NB:
CONTRIBUTORS RETAIN ALL RIGHTS TO THEIR WORK.NB:
CONTRIBUTORS RETAIN ALL RIGHTS TO THEIR WORK.
Janet Jackson,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Jena Woodhouse,,,,,,,,,,,,,Janice M. Bostok
Jean Frances,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,Laurel Lamperd,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Yvette Merton,,,
John West,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Phil Ilton,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Maureen Sexton
George Anderson ,,,,, ,,,,Joyce Parkes ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Kevin Gillam
Caroline Reid ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,M.T.C. Cronin
Congratulations to Pixel poets who scored an entry in Les Murray's Best Australian Poems 2004, recently released.
Imagine being the singer's wife
Imagine being his wife -
with that voice
singing for you, singing for the world,
with that passion, breaking
like desperate surf over the worn airwaves,
singing about old lovers in candid metaphor.
Imagine being his
satellite of love
with that black hair
flying, those leatherclad thighs
dancing onscreen. Imagine
knowing all his weak places, his many
fears, his shrieking poet's nightmares,
his illnesses, his madnesses, his love.
Imagine the power of that love.
But would you want it?
Would you?
Janet Jackson
Into the moshpit
cage
finger through bars
touch the rising nose
the blindness
open a gate, reach in, contact
the softness
lift, cradle, stroke
the softness
the blindness
The desperation.
Bars, barriers: streets and oceans,
walls and wires, cars and satellites:
desperation.
Touch is not salvation.
soft fur is not salvation
but the eyes are, the voices are.
Yes the voices are.
Janet Jackson
Calling up the rain at dead of night
you take me back to rainless summer mornings
by the tank-stand, watching as the light
blinked eyes and stretched to shake itself awake
and flung a drowsy arm across the stubble,
rolling back the eiderdown of shadows,
signalling the birds to a crescendo.
I heard those birds, your ancestors or cousins,
calling from the mulberry tree -
mid-morning - smoko-time;
no motors throbbed; the distant breakers
pulsed against the dunes;
and then your cry, each note evoking water,
made invocation to an empty sky.
The mountain lounging on its elbow seemed to hear,
but ventured no reply to your monotonous appeal;
now, some generations later in the rainbird family tree,
you punctuate the night's unnerving
quiet with that same cry:
is your pleasure in the formula for asking,
or is it in awaiting a reply?
Jena Woodhouse
Starlit
Across the plains of tussock grass
steals faint light of a quarter-moon;
multitudes of crickets sing a song of stars.
Out there in profounder dark,
tough trees, almost like olive trees;
wild goats, ancient, wily, wry,
like goats of Greece.
Jena Woodhouse
Spirit Birds
They colonise the spaces of the night,
chilling the blood to splinters of black ice;
on frosty flats they echo, formless, desolate.
What kind of creature utters such a cry:
is it the spirit's long farewell to life,
the transit of the unquiet sacrificed?
It is the nameless terror of the child.
They lie in wait to curdle silences; tonight
as other nights they take my breath; I lie
between cold covers, petrified: whose turn
has come, who will they summon next?
Once, I saw them stranded in the warm
sun of a winter's day, trapped
beneath a sapling in the carpark, watching
silently. Otherworldly spooks, a baleful
frieze, they stood at bay, plumed
basilisks with tawny eyes disarmed by light.
Jena Woodhouse
Note: It is believed by some indigenous people of Australia that the curlew's cry is a harbinger of death.
River Voices before Dawn
The river fills the well of night
with water-voices, cries of birds.
Barges pass with firefly lanterns,
motors throbbing, towards dawn.
Comforting in darkness, shoals
of ripples lap the shores.
A solitary curlew-cry
laments the passing of the tribes.
the current carries shifting patterns
of a day, a way of life.
In darkness, generations wait
for morning's covenant of light.
