Tim Thorne

States of Poetry 2016 - TAS | 'Attack' by Tim Thorne

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series One • 22 February 2016

Attack   And it is the act, the willchanneled through fibre to impact;this is history as king hit.Imagine your own bedroom as nullius,adding extra dizziness to any fall. If pain, as is said, cannot be remembered,only the having been hurt,then where does the pain belongthat comes out of the blue oceaninto a void? History as bruise? Smashed capillaries will water the seedof a dark plant for ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - TAS | 'On the Mountain' by Tim Thorne

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series One • 22 February 2016

On the Mountain   Here where clouds soothe rocks, high above commerce,I could catalogue the sharper imagesof evil but to what use? City tabloidsand browsers will unroll bandagesenough to wrap communal wounds. The bardic robe sits ill. The mist suggeststhe insubstantiality of wish.Summon a future like some old romantic,some wacko visionary? Too easy,too absurd. The gesturing hand needs to ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - TAS | 'Theft' by Tim Thorne

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series One • 22 February 2016

Theft   The maps that teased my childhood were silent.The imagination they cossetedwas of no use. Instead of songthere was a flatness, a sheet of pastel shades.I could find Peru, but not food. And these maps were my inheritance.Maps can be owned. Land is something else.Maps can be stolen. When the atlas claps shutthose who are trapped between its pageshave no co-ordinates of place. ‘Gra ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - TAS | 'Waking' by Tim Thorne

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series One • 22 February 2016

Waking   Note the passive voice in that last line,the denial implied. ‘People were shipped out.’The agent with a conscious brain linkedto a hand with a pen or a gun felt his own gripall along the neural pathways. Some noises we can sleep throughbut even the softest can be an alarm.Sailboats in the calmest water are still not swans,not even, despite voyages and size,albatrosses. This ca ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - TAS | 'Window' by Tim Thorne

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series One • 22 February 2016

Window   What is the mind that would invent the lock?What are the pathways of the brainthat must be followed with no ball of stringto arrive at a devicewhich excludes? Why would you start? If this slab of the earthwas where you had always been,there would be no entry point,no threshold of distrust, only the baseab origine home and whole. Cook and Banks cased the place, reported back.(This ... (read more)