Summer Poetry Feature, Part 1: Skovron, Middleton, Spence, Mahemoff, Lowe, Brown, Curnow [01.12.2011]
Summer is. And so are these poems – here and now – for your reading pleasure. Part 1 of 4 to the SPUNC Summer Poetry Feature is below. If you missed them, be sure to have a read of our Winter and and Spring features as well.
Part 1: Skovron, Middleton, Spence, Mahemoff, Lowe, Brown, Curnow
Part 2: Wright, Gillam, Edgar, Mittal, Page, Reeves, Hecq
Part 3: Lloyd, Clemens, Caddy, Ryan, Cooke, Rowland
Part 4: Cronin, Hill, Sant, Shapcott, Collins, Gorton, Shepherdson
Projections ~ Alex Skovron
WHAT IS IT about masks and capes, and midnight escapades, and the colour black? It’s 1958 in a Rose Bay gloom (the Wintergarden, say): Wagner’s overture engulfs the gritty screen, and the grim crusader, ensnared between those deathly spikes of steel, the walls still closing in from Saturday last, at last ingeniously escapes; ‘The Batman!’ screech the sprung crooks of 1943, the serial rolls. Shortly I’ll be crouching over a pad to sketch that wondrous pointy slit-eyed cowl. Or 1960 at the Metro, Bondi Junction (facing the Coronet), where I rustle my ninepenny Smith’s while my courage surges to Zorro’s amazing sword (‘the sign of justice done’); later I’ll practise slashing an imaginary Z, will render on bluelined airmail sheets the mystique of his ebony blindfold, that spirit-level hat, the cheeky pencil moustache. And in between there’s 1959, where Sleeping Beauty delivers a shriller charm: Maleficent is magnificent – for weeks I’ll struggle at my miniature desk to never quite accomplish her bristling lines, her tempestuous cloak, the terrible horn-topped angular grandeur of her scowl … These (and others too) the instructors of a particular art: they empotion me, inflict the all-embracing myth, during that innocent universe where white is black. By 1977 the triggers of memory twitch when I countenance Vader’s hollow metallic lament, his mantle all-enshrouding (night-mammal, blade-wizard, enchantress-witch), his helmet a master-stroke from the century’s blackest hole. Let him keep. In a decade or two, a dark new hero will defy the screens of our sleep.
This poem appears in Alex Skovron’s collection, Autographs, published by Hybrid Publishers.
Last Poem ~ Kate Middleton
for P.
I went to pick a rose for you
and found there were no roses—no symphony, no cherish.
The seasons are lost in a brushstroke now,
the blankness of my inattention. And I wanted to give you
those easily crushable petals (they are so easy
to grieve for) but the morning frosts
have seized us all. Instead I gave you the tissue
of my thin words, and said
I wish these were roses.
Brought like Josephine rushed roses through the blockades,
the giddiness of bringing those buds into a new country.
The gentle, pressable flesh of them
an explanation for my warring self. We sat together
in the cold house, the words between us withering,
having lost the libraries of eloquence
they used to hold, the pattern of sunshine dropping through
the red lace shawl hung suspended in the window.
This poem appears in Kate Middleton’s collection, Fire Season, published by Giramondo Publishing
Les Fantaisies Bisarres de la Goutte ~ Pete Spence
an anonymous mass
was something
Einstein was looking for
through all this plasma
and grit!
today i can’t even
throw a shadow
as i lazily air my feet
nor can i gather
enough energy
to have a tantrum
and i’d like to!
tantrum ego!
does a tantrum have mass?
the air leans
against a wall
taking a breather
in the specific
gravity of the moment!
the daze goes by
but don’t get
any more impressive
now that the ladies lounge
is full of pokies!
a new brand of air
is advertised
but clearly
it has evaporated
into the dun mass
seeking anonymity
This poem appears in Pete Spence’s collection, Perrier Fever, published by Grand Parade Poets.