Jena Woodhouse
"The Rainbird" appeared in the collection "Eros in Landscape"
(Jacaranda Press); "Starlit" was published in "Antipodes" literary journal (USA);
"Spirit Birds" was published in "The Australian", and "River Voices before Dawn" was published in "The Sydney Morning Herald". All poems are also posted on my web-page at http://www.stihi.ru/author.html?jena_ne
the young you
did not open gates
but jumped fences
waded through swamp land
and carried heavy loads
on your shoulders while
struggling uphill
the young you
held me in the darkest
hours of the night
and revealed to me
the intricacies of the world
in the brightest hours
of day
the young you gave
and gave until exhausted
too exhausted even
for sleeping
the young you exists
no longer except for the
sometime twinkled in faded eyes
and the remnants
of a sense of belonging
now displaced
Janice M. Bostok
Walking On The Beach
to know the beach is there
and not to walk on it
seems to be a sin somehow
we follow
the outgoing tide as it slithers
like overland eels
returning to the dam
of life-giving resources
knowing their time on land
is short
relieved to hit
the cool wetness
and disappear
beneath its murky folds
I look towards the horizon
the sun behind us
silhouetting you in gold
its halo distinguishing
your familiar features
of the growing old
which has come to both of us
and makes
climbing the dunes
to safety
even more awkward
than the sliding down
was less dignified
Janice M. Bostok
Conducting a Workshop in a Foreign Land
there is no moon tonight
because
I do not look for one
would there be one
if fearlessly
I strode out into the night
and called to it
each day
black birds
skip across the great expanse
of lawn like the workings
of my mind
so far from home I can't
remember
my children's names
we speak of the birth
of others' children but
I have no recollection
of such days
stepping out from
a dry classroom
the wet handrailing
sends a shock
down to my boots
a connection is made
to this foreign land which
i am beginning to love
Janice M. Bostok
Meeting With A Famous Author
Linley Dodd &emdash; on the Haiku Pathway, Katikati, New Zealand
bird wings lift
from the cat food dish
(slinky malinki never had
it this bad)
on a nearby branch
the wind is relentless
unforgiving
the stolen prize is lost
to the garden bed below
the recycling
has already begun
rain slashes the windows
facing east
out walking
my body wrestles its way
along the pathway
being grossly overweight is
not enough to anchor me
in the ferocious wind
the umbrella
in danger of turning
inside out
is as useless as its
bare ribs would be
her curly hair is wet
steel grey
her eyes bright green
her overbite girlish still
i slant my umbrella
away
her body scent comes to me
heavily pleasant
in the dampness
of the afternoon air
we share a moment
of uncertainty
of knowing it will ever
be this one time when
we meet
on common ground
Janice M. Bostok
The Happiness Of Night
the screech of an unknown night bird sends me out
into a strange alluring darkness
alone
and unafraid as the contentment of one
who resolves the problems of survival is encompassing
happiness arrives at night
a cinderella's coach which will not dissolve
into despair at midnight when darkness folds around
my walls I see the landscape which I have won as one
might win a lottery
more clearly the blue and distant
mountains beckon to me and as the ancient peasants
took warmth from the milking cow I will nuzzle into
the grassy side of the mountains until morning
the stream reflects splashes of moonlight
a brightness which delights the visual sense of repetition
and the childish fun of learning by play
trees move to the rhythm of the wind
unanchored
by a freedom which we all seek by day
when morning dawns in a radiance which i no
longer find attracts me i will blissfully return
to my cimmerian darkness ever vigilant for the call
of that unknown night bird
Janice M. Bostok
Songs Once Sung, Janice Bostok's collection of tanka
poems will be released by PostPressed shortly.
janbos@dodo.com.au
http://members.dodo.com.au/janbos/
Amongst The Graffiti, Collected haiku & senryu, with a foreword by William J. Higginson
available from PostPressed: www.postpressed.com.au
He's out in the garden again
without his coat - at his age.
He knows the chill always
settles on his chest.
He can barely see now
so I can't think why
he needs to step outside.
And anyway
summer or winter
each time
he picks up a brush
he paints
more bloody waterlilies.
Jean Frances
The Department lady said
you can't see your father
until you are eighteen.
* * *
His father called him Moon Boy.
They watched the moon rise.
It sat on the windowsill
like the orange beach ball
his father bought him.
