I.
I think even though it's a hard
task we should stanch it now,
the way the hard
pillars of slight settle hard
& fast in your “ha ha” posture.
We know you're hard-
ly a stickler to the “hard
and fast” rules of the match,
(match =
a duel, as it were), that hard
warfare of inducing a smile.
– Smile!
we've snagged your smile.
Your gaze is hard
as you resolve to smile,
as if you'd killed a smile.
Even though you find it polite now
to smile
when asked to smile,
the ragged posture
of a forced smile
is more a fuse than a match,
more a grapnel than kitchen match;
it is, in fact, a perfect match
with wilt and rot. A smile
unrequited is a damp match
at the worst possible time. Is a match2
maker visiting my wife. It hard-
ly goes away, the fear of match-
ing argyle socks in the wash – not mine. Match
stick, please. Gas cannister, too. Now
hand me her photo – Now
I need to snap out of it. Match
& mix, sort through the causes of poor posture
that plague me. One must posture
like a debutante when learning posture –
this book-on-the-head method is now
overlooked by fancy magazines. 'Posture
is a matter of vitamins,' they say; 'Posture
is a matter of X, not Y. So is a gleamy smile.'
I was never taught. Thus the posture
of a pasture very much resembles my posture –
creepy, hewn from mud and lichen, hard
and uneven in winter light. Hard-
er travel lies ahead, Ethan, posture
and feet to be tried now
by a duty greater than the planets know.
II.
– after Man'yoshu
Lying unloosened, bare,
crouched beside thin clothes,
nothing but rift between bare
vale and black rushes bare-
ly fingering the diamond moon,
diamond-shimmer dusting the bare
slope of – is that a dune, the bare
heap? Black garden;
then the black garden.
Pearls are bare,
grey gravities, the un-light.
In my garden of tiny lights
she gave her soft sigh, light-
ing the grove like a scream. Bare
trees, black streams, all light
remnants of the once fire. Light –
laughter fluttered like clothes.
A pall that suggested light
is just saddened lightning; light
is air aflame, every gate is a moon;
Night's a hole cut by a thief, light
stealthed away to his hideout, some garden
gone fallow. A garden
of bone. Garden-
ing at dusk, light
burnishes dusk. Garden-
ing through laughter, garden-
ing through Sunday: it happens. Bare-
ly, but God allows it. Allows detsu gardens,
gardens
where we may doff ashen clothes.
What are clothes?
Drapery to hide us from night. Garden,
o garden of black night. Moon,
o moon, you serve moon-
light like ice. Moon-
light like sad clothes
burning, smoke draping the moon.
The soul, when stung by moon-
light,
dissolves; drifts moon-
ward – or so I dream. Beneath the moon –
one of many that hang like bats, bar-
ing themselves to this little audience – bare
lovers can't stand to part. The moon
has no such trouble, exchanging light
for light, each night, like clothes.


Do you have, as the pop song goes, the 'music in you'?
Studio: a Journal of Christians Writing recently turned 20. In its pages it has published the work of a variety of Australian writers, including Les Murray and Kevin Hart. Paul Mitchell spoke to the journal's managing editor, Paul Grover, about the spirit in the journey.
In April this year, Michael Farrell and US poet Andrew Zawacki travelled to the Queenscliffe Festival of Words, catching a dose of cabin fever on the way –
For five glorious, sweltering days each October, Newcastle plays host to one of the biggest youth arts festival in Australia. Under the umbrella of This Is Not Art (or TINA) not one but four festivals are held simultaneously in the steel city. Amanda Kerley directed the National Young Writers Festival in 2000. Carlie Lazar barely survived it –
Having recently worked as director of the Australian Poetry Festival (Burning Lines, April 2001), Martin Langford offers his contribution to the continuing discussion about how to present poetry to the public.
Bruce Beaver Tribute