already falling to the earth in preparation.

They must navigate whirlpools and crushing straits,

but still my loves are coming in a cold white spray. 

They make for my island, and the love of my youth is with them.

She was a young woman in a field of honeybees.

Their droning was loud, but they would not sting her.

The field and her hair are one, and the field 
goes behind her like a floral train.

I can see her only like this, and not as she might be now,

in accordance with a pact made long ago.

All my loves are coming to my island. The first love

of my manhood is with them.

She had the head of a boar and a girl's quick laugh.

And the second love of my manhood, a scarlet ibis, 
cruel as a lizard’s eye, is with them too,

but she might turn back before they reach my island.

And the love of my life is with them. 
She will introduce herself in my native tongue, 

saying, You need not fear me,

and she will lead all my terrible loves

to this shore, and together they will take my island.