* * *
The moon filled the window
of his mother's house
where he slept with his brothers.
He glanced at the door
his brothers locked
when the uncles came.
He whispered.
Come and get me, daddy.
His mother didn't hear from
Where she laughed and drank
with the latest uncle.
He stared at the moon
a frozen orb
in the dark sky.
Laurel Lamperd
The Ink Drinkers poetry and short stories By Laurel Lamperd and Sue Clennell
Posted $10 llamperd@wn.com.au
Dangling feet by the bow of a rocking boat,
drifting in its own time out to sea,
rusty boat, portals blink like eyes, lying sleepy
with the oscillating tides.
It creaks slightly, the boom judders and it lists
to one side as its carried on the crest of the ninth
wave but it survives, even when the equinoctial
gale puffs from its belly.
It shelters a flock of seagulls, their disheveled wings
taking a rough beating blow to safety landing
on its deck.
The mast bends with the whistling of strong winds,
even bumping through rocky chasms with jagged
edges it stays afloat.
This boat is on a mission it carries aboard a dead
sailor, he who scoured hungry oceans
hurling ships through raging storms.
On his last day while ploughing through roughened
swells like a Viking at war,
seven birds landed on the bow of his ship,
their cries shrieked an etchy epistle,
these birds known as the "seven whistlers" a bad
omen, warned of an end coming near.
On his last day the sailor watched the coastline
disappear into a blanket of blue sky.
The sky cleared, the wind hushed, the sun melted
under the skin of the ocean, its pinks and gold's
Smeared across a bed of mosaic glass.
This boat listing to one side aboard
with dead sailor is letting go, sinking slowly
with the splash of each wave,
lying sleepy collapsing into a watery catacomb.
Yvette Merton
Alarm clock of pigeons
ten AM, hunched shoulders
of clouds, waiting for rain
first cigarette, how can anything
that tastes so good, be bad
Easily, sin is such fun
it's more than just
turning up for work
for a lifetime, Mass
more than going to bed
at Nine every night
the hangovers
the waking up
with a woman
who isn't your wife
it's all worth it
I keep repeating
53 in a couple of months
the cost though
the ringing
of your own doorbell
When have you ever
taken responsibility for
anything?! Well
never perhaps
Pat is observant
and arguments
over phone numbers
arrangements
to see my granddaughter
I sliced and staggered
if not cut and run
buy a $2 Scratchie
win $2, yellow torch
I've taken, salvaged
an almost agricultural
depth of dust covering it:
divorce is a bit like
reversing your car
down a narrow lane
with all the doors
open.
John West
For Darcy
You run from slide to swing
house to car, up Mount Chelsea
all of 15 metres but you try it
I did, two rests on the way
it's spitting rain, Just a little
like thus! And you make an atom
framed by your fingers
and so we run on in the park
Poppy, what are these?
It's where the footballers sit
Like Daddy? Yes, like Daddy did
C'mon Poppy, what's this?
C'mon, Poppy, run.
It's play equipment
it's new. No Darcy
it's really raining
How come?
C'Mon Poppy
I want one more go!
What was on your collar?
It was a caterpillar;
the man saw it and picked
it off. How come?
He was just being nice
How come? People
just are nice
most of the time
C'mon Darce
it's coming down
I'll race you to the car
OK
John West
I Wanted to Forget This
But it has kept coming back
like the acid from your stomach
after you've eaten curry
went to bed at eight last night
woke at eight, 12 hours sleep
but cannot fully wake
so many tasks to perform
get a new convenor
for the poetry readings
and I've lost my mobile
66 numbers, not 66 friends
businesses, doctors, police
separated from my wife
for two weeks now
a bag of dirty washing
drinking again
I wanted to get stoned
but had nothing to get stoned on
just a cat, creeping through grass
like a snake
towards a native bird.
John West
I've Got it Under Control
Resuming my interrupted drinking vocation
I repeat to myself, and to the few I trust
(no relatives, not my doctor, no-one from AA)
that it isn't a problem, no way is it
sketch the scene of me having
just a glass of wine each night
I don't say how I've held the great big goblet
out before me all day, my reward
for all this shit I'm going through
a hologram a foot in front of my nose
I wake each day hungover
I'm done with AA forever and I'm glad.
