Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

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

by
States of Poetry Tasmania - Series One

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

by
States of Poetry Tasmania - Series One

Attack

 

And it is the act, the will
channeled 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 belong
that comes out of the blue ocean
into a void? History as bruise?

Smashed capillaries will water the seed
of a dark plant for generations.
Behind the blow there is no reaching,
no plan. It is the immediacy,
the confined 'now', that is worse than the strength.

When the Age of Enlightenment
needs a burglar's flashlight and even then
can't see the future or the long, long past,
whose role is it to ask the questions?
Whose answers are to be heard?

All that can be known is the instant
of impact, the non-dimensional point,
and it is on this absence, out of it
the attempt was made to build a nation.
Jesus and the three little pigs knew better.

Tim Thorne

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.