In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, MTC Cronin reads 'Little Track', 'The Grass is Full', and 'The Correct Way' which feature in the 2016 QLD anthology.

Little Track

Time falls out
of your house

and onto a slab
of lucerne which

the cows eat as
they wander away

from the orchard's
long flowing hour.

Sweet and full
of wild honey

is the flower
is the bird.

Part of your love
is timeless enough

says the little track
left by ants.

MTC Cronin

The Grass is Full

Moon is a paper lamp
burning all night.

The grass
is full of shadows.

Hardly room in here
with the cupboard's coat.

Small broken windows
open dream's row.

The wild birds
all leave my mind at once –

mouth banging shut
in the dark.

'The grass is full
of blue free stars.'

The universe just means
nothing gets left out. 

MTC Cronin

The Correct Way

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

'Little Track', 'The Grass is Full' and 'The Correct Way' 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'