John West
I'm surrounded by metal boxes
cream, white, grey.
The only red one,
the Camira in the right lane,
demands attention.
The rears of the occupants' two heads
are not so riveting. The driver has
short back and sides, her waves
are permed and blonded. They don't talk.
Neither do the couple next to me.
Proximity informs they are in their 30s;
vacant kiddy seat, it's a day off.
Their dash of colour is Fred Flintstone
dangling from the rear-vision mirror.
The twin-cam Celica in front is
jostled by the adjacent Landcruiser whose
backdoor declares it has multivalves.
In the ute to my left the driver's shaggy curls
tumble over his neck, smoke wisps from
his window hand, his hood's ladder
and spouting speak days on roofs.
Mum in my rear-vision mirror turns
and reprimands two youngsters.
A bus swings from the intersecting road
its tilt and velocity a challenge
to any mathematician.
Revs chorus their focus
on strait-jacket lanes.
Phil Ilton,
Insight
Dust stirs from roadside gravel
a paper bag cartwheels the bitumen.
Branches bend to buffets which flee
to an unknown destination.
I am a current in the grass.
Diving, dodging, twisting
to an unknown destination.
The wind is seen only by its effects.
If I am seen
let it be me.
Phil Ilton,
.This poem won the Lorikeet Poetry and Prose Competition 2003.
She crouches in the corner -
a question mark of silence -
darkness comforting her
prays there is no moonlight
to make her visible.
But still he comes and finds her
the darkness does not shield her from
his filthy hands
this little girl
alone.
No protection behind her mother's skirt
nor her own hands covering her mouth
her frightened giggle.
"She's very shy isn't she?" they ask.
Why don't they ask the right questions?
Is she alright? No, I am not.
She seems frightened? Yes, I am.
Does she need help? Yes, I do
please.
But too many times, the ones who
could have, should have
protected, helped her
did not.
Now, the woman
opens her hands with her writing
cradles her face as she cries
shields herself from the darkness
prays the moon will heal her.
And she crouches in the corner -
a question mark -
© Maureen Sexton
Returning home
again & again
over twenty-five years
each trip back further complicating/
blurring the layers of memory;
death
& meaning
Each step conjures up
ghosts from the past-
from a multitude of pasts,
& at each step you are
open
& embrace that which is new
yet at each step,,,,you are fully conscious
of that which is absent-
of the silence
of the voices & faces
from the streets & buildings-
which,,once,,breathed,,life for
you.
Sitting With Alfred
I sit balanced on the concrete rim of your grave
trying to fathom the enormity, the finality
of it all-
my hands,,,,this page,,,now suddenly made clear,
struck by an ethereal glint of sunlight
this autumn day.
I sit & examine you more closely-
your head weeping black bile
& embedded with a thick bearded moss
your name barely decipherable.
I sit & eat my lunch
contemplating the ephemeral again-
your insides swelling upwards
shattering your concrete mantle
spitting upon ceramic tiles
in heaped piles like discarded cigarette butts.
You die now as you have once died before
Yet from the yawning orifice of the retched-open tomb
bursts a scrawny tall tuft
of wild green dandelion
emblazoned ,,,with,,,dark
yellowed,,,crowns
The Sensory Perception Room
Through the lens of a microscope
the chemical transmission amongst
healthy nerve cells in the frontal lobe
is a marvellous sight-
pink flowery balls
with long spindly fingers
over weaving themselves
in intricate interconnecting geometric patterns.
Uncle Thoreau's brain, however, is filling with liquid
& is collapsing inwards
from a degenerative cognitive ailment-
he keeps forgetting who he is
where he is.
He is recommended to visit 'the room'.
The doc carefully explains that our memories are like
the grooves on a vinyl record
& the sensory room is designed to reawaken
patients like Thoreau,,,,,,,,,,,,to relearn some of the 'grooves'
scratched out by disease.
This first sounded a load of hippy shit to me.
