still wet, barely made
provisional colour
dverse
Tall Yellow Poem
(after Tall Yellow Man, 2003, Stephen Bird, Wollongong Art Gallery)
(Dear reader, the layout of this poem is important — I did my best with wordpress, but if words go a wandering on your screen, it’s available here as a pdf).
Continue readingZombie
A golden shovel for Margaret Atwood quoting Rilke.
Seems I’m not the only one interested in the poetry
of the dead. I know I should let lie – the past is the past.
The Pomegranate Seller, Capo Markets, Palermo
Like a ruby held up to the sunrise. Is it still a stone, or a world made of redness? Rumi
take 3 fugitive seeds
between your teeth
and bite
abide
seduced
imagine (jisei)
a scour of waves in the afternoon wind
the bright hard at our faces
everything
the words fall away
until there is only light
then not even that.
Image: Picnickers at Wollongong City Beach (then known as South Beach) with Coniston Beach and Port Kembla Steelworks in background, 9 November, 1982. c/- Wollongong Public Library . A jisei is a ‘death poem’ in Japanese/East Asian tradition. Jisei tend to offer a reflection on death—both in general and concerning the imminent death of the author (in this case imagined – touch-wood🤞)—that is often coupled with a meaningful observation on life. Frank is hosting the bar at dverse asks us to write a jisei to celebrate the onset of the northern winter.
And here’s the wonderful Gillian Welch with Hard Times.
The stranded angler, Lake Illawarra (revised)
The long flat gone to white
ring of hills process through grey, blue, black
wide enough for one small life.
Suburban Sunday afternoon
Some poorly drawn clouds roll down the bluescape. Pelicans orbit the wind’s elevator, so close I can almost hear the air rattling their feathers.
Continue readingOpening day
Needles from the low off Antarctica
spun from a face of angry ice
spray snatched into the sky
this mighty engine.
the water’s green and planktonic
no line or floor
humpbacks below
sailing a darker green.
out of options, breathless
a man decides happiness.
Image: Vincent P. Taylor [in inflatable rubber suit] floating on San Francisco Bay, Sept. 29th, 1926 / Taylor Family photographs and State Library of NSW on Flickr. Opening day at my local swimming pool was a bit blustery. A quadrille for Dverse where Lillian is hosting and asks us to use the word ‘happy’.
And since we’re talking about it, here’s my happy place – Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Here’s the Aria by piano superstar Lang Lang (just ignore the cheesy camera work — maybe close your eyes for five minutes.)
