Ariadne’s Notes: The World Poetry Café Radio Show was honoured to be a partner once again with the Heart of The City Festival! For our special show, we re-visited the memories  and history of Hogan’s Alley in Vancouver  and featured the well known poet Ghai  Aweida from the Thursday Club in the downtown eastside. Also e-poets Mamta Agarwal from India and Chinese poet, Chinese Poet Yuan Hongri, story by Sharon Rowe and Poetic News. Still in membership drive right now: Please become a donator or member by going to www.coopradio.org , clicking on membership at the top and contributing what you can. This will help us stay on the air.

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Ghia Aweida is a Lebanese Canadian poet of Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese descent. She is a faithful member of Thursdays and is a self-published a number of chapbooks, a full-length poetry book, My Spiritual Journey and is published in several Thursdays anthologies, the latest anthology is From the Heart of It All.

The Heart of Art
Like an artery pulsating
in a world shun off
waiting to feed and nourish
the curious cells
far away from it
renewing energy
at the centre of its lover,
the centre of its city
giving and taking of its experiences
with another heart nearby,
spreading its love of creation
throughout the city
into its suburbs
with the newcomers
with the citizens
with other artists
with one another
with our hosts.
The city returns its tired blood
exhausted from old art
through the veins of its existence
to the heart of its creation
purify its veins
absorbing and emitting
new ideas
and drinking in fresh juices
sprinkling particles of spunk
further into the suburbs
through the capillaries
into the thumb arteries
that hold the pen
to write on the pages
telling stories of life
or the brush
to paint upon the canvasses
painting the stages of life
and creating mural after mural
filling studio and gallery walls
further nourishing the heart
willing to reach out and teach
willing to help teach its young

renewing the city
with every moment
as sweet as the music playing
as precious as the sage burning
its scent awakening the senses
in the days of its celebration.
The heart beats still
long after the festival dies down.

Ghia Aweida (C) All rights reserved by author.