Poetry
Avenues & Runways by Aidan Coleman & Throwing Stones at the Sun by Cameron Lowe
A biographer follows the life of a chosen person or a chosen group or people, or perhaps a particular scene or epoch. An autobiographer, like a snail outed by the Sun, looks back at his or her tracks and tries to explain how he or she got this far, possibly hinting at vindication or in more extravagant mode, self-immolation. Unfortunately I am a poet, and a prose writer only to earn a living. My field is verse, but l am involved on a daily basis with literature in diverse forms, especially journalism, broadcasting, and reviewing. I believe also that I am a secret biographer and autobiographer, as so much of the poetry I write and read shadows the functions of biography.
... (read more)Changes: New & collected poems 1962-2002 by Keith Harrison
While we are apart I will
wear no shoes, walk barefoot
over Nevada sands, tune my heart
to 33 kilohertz, synchronise
my inner ear to terra firma, and,
While my brother milks
I return to mist drifting up the fence posts.
The night’s sheet slowly evaporating
giving in to day – already a process of action.
Cows backing off the platform
make their way up the track –
the stumps of their tails flicking at flies
they regard me with surprise.
The summer night is dangerous and deep.
I lie, dead still, aware of the tiniest sounds
Being so full of joy I cannot sleep.
The night is dangerous, so many lives.
I love my husband well. A sharp moon
Rubs the spine of the barn. Nothing moves.
(for David)
je ne sais quoi
but it is written in the sound of this melange
of consonants and vowels that a blind
old impressionist defeats Duchamp
I have left its windows open
so you might as well climb inside
where you can be safe for now from weather,
and though you’re already feeling intrusive
think of yourself as a museum visitor
to a reconstruction of a life now silenced.
The bed, I know, has not been made
but the silver cutlery on the formal dining table is meticulous.
You will not be roped out of any room
and you can be confident
the writer left before you and your party arrived.
The place is left as realistic as anything you might write yourself.
Dirty clothes (for instance) are piled into a predictable straw basket,
their odour not quite animal or human, ... (read more)