Tag Archives: Contemporary Poetry

With only five weeks left, it feels as if my two collaborators are turning up the dimmer to blinding! This week, Cindy continues to get fruity and Ashley disappears in a landscape of Chinese poetry. There is light everywhere and these ladies have filled their eyes with it. May it pour into yours…

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The woman who by choice disappeared for several days

tried to relocate (interiorly)
to the landscape of Classical Chinese poetry
but the thrift stores were out of jade curtains;
no horsemen were available to carry her north
(where womens’ thoughts are always going in those poems).

She played with shell combs and pin curled her hair
and briefly changed her name to Guinevere
going to look for orchids, having read
they are the most masculine of flowers
but she hesitated to call anything perfect

and from the start was never careful: the door banged shut
behind her, pictures from many years falling off hangers.

AM

**********

CK

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On a still bright
November evening

higher than sky-high
scales of mackerel clouds

taunt the fisherman.
Thin chords of sunlight

fracture the gulls’ flight
on course but destinationless.

Panic, panic
the dying light says

break through
while anything remains.

GN

There has been light of a different kind this morning… fierce bolts of it, raging across the sky and a deluge that has again seen the water rise and climb the steps into some of Brisbane’s stores and residences. So let’s all hope the weather settles and the predicted rain and storm cells for tomorrow dissipate.

Now, to bring a little of last night’s sparkle to you in the form of Cindy Keong’s banana etchings, Ashley Martin’s well-dreamed secrets and this Lost Shark’s languid rhythms. It’s week #46… follow the light.

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The wind that swept
the fisherman off the rocks
is gone.

The sea has settled
back into its languid rhythm
and the shearwaters
have returned.

Women in their gingham
dresses make the morning
look so sad.

I hope you remain submerged
spared the shame
of being washed up
for the gulls to cut
windows in your eyes.

But I have sorrowless bones.
I will return late tonight
and cast out into the surge.

Perhaps you will be watching
from your own shore.

The stars will burn on
into darkness
and the waves roll
deathward.

GN

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CK

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Your secret is as secret
as the unmarked car
that parks on this street.

It has protective color
like the eyelid of a bird.
It speaks Spanish in its sleep.

You dream it: waning
the gibbous moon, less than full
but enough to see by

and kept up longer
than the longest list of words
with similar beat:

repulse, impulse, compulsive
dangling with participles
and on the tip of your tongue

darker than the balcony
you kissed me on, but brighter,
megawatt, the whole night sky.

AM

It’s that time of week again, and though the weather here is bleary-eyed, my eyes remain filled with light. My Friday night was the bliss of Radiohead… for anyone who was there, I know your eyes will also be sparkling. The eyes of my good friends Cindy Keong and Ashley Martin are also light-filled, bringing you celebratory images of candles and the wings of skype. Fly into it…

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Being sung: the Psalms.
There is a boy soloist,
like David.

Not like David, his mother
sits in the third row.
I see her shoulders

rise, drop. The chorus keeps on
naming names of God
maker of heaven and earth

two thirds covered with water.
I think of boiling
points, superheated matter,

the mystery of no bubbles bursting.
They sing in Hebrew
lord; lord and master

maker of heaven and earth
and, presumably the factory worker
who made the flutter sleeve blouse

two thirds flesh colored chiffon
ripples of which pass over
her shoulders as everyone bends

a knee. I know who makes me:
not this Adonai
Adonai choraled about

but you, subject to time zones,
long distance Tetragrammaton
to whom prayers ascend

on the wings of Skype,
I wait more than the watchman waits for morning
to twirl in the camera in my new dress.

AM

**********

CK

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I will be the whistling
boy who walks the empty
hour of shore where the sea
runs backwards like mercury:

windows cut in skyline
by a circling eagle:
somewhere the roar of
a thunderhead or a fishing
boat that drops its net
into the blinding noon.

I must choose on this
backwards shore
and though it is hard
to see through the spectre
of spume the red welts
on my chest tell me:

I unbuttoned my shirt
and swam out
into the net.

GN

We are now well and truly into the final weeks of this project, a fact which has made the coming of each Friday night even more momentous. It feels as though each of us are pushing ourselves that little bit harder to bring back something light-filled and special. So what have we got for you this week?

Well, I have transported myself to the shores of Mission Beach to reimagine my days there, Cindy has remapped and repopulated the streets of my town and Ashley gives us a fresh take on the exploding luminosity of The Who. We hope you find the light!

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Mission Beach, facing east

you talk of futures
etch his name
with mangrove quill

claim family-sized portions of sand

like these coconuts, you say
that come all the way from
Western Samoa
I will follow you

where you go, I go
you repeat this
just as the ocean crawls
up the sand

washes his name away

moments used to line up
the length of day
now they are few
and far from shore

salt flung, hoping
to stay afloat

GN

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CK

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I can see for miles
for the remainder of this song, anyway.
It mentions magic, and I like that

possibility:
possibly there has not been a deception
here, outside of Pete Townshend’s lyrics.

I can see for miles
and know where hungry foxes come from
hunting by my home

I see all the way to the Dog Star
and have deceived you
with idioms. With blackouts. Now my

intrinsic luminosity can explode
and with a chorus
repeating nine times before fading.

AM

It was a very peaceful night here in Hawkwood Street, the light, finding me in a blissful state. And elsewhere, Cindy sharpened pencils and Ashley measured the distance between pine and sky…

And now, I bring the light to you. Open yourself to it.

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The distance between pines is sky
and sky is a convenient link
between us. It takes one airplane

to get from here to there (and back)
using the jet stream like train tracks
and sky might have other meanings:

my kettle drum heartbeat, waiting
at the gate marked ‘for arrivals’
or: discontinuous island
 
country similar to memory
except where aging satellites
fall. That sounds fanciful. I am

a practical birdwatcher.
I tally only the small marks
by your name, when you are in sight.

AM

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CK

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Somewhere, a bird, head thrown
back in the pink flush of
dawn, releases its careful
notes into the world.

And though I lay drowsing
unable to tell which species it is
it arrives at the window
like a gift of spring.

Once, I would have rushed
outside to name it —
insisted on knowing
the purpose of its call.

Now, with you curled
at my side, I thank
the bird and lie still
listening, not for answers —

there is something
sweeter than knowing —
a fullness, unimagined
in the morning sky.

GN