I mean CDs have been around since 1982-
but we were willing to try anything.
Thoreau was like a broken record himself,
every 15 minutes or so he would yell out spontaneously:
My wife's coming soon & she's got a new hat!
* * *
The room is clinical
sparse
a large screen
4X4 metres
& a dozen or so seats-
A film immediately screens as we sit down:
It is without sound about clouds
endless,,,,,,,,,,,,white ,,,,,,,,,, cumulus
clouds,,,,,,,,,,float,,,,,,,,,,lazily
across,,,,,,,,,,the,,,,,,,,,,screen-
in flashes,,,,,,,,,,superimposed
with
faces
images
of real or inanimate objects:
a cow ,,,,,,,,,, an icy pond ,,,,,,,,,, a baseball
diamond,
an attic ,,,,,,,,,, ,,,a ladder
blueberriesÉ
Staring at the,,,fluffy,,,procession of,,,clouds
is a pleasant, seemingly innocuous therapy for me-
at first, I think of nothing at all,
& then, inexplicably-
a whirlwind of memories return:
there is a drive way a bed Thor eau & hiswife Lillian
slee pingnak d dru nkin the su n rm we lift thesof a
straining thru doorwa ysseveral metres sunlight to
the sid of the h/way cack ling m adly they s lin ki ng-back
to-the house
* * *
At the end of the session Thoreau perks up & says like clockwork:
My wife's coming & she's got a new hat!
Aunt Lillian eventually arrives smiling
without a hat,,,,but sporting a new perm.
Thoreau sits there closely staring at but unable to recognise his wife.
Thoreau says to the woman as she gets up to leave:
My wife's coming & she's a hat!
The Disembodied Head
He formed a rock band called the Slavophiles in tribute to the writings of Dostoyevsky although the allusion will certainly annoy you- they played a racy, dissonant style of improvised rock which required the indiscriminate popping of pills
& the downing of vast quantities of alcohol
One night Young Jimmi D in lead guitar was exploring the textual ambiguities of
the standard 'My Baby Went to Reno' when suddenly it was as if his head had detached itself cartoon like from his lanky body & he was staring down at himself & the band in that large anonymous hall- there was no pretence, no gimmicks just his playing,,,,just a sweet outpouring of notes on notes,,,,a flurry of improvisation exuding from his memory,,,,his experiences the technique speaking for itself his guitar like a piano scroll rolling downwards in an invisible hand licking & wailing,,,,establishing a complex,,,,,pattern of chord & harmony,,,,miraculously interconnected,,,,whole,,,,the crowd ,,,, really into it
He glanced down again & there was his disembodied head on centre stage-
The sweet springs of his imagination,,,,singing joyously
me
thirsty
in the brink of night
I guzzle long & cool under the bathroom tap
in the moonlight
I briefly glance at my face in the mirror-
it is like a gaping hole
smeared in darkness
frightened,
I edge closer
& view a gleaming
watery eye-
the head-butted
mirror shatters
& drops,
splintering
on the rim of the sink
the light comes on
I see multitudes of me
& of my younger & older selves-
a bleeding mask
within the shards of glass
in the sink, on the floor
& in my weeping hands
is,,,,,,,,are
this,,,,,,,,they
me
mes?
(For J.P.)
In a new home with a new
room of her own, ex mother-
in-law toiled over her meals.
Only the uppers of her machine-
made teeth could be found,
despite a search of old and new
grounds. Her room, a field of
cups, cushions, claims, proffered
the prism to write a play of her
own. Perhaps one cloned from
certain stages shared with Thurs-
day, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Monday painted her story instead.
Red, orange and yellow flowers,
soft-green stems and leaves,
an off-white background.
Six months into her new home
she left the dining room, the
dinner table, feeling fatigued.
Shuffled to bed. Perhaps slept.
Was found dead in the morning.
Joyce Parkes
South Perth Probes
(For N.C.)
Almost encircled by Perth's inner
cities, inside a flat, before the river
and its swans, the window of
a car, just standing there, repeats
images of city lights and ledges
blinking in the evening warmth.
