Poems

Kit Kelen’s ‘A Sociology of Paradise’

from a pocket kit 2

First I came through a hoop of flesh.
I didn’t jump, I swam. There was an endless
mud plain and another storm coming.
Rain beat the rice shoots green from the soil.
Millions were huddled round the still ether.

The century dragged on. I missed the boat
swam out to the island. And the air was still
in the sun’s quarter and the half a sky where
waves could have been. The moon washed
up where the tide rusted into the sand.

Cars came out of the twentieth century.
Coca Cola came ashore, lapped on
the hard live shell of paradise. A coconut
fell out of nowhere onto my child’s head.
I didn’t stumble. There were stars and bars
everywhere. I could hear the West
crackling through looming shadows of bliss.

Back country, hills were dense with trees,
Dissidence, notches for climbing up.
And curled into a noose of straw
the disappeared hung, swaying — invisible
burden of paradise. I jumped through a hoop
of gold. I had the ring of confidence then
and a flag colour of mud.

Helicopters filled up the sky. When the noise
came, birds shifted in a line, black, palm to palm,
fifty metres. Then when they came back
there was nothing the wind could move.
Trees clung to a rock in the sea.

On dry land a had a good steady job
in the fly-spray factory. They paid me in cigarettes
so naturally I took up smoking. The mist
from the nozzle formed up a halo to martyr
the very air. You couldn’t call it a leak.
It was more like missile testing.

Each day here proud of the fallen, brainless
slaughters to glory in. The earth makes up
a place for each. The new rice sings from the earth.
The colour of the mud in our veins is a flag
billowing over a hoop of bright gunmetal:
the welcome mat. I didn’t jump, I swam.

S. K. Kelen’s ‘Coming Home (from my Papuan holiday)’

from Yonder Blue Wild

Goodbye Moresby.
Goodbye jungle.
Flying home. Over the phosphorescent green reef
where the wing of a Japanese transport plane
stands like a broken soldier.
Across a jade desert that joins the sky.
Over the mountains that were really clouds.
At thirty-thousand feet: when clouds look like
they’re just on top of the sea. Through 
a chicken leg, a glass of white table wine 
and six continental cakes. 
Over more sea.
The Great Barrier Reef.
Sugar plantations, rivers, towns.
Factories and roads.
Keeping the plane late by being the only person
to declare his carvings in customs at Brisbane airport.
Flying farther south into night.
The sun is a red ball at the edge of a purple sky:
a piece of left-over daylight touches
the horizon. The sun slips over 
the side of the world. Then darker blue, darker blue, 
then purple, indigo giving way to black sky.
And stars all across it. 
Somewhere down there is my house.
Sydney, the city, and I can see buses and lights on the 
streets.

And it’s raining. The captain says it’s cold.
All those fools in their Bombay bloomers 
and safari shirts shiver, trundle off the jet
and run across the tarmac through the rain.
Mum, Dad. It’s your boy.
                  Home after three weeks.
You can kiss me when we get home.
A transistor radio for you, little brother.
I’ll tell you about it all in the car.
How are things? How’s that dumb dog of mine?
                         Have I learned anything?
                         Sure, sure.

Gail Hennessy’s ‘In a Second-hand Bookshop’

from Written On Water

I am with Virginia Woolf’s
‘variegated feathers’ searching
among wild, homeless books…

old friends cheek by jowl
nestle from floor to ceiling

I am searching for
Abelard’s Letters to Heloise.

A young man tutors a scarfed
woman at a paper strewn table

they are darkly exotic
from old Persia perhaps

I think of Scheherazade
flying carpets, Arabian Nights

her tutor translates as I
teeter on a stool behind them

and hear -

my flesh is too sweet to explain

I come down from the stool
and float from the shop 
cradling the pearl of his lesson

and so…

I have framed this line
by an unknown poet

so that you may know
words I do not want to forget

a line from a poem
I am unable to write.

Kit Kelen’s ‘Up Through the Branches’

from Up Through the Branches

of bright birds, dull 
of leaves caught light with 
sunshine sown 
a welcoming – 
of wind, of cloud, of constellation 
as from the vast of days

it isn’t the eye alone to see, to steady with the sky

they stand tattooed, leaf shone exalt 
a puzzle of bark to read past weather 
breakfast in branches honey in the highest 
count them, lose yourself this way 
this is the tree where possum learned climbing 
and came to grief

tree of the swing where we killed hours 
if I could reach like this I’d be rich 

wings dip and lift in quilting light 
and everything with tail and twitch 
comes under spell

of lichen, moss 
and catch the fruit that’s falling 
be hat upon trudge, crook head to the tilt

praise the tree, rub up

clouds have plumped for top of it
some hang and some are racing

as travelled by ants all making home 
where light’s trick web is woven 
with such a symmetry
shade summer cast 
see flight’s arcs and tangents

tree of the tune grew up with me 
all twig till tip and step off into empty air 
moving eager insect after 
here’s the rain 
it’s like a hat 
won’t you call it love?

earth clinging 
where is the forest of the rain? 
the book of more than pages? 

joists and planks and beams above 
and shh! there’s someone sleeping 
unseen though, no initials carved

erect a church out of it all 
and paint till there’s a heaven 

it’s weatherwork, the tree 
bonfire of falling limbs our tribute 
built from the kindling donation

where lightning struck there’s timpani 
tinkling breeze and leaf tip trill 
all suggestions are symphonic

bark is peeled and coiled to fall 
this is the tree of the creatures trysting 
though the conclusion’s night 

moss in the folds and tendril higher 
so is the chorus kept 

the felled tree gathers veins to light 
scrap of scribble breeze makes leaf 
so death is a living thing

everyone visits 
it’s as through a lattice seen 
to let grow

where bare the branches crowd with stars 
it’s not like a wake at all 
but every bolt is from the blue

as if all souls stood with you now 
silent for applause

Andrew Burke’s ‘Shop Locally’

from ‘The Line is Busy’

