'Moon—' by Stuart Barnes | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
Woman
the real sea snoring half a mile away
the scrubbed brick walls of the double lounge and its
samples of african drums flood the speakers
Is that your shadow, weightless,
a smudge of grey dust
in the black trickery of the she-oak?
the lyrebird
in the moon,
with her cloudy skirt, shimmies down
Man
There are transparent fish
lifting the mist
fish, coral
and offspring. The red is too brilliant,
big as Africa
or an infant at the telescope's opposite end
cattle walk over a hill, their eyes connected, swivelling
now there is no safety anywhere
The moon will fizz like a pill in a drink ...
Stuart Barnes
a cento sourced from Alison Clark's 'To the Moon Behind Branches', joanne burns' 'moon', Jill Jones' 'waiting for the moon beyond the disco', Dorothy Hewett's 'Moon-Man', Nicolette Stasko's 'The Moth and the Moon', Caroline Caddy's 'Editing the Moon', Kate Llewellyn's 'Speaking of the Moon', Dorothy Porter's 'Full Moon', M.T.C. Cronin's 'Sonnet of Eggs & Moons', Gary Catalano's 'Nocturnes', Robert Kenny's '[Was moved across these waters]', S.K. Kelen's 'Moon Beach', John Kinsella's 'The Healing Of The Circle', Mark O'Connor's 'Moon Over Mindil Beach', Alex Skovron's 'A Concise History of the Moon', Michael Dransfield's 'Philosophy of movement', Peter Porter's 'Diana and Actaeon', Alan Gould's 'Moon'.
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