Saturday, January 12, 2019

Story Dark

Moment when the tongue falls
word by word
is not a poem
a poem is not a child

my child plays 
with the animal figurines
standing the real
against the imaginary

the word
parts and folds 
talks the truth 
about the body

my child cries at bedtime
he asks are you real
I trace his name on his back
with my fingertips

the word
will be a mouth
the true body
at the skin’s edge

we read the one
about the children
who climb down the iron ladder
and hide under the ground

where the words stop
where the rocks open 
and go in the dark
it flows blood

we close the blinds
the dark is outside,
the mountain, the river, 
we bring darkness inside

blood, sky, sun, blood, blood
at the beginning of the story
your name
your own name

Thursday, January 10, 2019

In Translation

You are not connected.
You think little
I am a subject (zero object)
It is impossible to hide the secrets, nothing
It's surprising that the stars live far away
We can also say
You are not currently logged in. You are not connected.
That's what you do
You have a composer (gate in my heart)
I go, continue, love and do everything
You can also enjoy the environment
You are not currently logged in

You are not logged in. You are not connected.
It is impossible to hunt the secret, anything
We can say
I am the subject (nothing zero)
That's what you do
I'm going, I'm going, I love and I'm doing everything
You mean a bit
You are not logged in
You are not connected.
You have a writer (my heart gate)
Strangely, the stars are far away
You can also enjoy the surroundings

You will not agree. There is no relationship.
The arrest is wrong
Here's what you are doing.
You are the author (I'm in my heart)
Remote checklist
There is no relationship.
I'm going, going, doing everything
On the topic (no one)
You are talking a little
You can also be satisfied with the environment.
We can talk
You're not connected.

---
Note: each stanza was fed through a line randomiser and then back and forth through Google translate. The poem began as lines taken from my favourite ee cummings poem 

Tuesday, January 08, 2019

Piéta

after Rilke

And we grow old
Now fill my bowl and the previous thought is
stop being a child.
I scratch like a rock
Naturalness
about the great pain.
It gets hard in your heart.
Now you push against my stomach 
so big.
I am stone. I just know
my heart now completely.
Now I can not go back with you.

Monday, January 07, 2019

The waitress weeps at the all you can eat buffet

Salad bar, cold meat, bread rolls,
hot meat, prawn cocktail,
curries in the bain marie.

Pavlova, trifle, peppermint mousse,
Hot pudding, custard,
bowls of whipped cream.

Dusk. Summer job.
Stationed at the tables
that look across the smoking deck
to the sprinklers on the rolling green
the tennis courts, the bridge over 
the artificial lake.

'Excuse me,' 
asks the woman with three kids. 
'Can you tell me where
the bathroom is?'
'Are you local?' 
the waitress replies.

What she wants to know is:
Is this really all that you can eat?

Friday, January 04, 2019

Ferry Crossing

Time comes upon us in waves
the surge of the dream
the sun is slow and hot
our thoughts are beneath us
we rest to the rhythm
of our own sea-pulse
the sky is blank with forgetting
what we've left behind
the day curves, never arrives,
always departing.


Thursday, January 03, 2019

Is this the poem?

this is first thought of the poem
of the thought this is first poem
first the poem of this is thought
this first poem is of the thought 
is this the first thought poem of
is thought the first poem of this
of this poem is the thought first
this is the first poem of thought

Bird Embraced

vale Mirka Mora 

She, who was always a bird,
lived here as a member of our family. We held her,
human-sized,
gently around her neck, wanting her to sit with us
as we watched TV, read the Sunday papers, made pictures,
sewed, mixed a cake, dressed and undressed in the brown light. 
These were the main activities of our home.

On the kitchen windowsill there were lemons,
papery garlic, a cup full of paintbrushes. 
Mother looked out, over the sink, to the tops of trees.
The inside light was the colour of the river
seen from underneath.

Sometimes we squabbled, not wanting to take turns,
pulling her between us, begging her to sleep on our beds, 
eat from our bowls, swim in our baths, shadow our footsteps.
We fought over which one of us she loved the best.
She loved us all silently, the quick heat of her heart 
in her fluttering breast.

We never opened the windows. 
We never left a door ajar.

Nevertheless, the parting.
One morning: an early wind rushed in, 
we woke and knew she was gone.
She was in the tree outside, her eye was closed to dream.
All of them, my sisters and brothers,
were in the trees around the house, 
I ran from window to window, 
pressing myself against the glass.

We had lived together for a long time,
and so I thought of her all that day.
The birds called to each other
to love forever and ever.
I told myself I would learn 
to do everything by feel, walking
the inside walls of the house 
with my eyes closed, clicking my tongue like a bat,
trying to sense the edge of shadows,
the rippling of light,
in the dimness of the underneath.

Tuesday, January 01, 2019

Phases

(For Emmett, neé Una)

He tells me:
if it’s a phase
it’s one that will shape him
all his days.

What makes a girl?
How do you find 
the end
and the beginning:

The shoulder, the heel,
the crown of the head?

Thirteen years ago
I watched the mirror, 
as frontwards facing,
arms folded like bat wings,
he descended.
Born inside the caul.

it’s a girl, they told me
as if anyone could be certain
about such a thing
unpeeling 
the membrane, 
revealing the face

tipping him into my arms
my body rushing towards him
instinct and adrenaline
love swept me to the floor
in a tide of blood

they stitched me up

but wounds open and close

it’s a boy, he tells me
I ask him:

what makes a boy,
how do you find the end
and the beginning
the shoulder, the heel,
the crown of the head, 
hair cut away 
to reveal a face