At night, bare windows change
to crowded mirrors, correspond,
with the city and its bridges built
for speed and access, accruing
traffic in abundance, yes, across
what was a soothing stage along
the waterfront. For a sip of silence
and for safety, dwellers close their
windows now, curtains often drawn
as well, rely on form, and fuses,
inside each dwelling, to trace the city
with its stirring cells of inferences
and instances; adult-children,
please do not die before your
parents do, and O that bell.
Joyce Parkes
Where I Walked to Wonder
(For B. and J.; B. and P.; J. and N.)
'They have eaten me alive,'* the mother
in the poem said to the wind, looking
at her clothes, her day, while a former
love made his brisk way, past her
bench in the park, where her small
children fought, cried, harked, to fill in
their time, until they've learnt how to
play, shine. Poor Gwen, I remarked,
remembering my days in the park,
with my youngest daughter, after her
father and I altered our saunter
through the summer of our encounter.
Recalling earlier days in the park, where
I walked to wonder why my mother died
when she was twenty eight, when I was
unable to relate this loss to her years
without cheer. Did I help to make her
feel so unwell that she refused the lust
to linger with tomorrow's yesterday;
telling stories, reading poetry,
proceeding to distil the where, why,
when, from today's clouds and ken,
with the pen of particularity, within
the bond of similarity. Motherhood,
childhood, doting, daunting dense,
demanding, discerning, duteous, dear,
dear Ben & Joan, Barbara & Philip, Jody
& Nick, how could I've begun to cherish
the unstructured hours that came my
way, without your help, hands, heys.
Joyce Parkes
* With many thanks for Gwen Harwood's poem 'In the Park'.
now you are all slim hipped,
high heeled
in the country.
now you are all slim hipped,
chair pose,
body a church.
now you are slim hipped,
rainbow lorrikeets
thieving your colours.
now you are all slim hipped,
hemispheres buckled,
bleeding unseen.
now you are all slim hipped,
serenity
one scratch deep.
now you are all slim hipped
stoned on moment,
denial.
now you are all slim hipped,
anyones
but not your own.
now you are all hymn slipped,
ethics?
mouthing the words
Kevin Gillam
Gone are the days of bears simply shouting
OUT OUT OUT! at fair-haired intruders -
LORD KNOWS she'll be taught a lesson next time!
Down in our dungeon we have the finest
instruments of torture &endash; needles and pins to prick,
leather and hot steel to thrash - - -
Of course once she's broken and crazy-eyed we will let her go,
cruelly watch her crawl on those once-pretty
knees to the dark heart of desert, where, on sand
stiff with pigs blood, her tears are nothing
Caroline Reid
Tunnel Princess
Photo mag splash of Royal Incident &endash;
Night vision tunnel vision
Caught for Television
Shutter the camera shut-shutter the camera.
Caroline Reid
Highway Princess
Perhaps a prince is what I need,
riding bareback through the heat and rain,
an interesting prince, nude and fair,
caressing my hair in Eneaba &endash;
Sir, you're here now,
will you stay forever?
Caroline Reid
What he said on the open road &endash;
this is my country
warts n all
strange box days
I let go
when the wind says
So &endash;
Anything new underfoot?
My feet are warm.
The tar is cold.
Some wizard let the stars loose
one by one
Down South
boom boom
follow me.
Caroline Reid
Every cloud's face is an early face.
Their views mean wind.
A cloud remembers nothing from habit.
Perennially a fish out of water.
The small one the unbroken one.
The scattered now snow
And then snow and snow to come.
Sword-shaped horse-dead
And sculpted from the moon.
A dream ripening the length of sky
Into what is called
From both sides of the bridge
And heard from neither side.
Best spot stumbling imperturbable.
Haven't been bothered
Since they left the ocean.
A cloud might not know
The watercolours or acrylics
But does the terrible metaphor
By losing its accent over and over.
Wholesale drowning.
Standing in the centre of the room
With no idea of relationships.
Ursine nuancish annular.
Once upon a time just a cloud
When someone didn't try hard enough.
Raining out quicker these days.
