(A hundred mute gods, their eyes all put out, crowd together on a stone altar. Starved of blood. Lingering on in their hunger for one more sunset. A Sybil dozing lightly in an iron lung prophesies.)
It may be a day of lunar celebrations in Lhasa but kindly don’t treat me as a pretext for gnawing on ravens. Manage your own indigestion with diligence. Not every household fire needs more ghee.
Peter Boyle is a poet and translator living and working on Dharug land. He has published eleven books of poetry, including, most recently,
Companions, Ancestors, Inscriptions. As a translator, his books include
Anima by José Kozer,
The Trees: Selected Poems of Eugenio Montejo, and
Three Poets: Olga Orozco, Marosa Di Giorgio and Jorge Palma. In 2013 he was awarded the New South Wales Premier’s Translation Prize. He holds a doctorate in Creative Arts from Western Sydney University.
