In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Cameron Lowe reads his poem 'Breathe' which features in the 2016 Victorian anthology.

Breathe

The particulars of the evening being, whether consciously
        evoked or – 'a great shemozzle'
                     as Kent said –
          merely one day washing over and into the depths
                          of the plane tree
and those other trees of
        darker green
              whose names I don't claim to know – the pissing
                 possums don't know them either
so worry not – and the block of cream
         apartments where one half of Gert
'the writer' Loveday
lives –
              'Thou art not possum nor lemur nor
mathematician' –
                     that is, the particulars
– putting to one side money,
its lack, that sudden straining
for breath – the particulars
being exactly what they are
and mostly the same
as the last time
I looked –
          Frida Kahlo's face
upon a field of green
beads, a tanker's red hull
through palms –
sway on sweet palms
against the lying
of the Right – they don't,
but the last sun falls
on roof tiles, on the corrugated
iron of the carport, on
the plane tree's leaves,
etc –
the particulars can go
on and on, or run off
to flirt with Gert –
'cyclamen, sing awhile
with me' – I was thinking
of love in the abstract way
one sometimes does,
this being the hour of
my lungs for now and
ever after –
                 when you spoke behind Kahlo's face,
                                             'dinner's nearly ready – I'll just
                                                                                         have a shower'
                       and Edith Pevensey's eyes a green leaning
                           to gold in the 'luminous hum'
                                as bats take to sky,
                                       in the slow fade –
                                            fade on – of Tuesday's light

Cameron Lowe

'Breathe' appears in States of Poetry - VIC. You can learn more about States of Poetry and read the full anthologies here.

Read Cameron Lowes's biography in 'States of Poetry - VIC'