Snapshot, Chequers, 1960 ~ Mark Mahemoff
Here they are, resplendent in black and white,
pictured at the start of a patchy career.
But what’s the occasion?
Who have they come to see?
Is it Billy Eckstein, Nat King Cole or Gene Krupa?
They wouldn’t remember and it doesn’t really matter.
No one could eclipse this young pair’s glamour.
All the elements are there, almost as if staged.
A packet of Rothman’s
on a starched white table cloth.
Their optimistic smiles posed for the camera.
He is twenty, she is twenty three.
They reek of sexuality yet to be unleashed.
She’s revealing a suntanned shoulder
wrapped, self-consciously,
in her mother’s black fur stole.
His right arm is almost touching her back,
close but not too close,
as dictated by protocol.
There is something both attractive
and unsafe about her beauty.
It’s as if there is a hook
concealed inside sweet bait.
Neither one knew the pain that lay in wait.
The high hopes to be bludgeoned by the hammer of reality.
But here they are pre-marriage,
drugged by romance:
these youngsters, my parents,
for better or for worse.
This poem appears in Mark Mahemoff’s collection, Traps and Sanctuaries, published by Puncher & Wattmann.
Hush ~ Cameron Lowe
In the blue light her skin is electric,
a neon field, one arm displaying
the tendered cloth,
the other raising sail in the drift of night—
and what might be at stake here,
sheets swimming
in this blue sea of reflections,
the play of a smile frozen in glass,
or the mind settling on the surface
of this rising tide.
In the sudden rush for resemblance
a splitting begins, this table,
that chair, hands shaping that which
is and isn’t there, until
all that remains is imitation,
and she breathes out, letting
blue light embrace and taste her,
the light spilling from splintered limbs.
This poem appears in Cameron Lowe’s collection, Porch Music, published by Whitmore Press.
Cold front ~ Pam Brown
this shivering caravan
reeks of rum,
shadows smear an atlas
on a pillowcase
idly silhouetting a rabbit
on the masonite wall,
iced-over scraps
on the laminex splashback
grey nomad buys clairol –
the future looks bright
o only a cold front
is oblivion dark ?
come here for a moment,
sit and regard,
gape at the landscape
we’ll never inhabit
en plein air
is so much a sinkhole,
nowhere so zen
as some other place
who changed ‘the proposal’
into ‘the dream’ ?
I never said
I’m living the plan’
I’ve already been sideswiped
and I was here last
my cup’s white interior
tarnished by tannin,
readers of teacups
expended by tea bags
such a dreamy hiatus
o only a cold front
copying a trance
is too difficult to do,
sun on shut eye –
deep eggy red orange
but pocket some wisdom
when winter arrives
the grey sheen of sleet
will cleanse us like windex
This poem appears in Pam Brown’s collection, Authentic Local, published by Papertiger Media / SOI 3 Books.
This Arm That Never (Quarantine Station) ~ Nathan Curnow
This arm was cast from a smallpox victim,
manufactured in bees wax and ink, painted
yellow representing a jaundiced appearance
in a sealed glass box on felt. Note the size of
the pimples that filled with pus and erupted
upon clothes and linen, in the mouth at first,
across the palms, down to the soles of the feet.
See the wedding ring they could not take off.
We are invited to interpret the story. This arm
is fragile but in good condition, priceless as
a research tool. Check the painstaking length
the artist went to for our medical education,
donated to us by Sydney University, the victim
buried in an unmarked grave. Imagine it as
a ravaged gift, think how it must have played
a part, displayed here in our movable collection,
gambled upon the voyage. This arm that never
stops retelling the story of its deadly cargo.
Reaching through time, swollen, resigned,
still untouchable.
This poem appears in Nathan Curnow’s collection, The Ghost Poetry Project, published by Puncher & Wattmann.
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Comments
mark mahemoff — 20 December at 04:59PM
Thanks for publishing the poem. I have enjoyed all the offerings!!