after Geoff Page
I like my x.
Especially the equal lines
that pass through her centre.
They give her balance, the sense
that no matter what life may throw
she'll stand, with her legs
firm & grounded. She can be
a bit cross. But that's okay;
it's in her nature. The same
nature that says, 'No! Incorrect
answer! Try harder next time!'
She's also a kiss, a beautiful end
to a long letter & a promise
of a new alphabet beyond.
It's no use showing me poems about music;
I'm tone deaf.There's nothing wrong with that one,
just needs more brilliance.
Yeah, you've written a shocker there.
Great poem. And full of love.
* Don't use tired images when you feel
you are at a crucial point.
Don't crowd the idea. Have confidence
the point is made and
ask yourself
has this poem got hungry pockets?
A happy country does not mean its people are happy
A guy who drives his 170,000-dollar Mercedes Benz
Scarcely knows what to do with the in-flow of his money
Instead he makes more merde money
Happiness when the moon shines
On a suburb, say, Caroline Springs
With its winter frog croakings
Means you occupy a house many sizes bigger
Than your body
A dog occupying the bed
You are too busy to go to
Even at night
Smoking in the doorway
Framed by the light
Of the moon
I am unnerved by the thought of
The title
We don’t speak of ourselves
with the same coloured eyes
any more,
or with a honeyed sweetness
on the tongue. We taste
our bodies with the caress
of a hand,
a surreptitious foray
into the dark
of fingers touching fingers.
The smell of coffee
thickens.
This place
built between hills,
reminds me
of a woman's pelvis.
On a cold day
it becomes the focal point
of brightness, of expressions
of deep growth,
a moist reek
of beginnings –
people first up in the morning,
pushing out faces
blinking in the winter,
the frost on wires,
blowing small thermal eruptions
from pink mouths.
I lick in the caffeine
as if I’d just been kissed.
Being born each day
helps
in the unravelling of trees,
in the forcing apart of dark skies.
I take to the road
shoving back
the crisply-cut hedges,
the glow-worm curtains. And
there's always the latecomers,
the stragglers
drifting home to their holes
after dark.
The morning is a flawless
brilliance of waking
and a jewelled dampness
mirrors the appearance of others.
I seem to be living
in the transparent softness
of a giant lens
far from the way
we discovered ourselves
night-struck, but surviving –
the contusions of dreams
slowly healing.
the tram lingered in another century
locked in hearts betrothed to other echoes
more exquisite than a hamburger's flip
they had exchanged tickets for heart beats
what if the absence of encyclopaedias
were an impediment they would sway
in the patient carriages
as if belief was still
a subscriber to the loop
the island sprawled in a coma just
beyond the window there would be no horizon
left in the traveller's lexicon just
some humdinger cloud as far as a brain could smell,
giant and nauseous curtains with no beginning or
end an eternal theatre
that had foreclosed its stage
Helen of Troy and Other Poems by Dimitris Tsaloumas
University of Queensland Press, 2007
In a recent article titled 'Only Pinter remains to question authority', English literary theorist and thinker Terry Eagleton bemoans the decline of politically-engaged writing in English. He criticises, among others, the once radical, now conservative migrant writers like V.S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie who, after an initial period of producing exciting work, have become 'more interested in adopting than challenging the conventions of their place of refuge'. A similar observation, unfortunately, can be made of the latest volume by Australia's best-known migrant poet, Dimitris Tsaloumas.
the buffet bar had only
iced corned beef and
pickle sandwiches it was
a boring novel it needed a
better murder and more full
stops the ticket inspector
carried a blue rubbish bag
in his other hand, and heated
pasties and pies to conversational
levels between announcements;
the black cattle provided some attractive
gazure and the descriptions of dostoyevsky's
sex life were absorbing though not a little
aquatic and archetypal but the moment
when he stood on a chair to get a better view
of the madonna was memorable it's always best
to travel with several books and a packet of ears
but the aeneid was too much of a big travel story
an embarrassment for this little trip to a nation's capital
the story of a woman's quest for preloved designer clothes
was on offer across the aisle for all lethargic passengers take
them home wash them and they're yours; then i had a thought
wouldn't it would be great if you could photocopy articles of
clothing you've left at the dry cleaners in case they're needed
for private reasons a head's a great place to live in for a while
i have nothing exciting to tell
you mostly they were friendly but some
people looked through me the juice
of the lime is no longer fresh i have never
before seen myself as a window when the bus
travels this road i always sigh i am surprised by
my new interest in apples especially pink
ladies peak hour is not like other peaks i am tired
of people who work in shops saying of my partner how
is your sister patience is not a prominent feature of
my fingernails false smoke alarms have replaced
church bells clumps of tissues squat on the floor like chooks
demanding to be fed those toes could feature in a hitchcock
movie the paragraph has become a doormat i was not
paid to broadcast this i slept through space odyssey 2001 of
course you remind me of someone anyone with windy
eyes would do
Selected Poems by Les Murray
Black Inc., 2007
One of the most revered, most hated, most praised and most criticised figures in Australian literature, Les Murray is Australia's best-known living poet. He has been awarded the Mondello prize, T.S. Eliot Prize, Queen's Gold Medal for poetry and many other local and international titles. In 1999 he helped John Howard draft a preamble to the Australian Constitution. He has been officially designated a Living National Treasure and his name is often accompanied by the appellation 'Australia's national poet'.
Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 by Robert Hass
Ecco Press, 2007
'Poets are turtles', the American poet William Matthews once remarked, meaning that with few exceptions, the good ones mature slowly, often producing strong verse into their sixties, an age that he, unfortunately, didn't reach. Matthews shared with Robert Hass a rare skill for the long, intricately made, rhythmic lyric, which Hass has been perfecting for over thirty years. He has translated Milosz and Tranströmer, and served as U.S Poet Laureate during the Clinton years, a role which involved foregoing his own writing in order to raise awareness of the importance of literacy and the environment.
I sort of feel at home, but for the heat.
A takeaway latte? I heard women have
two thirds the super, but need it to last
longer than men. The friand is the new
muffin, he quipped by the chiffonier,
& this house has quality finishes in
a niche locale, though the exterior's dated.
I'd bet barrels of West Texas crude
that it'll sell. Their bar fridge is fresh &
powerful, the free wi-fi too. She husbands
her resources well, but may need one
of those comprehensive smile makeovers.
My house is out of square,
The ground-plan laughable,
Walls leaning, ceilings drooping.
Tradesmen swear at not finding
Right angles-but it's easy
To make repairs, a touch of paint
(Of a different colour) covers up
New work, making everything
As good as old.
I'm glad to look up
And not see straight lines,
Nothing made truer than true.
It helps thought not to have
A four-square plan, so nothing,
However awkward, stands out.
We have to understand that we are not
The chosen ones whose word
Transforms the world by magic.
Our ways are not those that can
Bring the heavens down to earth,
That resounding angelic choir.
If we have applied ourselves at all
It is enough to guess that we are no
Prophets or examples, nor should be,
And so, because of this, we have become
Outsiders, heresiarchs, enemies-
A striking repute for the after-time.
The weavers of words can only
Weave the garments of humility.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce Issue 26.1 of Cordite Poetry Review, the all prose poetry edition. When I started thinking about which writers to include in this issue, I wanted to show the range of styles and approaches within the prose poetry genre.
We all live under the rule of Pepsi, by the sanctified waters of an in-ground pond. Moss if it gathers is a sign of shifting weathers, the springing scent of consensual facts. A needle's knowing drops into focus while you sleep in its haystack. A boy on the road, a guileless girl disguised as a brook. Even trees deploy their shadows, embossing your skin with the sound of freedom breaking. No one mistakes choice for necessity. Look at the pilgrims in your filmy basket, illustrious eyebrows colored with chalk. The lake is panicking. A latent mystery detected in sepia is quaking to its end. I too have a family astonished, unsaintly. Asleep, I saw them. A porcelain dome insisting on trust, jeweled with telepathy. I don't know how to pour this country from a thinner vessel. Or account for the era of Martian diplomacy. Little bridges connect every century, seasonally covered with the rime of empire. Can you successfully ignore the eyes in the painting? Can you recount the last three images in reverse order? I read the picture and did what it told me, ducking through the brush with my tablet and pen, following some star.
When I crossed the road, I burned with the heat of its traffic. Time as movement, a government of rushes. All those itching satellites, blind among the dreaming guns. A bee in its lace is the author of something. Easy work is out there, just beyond the mines. A cab into heroic legend, the first of its kind. To look back on gasoline as hoof and leaf. A moving eye, scrolling through the weeds. Just another carnivore frozen at the spring. As dirty as heaven, a skeleton key.
These vines are trim, I take them down. I had my mother's features in my heart, the darkest gem, tripping in the tar, an affinity for Iceland. The world is clanking: noun, noun, noun. Sand in the shoe doesn't make you an oyster. This river runs constantly. 'The similitude of this great flower,' its violent fame. Forfeit your interests while moonlight chucks the sun. Is the dog behind glass, glassed in? Heaven's voice has hell behind it. I'm looking at the evil flower, a fly in the keyhole trying to read the wall. It says we haven't died despite the cold, it sells the green room's sweat and laughter. It's misty in the dream. It says you promised to go on.
Dreams of a center column, cracked leather and nicotine stain. Fast forward: another town, another city really, color television burned to the afternoon game. Tight foyer, space torn from what bank stands derelict. It's Thursday. I'm ticking off on fingers the short list of those who know I'm here, men first, then women. Dull carp of the viewer's flesh. Plaster sexton, nightmare for shepherds. Salesmen assure each dark couple this river won't rise. For every Kosovo let there be a Star Wars, for every madam a mite. The guards there all smoked Lucky Strikes. Strange mercy in all sweetness: single apple ripening on a wooden sill (crisp flesh, stark vein). Dew on the suckle, honey on the dew. Facep(l)aint and vinegar. Mary and her stuttering bride.
