being surrounded by the sea is a destiny
it will never turn around
it stands on the reefs, commanding you to sing
you don’t have much
but singing makes you wealthy
because of song
birds fly out from your throat
because of singing
flowers come up through the stones
(translated by Kit Kelen and Fei Chen)
Cliff wind has a particular
whistling sound like a gas bottle
released a quarter turn –
gulls tumble in its slipstream
wallabies are fastened to
the grass by their ears.
Here on the high side
we squint the miles of absolute blue
and watch the white knots of diving birds
unravelling to stitch the sea.
In this ritual of circles
the trees are intertwined. The tracks
we tread, dreadlocks on a leviathan’s head.
Below is the spiral heart of palms
And grass trees growing crooked spears.
And lower still, beneath the waves
the constant swirling helix of blue blood
whooshing through a vein.
from Judy Johnson’s “Exhibit” Read More »
The people have filled the city’s open spaces,
they stand shoulder to shoulder, expecting everything.
The platform above the Square is empty.
A buzz of unease caresses the bare heads,
their coronas of hair thinning into the breeze;
see the rolled-up newspapers, the scarves that twitch.
The hum mounts to a whisper, the whisper
delivers its secret, the secret
is betrayed, spreads like an epidemic;
outside the city they are building a pyramid of books.
from Alex Skovron’s “Water Music” – Sunspots Read More »
rivers are urgent
for the sea
bringing letters from winter
the farmer writes to
a summer with
his shovel in wet mold
the clouds gather
what is not yet
said
(translated by Kit Kelen with the author)
from Odveig Klyve’s “Let’s Take the Blue Sky by Storm” Read More »
summer holiday
we pitch a tent in your nan’s
front yard
an argument
on the northerly wind
our pitched tent
overcast evening
I hide her car keys
in my underwear
Three haiku from Myron Lysenko’s flying islands pocketbook “a ghost gum leans over” Read More »
The Apricot & The Lemon Tree
at the edge of the village
come to an oak much older than me
that’s where I’ll seek advice
– Kit Kelen
tenant 1 planted the couple while tenant 2 and 3
nurtured their growth and here I stand, tenant 4
before their arthritic leaves & brittle branches
unlike the owl and the pussycat they are stuck
too close and deep rooted with a stubborn sense
of belonging to a land they’ve failed to interpret
once gardens were ballrooms of sweet & bitter
fruit throughout Melbourne’s Northern yards
expecting Mediterranean weather to migrate
now these replica orchards are starving for genteel
seasons, expecting to be washed with lukewarm
hose each night, even when sky drizzles or sprays
with no strength to stretch their limbs, with no
plump, sun-kissed balls of juice for birds & jam
with no smell for dressed salads or fragrant tagine
they offer a time-warp of cravings & nostalgia
in the back yard, encircled by concrete and brick
ignoring the bottlebrush with its bright red offers
by Angela Costi
Common or Garden Poets #13 – Angela Costi inviting Denise O’Hagan Read More »
i hate them
the truth is out. and they hate me.
them, the barbarians in baseballs hats,
twisting in chairs lined up in artificial order,
and carving their loathing on the tabletops.
do you know why the roman empire fell? I ask.
who cares? a boy giggles.
that is the reason, i say
you are old & fat, they say.
they are young & fat, I don’t say
because i don’t want them to get healthy.
they can stay ugly and stupid so I can despise them.
why envy the awkward root they didn’t have
or their perfect wet dreams pearling
on the television screen?
