In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, MTC Cronin reads 'Above Us' and 'The World's Yard' which feature in the 2016 QLD anthology.

Above Us

Above us we hear the windmill yelping, circling like a trapped
dog while the house sits like a black skull on the hill. Above us
the tombs are rising from their rest and travelling along the
roads beneath trees turning sourly. Above us the wind flings
uncountable seed into the dignified light tossed through the
depths by a green moon rolling over and over in the shifting
lens of the waves. Above us nakedness stretches forever
against danger, ravishment and smoke. When we wake our
lives are on fire. Above us only our sleepy souls drifting like
reeds catching the air.

The World's Yard

The correct way to drink from a broken cup.
To welcome both dark and light into your house.
To imagine tomorrow.
To pick verbena and red clover.
On the path where nothing will grow.

The correct way to tend the frozen.
To take their sweet throats and swim down into their livers.
To disembowel without touching.
To do what is at stake.
To move from cage to cage.

The correct way to say only some things worth saying.
To recognize the world's mark.
(The shape of conception.)
To feed an apple.
To bruise.

The correct way to close your lips.
To keep a promise.
To remember.
And then, to die in a room.
Or out in the open.

MTC Cronin

'Above Us' and 'The World's Yard' appears in States of Poetry - QLD. You can learn more about States of Poetry and read the full anthologies here.

Read MTC Cronin's biography in 'States of Poetry - QLD'