Three Poems
a dead bee
on the bus seat,
a bipolar daughter
cherishing her hands,
she’s ‘miles away’
~
in every second poem –
All the reasons not to believe in anything anymore
Words lost and scattered all along the path
There’s nothing left to say
The wind rises
The world slips away
The other side
The Arc surrounding this grim landscape
is losing its colour
I think it’s wearing out
Hang on
And leave a faint memory on earth
A gesture of regret
A sour expression
What I did best
& further
sombre artifice
~
walking from sulphide to bromide
imagining
some scenographic terrain –
the indian ocean looks choppy
from the plane,
its clobbered shore already sunk
~
holding the baby
with the peachy fur dome head
& making jokes
about already dead poets,
nearly dead, halfway dead,
lining up for "Reading Australia"
now, what is that?
~
here he goes again,
the brilliant sad sack –
There is no longer even a place
For the words I will leave
~
yesterday, you were found
on wikipedia
blogging your new album
on a national bluegrass site,
then, scrolling down –
you died
even months ago
O closed heart O heavy heart O deep heart
You will never get used to sorrow
~
perhaps this place
takes itself seriously –
‘Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions’,
in time ( you wonder) when
did emotions begin?
Note: The ‘brilliant sad sack’ is Pierre Reverdy.
of
the old government house
don’t match
the scenery
sticks to the palate,
porcelain cake
iced,
‘refreshments’
&
cat-piss perfumes
a chicago architect’s
mock gothic modernism
in the flat above mine
someone seems
to jump
in high canvas
ankle-wrap sneakers,
is it
jesmyn, edwidge, dwyer –
some american name
like that?
~
downstairs
Queen Sālote of Tonga
lying like a solemn hologram
‘in state’
in the ballroom
under glowing clusters
of white and golden ball chandeliers
~
saturday morning,
in need of a spell,
at the polynesian markets
the faito’o says
her ceramic charms don’t work
if only she could
crank up
the faux-greenstone wealth one
~
the depot faces the skytower,
each oyster holds the sea
until swallowed
there is a small gift –
‘Len Lye, The New Yorker’
a brief monograph, visibly stitched,
not looking
too ‘booklike’
thanks wystan
~
te kōti –
19th century māori leader,
appliqued, stylised in red & black,
on a polyester flag
hanging from a honey-coloured wall
that smells like vetiver grass
~
just after dusk
a small brown owl,
a ruru,
sits on a railing just outside the boatshed,
expert in stealth
hunting moths
then fffff fffff
gone like a ghost
before midnight
a downburst rocks the bure –
doors flap & bang,
sideways lightning, crazy winds,
trees sever & crash,
clinging to the day bed,
shaking in a blackout
~
ecological circuits
rewired on lava crops,
as water & shade
does for fern & fauna.
taking an upper deck return
across the choppy crater,
through bird wheel
& ferry diesel
the tide recedes
Notes:
A faito’o is a traditional Tongan herbalist.
Te Kōti appears on a flag made by the late New Zealand poet and artist Leigh Davis.
across the fly screen
insects & I
chase the breeze
as the big day shrinks
the cool is coming on
the book is sitting there,
its blue cover
clashing
with the tea towel’s orange,
stranded
they’ve had their
heydays,
the fading teatowel,
the book of poems
translated
& re-translated
an aesthetics of the surface
sliding towards
evening, only one language
spoken here
fructose to coma –
undissolved granules
spuming
in a grubby glass
on the table top
the poems say
more
than I want them to,
no clarity really, can’t decide
which way to read them
everything left
as it is,
the fridge compressor
gurgles
PAM BROWN’s most recent book is Home by Dark (Shearsman, 2013). She writes poetry, reviews and makes collages. In 2013 she edited A New Compendium of Australian Poetry for the PennSound audio site. She is an editorial board member of VLAK Magazine and contributing editor to Fulcrum. Pam lives in the motley inner-urban district of Alexandria in Sydney, Australia. NB: "Collected melancholy" appeared earlier this year in the Australian magazine Overland.