Judith Beveridge
Grennan sucks in air along his gums and yells
again to Davey who is filling the trough
of the gunwhale with scrabbling crabs. Far off
lightning slips down the sky like a forkful ...
It’ll be dawn before the sawing’s done; all night
cutting it up, yet by dark’s end, a pine,
or cypress moon, fragrant, awaiting finish. I watch
What can I ask of your lips
that they haven’t already given
my colourless signature; of your
hands other than to shade
your eyes as the sun burnishes
the windows, then carries on
to the grey porticos of the square.
I see pigeons on the gold-lit roof
of the Cathedral of St Christopher,
and as I stir my brush about
my palette – scarlet is what
I pray for; scarlet that flows under
a vanquished bridge; that lives
with finches in the tops of trees
because, desire, you said,
should always live on the wing.
... (read more)
that they haven’t already given
my colourless signature; of your
hands other than to shade
your eyes as the sun burnishes
the windows, then carries on
to the grey porticos of the square.
I see pigeons on the gold-lit roof
of the Cathedral of St Christopher,
and as I stir my brush about
my palette – scarlet is what
I pray for; scarlet that flows under
a vanquished bridge; that lives
with finches in the tops of trees
because, desire, you said,
should always live on the wing.
... (read more)
It’s the silence. Even by the river, my ears are straining. It’s the silence. At this moment it’s a warmish humid silence with the grass outside lushly mesmerising the eye.
... (read more)