Michael Farrell
lower limit growl
sorry, no ‘available’. there are many
animals on
the farm (many sheep: sleepy
, sneezy ...). upper limit leaves (air
?
), lower limit dirt (water?
?). & telescopes at the caravan grounds.
‘
the lightbulb’ found life a breeze,
in the grated city – the narrative pressure got too
much
for ‘jerkpetal’, an interim character
shoring up the contingent of the ‘underrecognised’,
aka ‘
neglectorinos’, they of the self-pitying mottos
& drunken
emails to hardworking hostesses ... harps
play the ‘black’ ‘hearts
’ ‘out’, to
corn a phrase like a hank of
hair in a sink. to
coin a hole like a jig in
the last ‘space’.
dear cupboard, thinking of
myself: sleeps not getting enough of me;
oh body, hold me. ‘mother
perspex’ – ivory millhand – children whove washed
themselves for pepper: the hitching posts
fullup (eventualitys been stayed; the wrackings
the past-made-present)
. lemony handfuls of ants round
the briars, a genteel priest feeds
gelati to a kid goat
. would you recognise a mouthful of tar
? ash or fine glass
rains on the blue garden, blotting or
tearing: the orchids, daffodils, marigolds, tulips
, blue
clover & kikuyu – last year it was
the red. it happens in between shaving. a
bankers fingernails
tear at string, at other times
having the poise of a perfect croissant on
white paper (the papery croissant / the croissanty paper
) ...
its baked syntax.
nurses of art
so anonymous: with their gay deadlines &
observational ability. they can take in
your wrist like you were born in a
cold climate. & criticise: as
if we cant drink guava whenever we
want. give birth to a silicon
chicken – its not watching tv. gum
gets on the guardrail, then the
guard. if i stay in my friends
beds, borrow their berets, varnish
a banana in their honour, its just
one way of being thirty. are you
free, egg? the door that flew
through the tropical storm arrived, without
prejudice. the leanto was a place to
slow down after peas (poems)
, girls with boys names & a taste
for red binding. lawyers-in
-aspic. designate one sibling as normal
. calves-in-court.
you have no idea whether burnt toasts cool
or not. ‘i take it
from your wrist you were born in a
cold climate.’ semi-autumn
-winds blow-my-tent.
(we have never been anti-
antediluvian.) dim neighbours, fireside lyrics
, emoticons flap off, deaths back
in town. i laid in some
japan for winter.’ the ink
blue on his skin, like the 8
below his nipple. ‘why do
i wear tshirts? may as well ask
why i write poems. to feel
-see-them in my whizzbang life
_____
_____
Michael Farrell's books are ode ode, BREAK ME OUCH, and a raiders guide; he also co-edited (with Jill Jones) the anthology Out of the Box: Contemporary Australian Gay and Lesbian Poets. His graduate work is concerned with 19th and early 20th century Australian poetics.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 4 (2010): Emergence
The quasi-ness of so much of the statements in both these poems is absolute cause for marrying these to the theme "emergence". And, for my whizzbang life is how I'm going to have to answer the question of why I write poetry, from now on. Wonderful, Michael.
ReplyDelete