poetry
The cyclist shortlisted
Delighted that my poem – The cyclist has been shortlisted for the South Coast Writers Centre Poetry Award competition – and to be in the company of such a fine group of poets. Many thanks to the judges Sarah Nicholson and Mark Tredinnick – and if you find yourself in Wollongong on Saturday 29 March, come along to the readings.
Also Tall Yellow Poem (a personal favourite) was long-listed for the same competition.
Zombie
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 seductive loveliness of perspective
Saint Jerome in his Study, Antonella da Massina c. 1475
On any screen my attention drifts
whether it’s girls online or the official denials
a reporter hunched in a bunker
or reading the accounts—I’m looking
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
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.
Opening 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.)