…Rae Desmond Jones’ ‘Decline and Fall’ Read More »
Where the bees rest where the butterflies play
“What we most need to do is to hear within us
the sounds of the earth crying…”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
from October the trees are all betrothed each
to the gardener in nets white gauze
figs peaches sequestered from the busy beaks
and teeth of bats and birds
the day sultry as a girl in her slip swimming
waiting on the Southerly Buster
cicadas heat from the city a brown bubble popped
by flat-iron cloud-banks
high and sharp as the beaked head of a kookaburra
tall sky and
gratefully I’m small
up the hill
march the white
agapanthus forcing genetic breaks
onto our purple beauties scrambling the misty blues
to hybrids there is no
one garden in my street
I see the Ice flower
nipped out on a beach walk mini red-fringed suns
succulents rescued from places where old age gave way
to builders’ aspirations pieces of old friends
the Mentone red geranium that Gaagang saw from his pram
Hoya from the balcony back at the flat the boys had
in Drummoyne your tree
a pencil planted just before
you died
begonias like Mum’s pelargonium from The Redemptorists
a fine piece of Menken’s building lotus out of farm dams
mingle a floral beer garden with tin peacocks
and galahs turmeric galangal Vietnamese mint
vanilla orchid mustard greens
are you hungry thinking how to mow around
the condiments and if you’ve ever seen a chicory flower
mauve and delicate as tissue
I see a garden built by birds by bats
bullrushes
flown in yonder from Ash Island
White Cedar loquat air mail
in a sweep of feathers
the odd drop of oyster shells
beside the Jizo statue
bark depends from gum tree piling around roots
mandarin and finger lime lemons parsley
all engrossed with weed with blue tongues
pushing up in pots in tubs in cisterns
anywhere
these tiny hair-drawn feet
can tread
Common of Garden Poets #12 – Kerri Shying Read More »
inviting Angela Costi
fragments revised from ‘the village is a garden’ at Mesana
Paphos District, Cyprus
and I have something to tell you
which not even I must hear
– Yiannis Ritsos
1
such an honest morning
sun has washed white
what is that tiny bird swings through
under vines in a courtyard glimpse?
it’s an all-day rooster
proclaims from tin shade
tiny lizards
to whom I’ve had no formal introduction
are faster than
call their colour
a breathless hill’s
good for the heart
I go a little way on
at the edge of the village
come to an oak much older than me
that’s where I’ll seek advice
2
the olive
abundance, peace and glory
what lives in the olive
is just this season
a certain flit of feather, fur
say opportunity
wide boll of gnarl
our ages blur
flutter adjustment
in the branches
what lives in the olive
a thirst set aside
light throws itself at us
the old ones
writhe themselves around
all cleft
and strong with standing
like a dare to wait
and taste the fruit
it’s bitter now
but you can have my patience
let the blade be with the branch
let the shape be minded
sing
and leaf
is song too
a hill lives in the olive gnarl
whole skies have gathered
rain fell
let this bark be shot of sun
twig fall to winter fire of night
the tree so many lives
it’s accident and cause we’re here
a wrestle with itself
frozen yoga seems
because we can’t see time
tree’s made of
bend with the breeze
as often laden
think calmly as the tree
3
a picture of the stillness
a gnarl of stump
could be alive
points its all directions
saw my first snake today
dusty black yay long
add this to the list
of those on the way
flies to me gathered
as movement as sweat
do I deny them hope?
surely I will lie down to die?
a breeze lives in the shade
flutter and the tree takes off
I walk like a ghost through this knowledge
nobody knows I am here
4
rising to all occasions
pigeons explode from an ancient tree
this happens now and then
there are other days
over the skysill
other worlds
deep in the heart
Common or Garden Poets #11 – Kit Kelen inviting Angela Costi Read More »
Over the drinks
Alise started discussing “us veterans”
as though we had conquered something real.
There were enough stories that day,
our backs bent, the calcium dust we shed as we struggle on towards dotage.
There’s a form of war universally fought against the years.
She had a hit in the 80’s.
Staunch, she faces this foe that always defeats
but that’s not the point.
Later, look her up on google, 251734 results.
Then think back her ex-lover Janet
that careless brilliance the photographs, poems
her singing voice raw with gitanes & clarity.
I think about the “fallen”,
those casualties to narrative,
the ones who shone with promise flared a few years
then disappeared.
…