M.T.C. Cronin
Frogs Tip
Frogs tip the day into their throats and chewing
don't speak till night.
The night is blue.
I'm crystal around my children. I'm wax.
I'm tears and light that sculpt the upturned
milliseconds of their nose, the point without stillness,
without movement, of their boating lips,
the curled fingers of every fate
they dream alone.
Sky, &endash; that glow;
the river, closer, further then where it bends
away from hunger, cannibalizing the hardness
of the land with the soft sand of its lifting bed;
the tree, arm'slength, bird-full and beaks
filled with closed oysters, the series of bells
as they cry.
The bush turtle knocks in the black
of a country restlessly
preparing its dusk, the mangoes crash
to the roof and violently enter my chest.
The juice of the fruit trickles down the smooth trunk.
What never enters the stone.
What never enters the stone.
Where a bird falls to the ground, time opens.
I'm scared of the world, which more than anything
is the world.
The night is blue.
I'm crystal. I'm wax. As I talk
only the dark windows are left,
the bird-tipped trees propagate sky.
Frogs crack the dark from silence and force
down sleep so there is less energy in me
to hold the earth.
M.T.C. Cronin
Days Like These
The day, shattering and blue;
the battle of my outline with the world.
Through cracks I see bears;
bean leaves;
butterflies in every interval of air
between the trees and their silence.
Days like these, I know home.
I can use the stairs as if blind; the corners
unfolding to welcome and recompose
the story of my back.
Humanity and the whole of time
are trapped in my floorboards.
In the smallest space
or discontinuity
I meet the governor of my own cowardice.
Days like these, are a revolution
in difference.
The daughter is born of a father
who would paint her portrait, a father
she cannot imagine.
Days like these, living approximates everything!
The carpet creeps to the door
and soon is onto the footpath
in front of the house.
My friends and neighbours are turning up.
As the circle we form grows
all gets closer together!
Days like these, I nurse the son I never had.
His hand grips the wind;
his body inexplicably bruises.
In this thirst we are alike.
Tears forming not in the eyes,
but at the edge of the mouth.
In every distant window a face
grows into its own narration.
Days like these, I open my gate
and let in the dogs and children.
The say the stars are lies.
That the night will never come.
M.T.C. Cronin
dear friends and colleagues
just wanted to let you know that i now have copies of my new book
<MORE OR LESS THAN> 1-100
which is a 140-page single poem, published by shearsman books in the uk
(www.shearsman.com).
if anyone would like one - or more! - they are available from me at the
contact details below.
they are $27 with postage inside australia and $30 with postage to go
overseas.
many thanks
margie
***********
PETER PORTER'S COMMENTS ON THE BOOK
These hundred slices of poetry are admirable and bewildering in equal
measure a remarkable collection, but also one difficult to describe or
encapsulate.
Poets have always enjoyed close relations with oracles.and oracles are fond
of dazzling us with numbers. M.T.C. Cronin's new collection of poetry
counts the mystery of life, love and literature up to 50 by addition of
lines, and then proceeds to the full 100 by subtracting them. Throughout the
verse is precipitously oracular - filled with strangeness and yet abidingly
concerned with everyday experience. It is indeed A Book of the Dead and a
Journal of the Living.
Here is a passage from Section 48.
"they are exiled by every act
they are the juvenile
the mysterious private god who walks
in the dark to learn how to walk
in the dark with the help
of little modelled hands
little modelled eyes
the roughishness of walls
unnoticed desire
they stay with their poetries"
This amounts to a new departure by one of Australia's most admired younger
poets an extrordinary vision overall.
**********
margie cronin
3 cedar grove court
maleny
queensland
australia, 4552
ph: 07 5435 2605
fax: 07 5435 2605 (ring first)
email: margie_cronin@hotmail.com
available books:
my lover's back ~ 79 love poems: $22 with postage ($24 overseas)
bestseller: $22 with postage ($24 overseas)
everything holy: $17 with postage ($19 overseas)
beautiful, unfinished: $22 with postage ($24 overseas)
<more or less than> 1-100: $27 with postage ($30 overseas)
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