Poem: About swimming

February 23, 2023

counting each lap
mathematical strokes
fifty metre groan

PS Cottier

I’m just getting back into swimming. Unfortunately I don’t have a man with a rope to drag me along. I swim very slowly during the public access hours at the Australian Institute of Sport. Once, some years ago, some people filmed me swimming, probably thinking I was a proper swimmer from the Australian team. If I was, Australia would only win participation medals at the Olympics.

This is a poem, not a listicle.

It tastes like leather.

If you listen you will soon note that it speaks bad French.

It has never been to France.

It bought cheap steroids in Bali.

It would like to contain the word 'roseate', but can't.

It read itself out loud just last week and was well received.

It just watched the film The Brain from Planet Arous.

It keeps reciting 'After I'm gone, your earth will be free to live out its miserable span of existence, as one of my satellites, and that's how it's going to be...'

It can't translate that into French.

This is a poem, not a listicle.

PS Cottier

A poem dating back to 2015, published here once before, which shows that I was watching too many old science fiction films! I will be posting newer, even new, work here again soon.

But first I have a launch of the book V8 (written by Sandra Renew and one PS Cottier) at Smiths, Alinga Street Civic on Monday 13th, 7pm. Sarah St Vincent Welch will launch the book, and there will also be an open mic before readings from the book. In case you’re wondering, V8 is about cars and other vehicles, and is a poetry collection published by Ginninderra Press.

Passing beauty: poem

January 10, 2023

Passing beauty

It's moving, just ahead
of the player's most clever feet.
Every four years, we fill a cup,
then pour it out, a month of dreams.
Was it just last week that Bergkamp
flicked with orange elegance,
side-footing space and time?
No, he is long gone now, 
off fielding fifty years.
Others follow.  Messy time
melts beauty, remoulds it, 
casts it always anew.
It never ages, constantly fired,
as we fade, we watchers,
yesterday's players, passing.
Twenty sips at the cup
will fill a lifetime;
held safe in keeper's hands.

PS Cottier


This football poem was first published in Eureka Street, and then in broadsheet (New Zealand), no 13, Special World Cup football issue, 2014.  Finally (before today!) in Boots, a new edition of Mark Pirie’s 2014 football poetry anthology, 2017.
I refuse to look up how old the Dutch player Bergkamp is now!

I am not the only one still suffering minor withdrawal symptoms after the end of the World Cup.  Great to see Argentina win, and the pun on the word 'messy' in my poem is deliberate.

I am very much looking forward to the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this year.  

Image Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Poem: Befitting

December 4, 2022

                                                                              
Twice as long as my palms,
my new loves sparkle,
shine, make no demands.
I do not intend to attract
anyone with them. 
They are certainly not
flashy signals or invitations.
I stroke the glassy sides,
kiss where a tongue would sit —
but neither has a tongue.
They glide onto my eager feet
just when I want, and if I dance,
I dance for myself, admiring
the play of sun on cupping glass.
My feet framed with transparency,
I skip, slide, saunter and spin
on the open, prince-less green —
slippers fitting just so.

PS Cottier

And I do note the overwhelming wee-ness of the slippers in that illustration! (Aubrey Beardsley)

Poem: Eggshell garden

November 10, 2022

Half an egg, hidden in a drawer,
a tiny half-skull among the socks.
She gathers dirt, careful not to leave
a tell-tale trail, fills her tiny cup,
waits until dandelions are blown
into wishes, wraps a seed in tissue.
She puts her garden on the windowsill,
a promise behind the curtains,
which are printed with pink roses
and stringy effusions of lavender.
Sprouting towards the light,
a tiny green finger pokes into being,
and the eventual flower is more
dandekitten than anything fierce. 
It purrs in her mind, her flower
wattle-like yellow, punctuating
her bedroom with a freedom of glee.

PS Cottier

Somewhere there’s a photo of me as a child holding a plant which is growing inside an eggshell. That memory inspired this poem.