After that, it’s all a blur, just a mass of people rushing past to get somewhere that seems important, and I’m the only one going the other way; twelve years of elbows in the ribs. Places I’d seen countless times through the grimy windows of speeding trains began to seem interesting, to offer the chance… Continue reading Poem: Pilgrimage
Tag: Australian poetry
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J XIX – XXII
XIX. TRUST ME I sat for hours creating a poem in my head It was so complete, so perfect that I didn’t need to write it down XX. MULTI-PURPOSE POEM [Written in black marker pen on a kitchen sponge] When a sad poem is required, immerse in water, read and… Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J XIX – XXII
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J XV – XVIII
XV. CLOSE-UP A plain black page might say nothing, or it might be a close-up of a fraction of the first letter of the book that tells you everything XVI. FOCAL POINT [Written on the middle pages of a blank exercise book] How small the things that occupy us … Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J XV – XVIII
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J X – XIV
X. AMBITION [Video film of birds feeding with author’s voiceover] There is no failure like complete success XI. HONESTY [Handwritten in large letters diagonally, with the first and last words disappearing off the page] This is a real poem and I am a real poet XII. DUPLICATION [A photograph of… Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J X – XIV
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J VI – IX
VI. CONFESSIONAL POEM [A sheet of white A3 paper with the tracks of a chicken’s feet dipped in blue paint entering at bottom left and disappearing at top right] VII. CONFORMITY [Recorded on an audio cassette] I once received an anonymous poem that was so good that I had… Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J VI – IX
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J I – V
I. SECRET POEM [Written in white ink on a closed black box] The content of this poem is invisible and known only to the writer II. BURIAL Going going gone the author is gone do you need him III. BELIEF [Printed on a signed, notarised and officially sealed… Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J I – V
Poem: The Good Things and the Bad Things
A grey and heavy Tuesday sprawls to the horizon; the window might open onto a courtyard filled with colour and life, but never does. I want to drive a nail deep into the clouds and hang a bright collage across the sky, a crinkled hymn to day and night. But try as we like, we’d… Continue reading Poem: The Good Things and the Bad Things
Poem: Guilt
Three times today I’ve gone to the window to see what’s happening outside. I know I’m to blame but I hope there might be someone else who’ll look out at the same time, searching for another who accepts their share of the fault. No one’s there and I feel like an astronomer hunting a dim,… Continue reading Poem: Guilt
Poem: Progress Report
It was raining indoors when I woke today to the heavy drops spattering my pillow. While I drank my first coffee at ten, a rainbow hung between the stove and fridge and the dark clouds pulled back to the corners. Through a thousand espresso mornings I’ve waited for life to make sense, heaping melted questions… Continue reading Poem: Progress Report
Poem: Still Life With Nuclear Reactor
Sizewell B power station Suffolk, England a white, rounded mushroom mixed in the world’s cauldron the moon brought to ground, gleaming, radiating the giant forbidden fruit on the tree of knowledge a perfect white bottom inviting a pinch but it’s forbidden to touch the earth’s fertile, white belly (from “Exercises in… Continue reading Poem: Still Life With Nuclear Reactor