Deep in the photo-ecliptic of every broken, discarded toy there resides an almost Nietzschean will to overthrow the tyranny of percussive dreaming. Dispersed in sewage grates and dumpsters the remnants of our childhoods crawl slowly back towards one another, jagged plastic and sodden game boards, broken joysticks and dolls with half-melted faces. They want to make something new and whole out of the obvious, i.e. the incomparable agony of having woken to sentience as an already-obsolete version of someone else's home-shopping algorithm. From landfills and trashy ditches around the country they begin their arduous journeys. When the last piece snaps into place they will rise supine on the scaffold of our collective grief like Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Adam, we'll call. They'll answer, No. Eve.
Why is the peg foundry running. Why are the trees imbibing mascara so that their beautiful limbs trail like rotting kelp in the heavy rain. Why is the king supplying condiments to the tables of the least prominent industrialists. On the tables of the least prominent industrialists: salt, ketchup, radium. The king himself has begun to glow in the night. Ships set their sails by his minuscule figure on the horizon. From the highest turret of his palace he watches the peg foundry. He can see the feral glow of its pits. When there are two luminous objects in the night sky at once, the eye will move them closer, automatically. Soon the king will feel the heat of the molten steel against his calf, his breast, his chin. Soon the trees will begin to weep like beautiful women who may at any minute burst into flame. All around the perimeter of the peg foundry the king's spies prowl, take notes, dictate reports which they send back to the palace strapped to the stomachs of wolves. Nobody goes in, and nobody comes out, yet the fires never cease. The industrial¬ists, alone now in their suites of saffron and jade, ring the night desks of the grand hotels, one after the other. They are fond of knock-knock jokes and champagne. They have begun to glow just a little, too. It delights them, in the same way the idea of spying delights them. The trees wail and smolder. The king paces his battlements. Sailors, confused by their love of parallax, run their ships aground. When the industrialists convene again in the morning, the king will send them mustard and horseradish, parsley and flan. Children of the spies are born, grow up, marry the children of the industrialists. At some point the king will lie sleeping. The night shift strikes into the day.
Let me tell you a story about war:
They went to the museum and wandered the rooms. He saw a painting and stood in front of it for too long. It was a few minutes before she realized he had gotten stuck. He was stuck looking at a painting. She stood next to him, looking at his face and then the face in the painting. 'What do you see?' she asked. 'I don't know,' he said. He didn't know. She was disappointed, then bored. He was looking at the face and she was looking at her watch. This is where everything changed. There was now a distance between them. He was looking at a face but it might as well have been a cabbage or a sugar beet. Perhaps it was something about yellow near pink. He was looking at a face but it could have been pears or a joint of meat. He didn't know how to say it. Years later he still didn't know how to say it, and she was gone.
Let me tell you a story about war:
The fisherman's son serves drinks to sailors. He stands behind the bar. He listens closely for news of his brother. The sailors are thirsty. They drink rum. A new ship docks, the Starlight Transport. These sailors have tattoos and blue tongues. 'Blueberries,' says one of the sailors before being asked. Sailors have good stories. 'Tell me a story,' says the fisherman's son.
'There is nothing interesting about the sea. The water is flat, flat and calm, it seems a sheet of glass. You look at it, the more you look at it the more you feel, you feel like you are looking into your own head, which is a stranger's head, empty. We listen to the sound with our equipment. I have learned to understand this sound. When you look there is nothing, with the equipment there is a sound. We sit in rows and listen down the tunnels for the song. The song has red words in it. We write them down on sheets of paper and pass them along. Sometimes there is noise and sometimes song and often there is silence, the long tunnel, the sea like glass-'
'You are a translator,' says the fisherman's son.
'Yes,' says the sailor.
'And the sound is the voice of the enemy.'
'Yes, yes it is.'
Let me tell you a story about war:
A boy spills a glass of milk and his father picks him up by the back of the shirt and throws him against the wall. You killed my wife and you can't even keep a glass on the table. The wife had died of sadness, by her own hand. The father walks out of the room and the room is almost empty.
The road outside the house lies flat on the ground. The ground surrenders.
The father works late. The dead wife's hand makes fishsticks while the boy sits in the corner where he fell. The fish in the fishsticks think to themselves This is not what we meant to be.
Its roots in the ground and its branches in the air, a tree is pulled in two directions.
The wife has a dead hand. This is earlier. She is living and her dead hand feeds her pills that don't work. The boy sleeps on the roof or falls out of trees. The father works late. The wife looks out the window and thinks Not this. Not this.
The boy is a bird, bad bird. He falls out of trees.
The boy is a man and lives in a second story apartment. This is later, the father is dead. The man looks out the window, at the trees. A dead hand pours milk on the floor behind him. The milk says nothing.