‘Keith the Butcher is better suited
to conduct my funeral than
Father Fahey,’ Frank said in
the shopping centre café, coffee tasting
like burnt tar, muffin crumbling
on his off-white face.
Mock-stained-glass windows framed
consumers relieving aching backs
and knotted veins. ‘None of that God stuff
when they send me off, mate.
Dead’s dead.’ I forewent
a second cup, mentally ticked
off my list, threaded fingers through
handles of Coles supermarket bags,
and stood to go. ‘See ya, mate.’
‘Not if I see you first.’

In the car park, shopping propped
against the back bumper, I clicked
‘unlock’, threw open the boot,
and paused, considering the metaphors
of everyday, cryptic tropes of our living tongue
wriggling in the minds of
late capitalist man. ‘Hot enough for you?’
asked the woman with
The Goddess Dances on her rear window.

David McAleavey’s ‘Detailed & calm’

from ‘Talk Music‘

first, you can’t try too hard. The balance you need will be there for you to fall on if you need it, but the better balance consists in doing so well you won’t need it, in speaking or writing so firmly and freely that you’re not

trying too hard. There are lots of incredible pleasures for you, the writer, pleasures which probably no reader will ever dare even suppose he could discover in your
poem. because you have to try to write the whole poem out

as if it were one thought which came at one time, were one finite vein of gold you alone had the technique to find
& dig, naturally your reader won’t know whether you took three minutes or thirty days for the poem, and thus won’t

know the one best thrill, the thrill attendant on writing
in its turn a final line needing no revision, detailed & calm.

David McAleavey’s ‘Written next to a page of Emerson’

From Talk Music

You should empower all the voices, since
what is strong enough makes a pattern of itself.
The sound of a line can make the next line easy.

Or thought can: further down you’ll find
clear streams connecting unfathomed blanks.
Deeper still are the big rivers that make

the ground quake, the air chill and quick.
The landscape is glorious even if the music is
unfamiliar. It makes the brave shiver.

Think about it: what do you care if you’re lost?
Wouldn’t you really rather hear the music? This
is after all the plot of earth where

those of us who think talk of music
can be music
talk.

Mathew Cheng’s ‘Tai O Coast’

From Recollections

Walked to the other side of the coast
to the last edge of the city.
The smell of salted shrimps
wafted by the bungalows nearby.
Bamboo baskets of many sizes
were holding dried shrimps, persimmon peels
and salted fish.
You couldn’t take the smell
and turned away.

Kids rode bikes and passed by.
One bike—
she was silent.
A few bikes—
they yelled to each other
and performed a cartoon.
The bikes
shot away.

We walked by all these
and reached the last coast.

A village hall’s dappled walls;
an unattended grocery store behind a big tree.
We walked around the corner

and there were no
bungalows. The long coastline became more visible.
We seemed to hear every word of waves
and every breath of shrimps and fish.

3pm
the sun withdraws,
the wind quickens its pace.
We walked around another corner
and there was the path less travelled by.
Bikes’ bells
were outsounded by waves splashing the dike…

You said we’re almost there.
The smell of salted shrimps was far behind, but
here’s the salted smell of the coast.
Less tree shades
and the sun shone to our faces.
Two or three egrets
scattered along the dike
neither eating nor speaking.

You said we’re almost there.
A vast coast stretched
to the horizon. You asked—
was that the Lingding Channel?
I didn’t know. I just saw

the lazy boats smoke pipes
on the sea
as if relishing the scenery
or sauntering to contemplate.
They were distant from each other;
They had their space anyway…

Time to go back.
Getting dark.
For years
you always reminisced the summer,
and the sea we saw that year.

(Translated by Chris Song)

Jonas Zdanys’ Creating the World

from Preludes After Rain

I heard something fall in the early hours today as
the wind blew on its journey in the first day of this
season, whistling through the thin branches that
huddle hard against the last trespass of winter. It was
an unexpected sound, the abrupt rattle of ghosts in
the attic returning to the earth. The minute would
not focus, the aging colors of whatever falls would
not heal, the quick ache of a heart that knows the
sky is suddenly too close sidles and bleeds. Nothing
stays. Nothing in its characteristic light. Nothing in
this moment of dispersion. The dust in the window
slowly learns its still craft, the night points elsewhere,
and I hear myself, wherever I turn, hands over my
eyes, falling in a hail of wax and feathers, far from
the sea, a ball of glory, the blood pounding, all fire
and joy, against the walls and roof of the house. I saw
eternity in the sky’s blue light, forgot the old artificer’s
warning, sang to myself, helpless and free, until the
strings of the universe stretched and broke.

Chris Song’s ‘A Prayer’

from Mirror Me

no eyes, no ears, no tongue
but thoroughly understanding the schemes of heart

He lives not in the world, yet resides rather in the left
 atrium, messing sometimes with your heartbeat. He

draws intricate murals on the walls of your heart, 
    grieving your
mind, and walks your bridge, cruising to the right

to design your desires. at times
He is a leech inside the heart

slurping up all your piety and blood. At times He
is the heart’s own shadow, endlessly expanding
until you fill with fear. He never lets you at ease, pricking you with heart

ache, despondency, angina, until you
cannot bear
His silence, and scream: God—is me!