Tuesday poem: Innumerate
June 3, 2013
Innumerate
Adding up was one thing, boring as thick porridge,
each sum a trial rather than a triumph, but I could
do it, just, stir that numbered pot, when teacher-cook
required us to follow her bland, lumpy recipe.
Once spicy symbols joined the foul stew, however,
I was forever lost. Mathematics was a language
alien to my brain, slipping off unformed synapses
like bald car tyres on slick roads. I crashed out.
I comforted myself with the appearance
of her pimpled acolytes; thick glasses flashing
as they squealed their joy at piggy feasts of number.
I was vegetarian amongst eaters of formulaic flesh.
I still am. My brain is one-sided, and it walks like a sailor
who has lost his wooden leg, but can’t read the compass
to save his limp, to save his salty soul. But so what?
My mathy albatross still stinks — and I’ve sailed different seas.
P.S. Cottier
This poem appeared recently in The Canberra Times. Unfortunately, the first word was inadvertently removed, which made the whole poem a little difficult to understand. I thought I’d post it here in its uncropped form.
For more poetry, press this feather, and read the work of other Tuesday Poets:
Tuesday poem: Just may be
May 27, 2013
Just may be
Just may be, out there, there’s another place
where mammals are the exception,
and green marsupials lie on towels
and listen to the orange surf,
as the unspeakable snags roast on the fire
and idly glance up to the unraked sky
where the stars like sand tell rumours
of the other, possible places that we call here.
P.S. Cottier
A slightly more subtle approach might be appreciated
Yes, it’s speculative, and I am Australian, and therefore my little poem could be considered for The Stars Like Sand, an anthology of Australian speculative poetry, submissions to which close on 4th June*. Here, one more time, is the link to the full submission guidelines. I am arguably a little odd in putting up another reminder, as we have already received a large number of poems. But Tim Jones and myself, as editors, are the very embodiments of the desire for greater and greater amounts of work. We would like to have even a fuller swag into which we can reach, rummage, and draw out the ingredients for intensely difficult decisions. Send in your poems, Australian poets.
Our historical research is turning up wonderful poems, too, which makes things even more delightfully difficult.
*Note that poems need not contain roos or barbeques to qualify. This one just happens to contain these glorious elements.
Now, to escape this rampant Australianity, click this feather, and be transported to New Zealand (and to other places), for more poetry:
Tuesday poem: Skywhale haiku
May 13, 2013
Cetaceous floater
chewing soft cud of sky krill
blubbered cumulus
P.S. Cottier
The best thing to happen during Canberra’s Centenary Celebrations (there are a lot of capitals around at the moment in the nations’s capital) took to the air outside the National Gallery on Saturday.
Skywhale, a balloon sculpture designed by Patricia Piccinini, is not exactly your typical whale. She has a bit of the turtle about her, and wings made of breasts. Is she an angel? I don’t know, but her presence is peaceful and wonderful; confusing those who like straight lines and easy classifications.
The money, some people are shouting! The outrageousness of producing a whale that isn’t even a proper whale for the centenary of an inland city! The threat to mental law and order! Read some of the comments here on RiotACT, where the haiku was posted by me as a comment. I didn’t want to argue the case, as Skywhale seemed so strangely perfect in her ambiguity. A poem seemed more appropriate.
There should be more of this sort of perplexing beauty, confounding those who think that art should be confined to easily recognisable portraits and lovely landscapes punctuated with useful sheep:
Moustaches and merinos
made Australia what she is today.
No fleecy clouds of maybe here!
No blubbering queens of perhaps,
with flowing boas of breast to tease
certainty into mere sniffle;
our capital’s castaway.
P.S. Cottier
Through all the controversy, Skywhale maintains her dignity, moving gently through the sky with her wings of breasts, a kindly and whimsical presence, powered by hot air but quite serene. Skywhale is certainly the Queen of the Centenary. She will soon be touring the country, looking down on her subjects with that benign and somewhat Mona Lisa smile.
Mona Lisa with barnacles
Long may she swish through the skies, delighting those who prefer their art to have a little whimsy, and to pose a few questions, at the same time that it delights and sets us free.
Click this feather for further poetry:
Tuesday poem: ‘Colonials’
May 6, 2013
Colonials
Angels dancing on pins are nothing to us.
Those celestials number thousands,
harpies with harps, slippery butterflies.
Bring the formeldehyde, I say,
and still their antic twists.
We live in millions, simple stars,
galaxies that give no light.
A bone slung hammock,
a fleshy divan,
your body transports us
as we rock, divide, and redivide.
Under the curved
frowns of your fingernails,
on the flaky deserts of your head,
we plant our sprawling flag.
Any crevice is our castle, your mouth
a plunge-pool for our disport.
Arise, Sir Realm, Lady Habitat.
King Bacillus is well pleased.
P.S. Cottier
Really, these little things rule the world; a successful form that’s been around a lot longer than we have, and which may outlast us.
Sucked in, hm?
Now, press this feather to read more, possibly less infectious, poetry:
Tuesday poem: Budgerigar
April 9, 2013
Budgerigar
Ten million green commas punctuate blue sky,
quick breaths of swooping wonder, multiplied.
Water-hole is your target; liquid rope pulls you
and the whole emerald sky is diving,
as miniature bodies scoop down to pool.
Your individual markings have taken you
further than native flight; outside the Louvre
I saw you, cold, trying to break in, as pointillist
as Pissarro, but so acrylic in your finish.
Proud but damp escapee from French balcony,
regretting the lost seed and the found liberty.
Plump and fresh, I have heard you were good eating,
a winging fast food charred to a turn;
as far from stringy battery chook as fingers in the fire.
Most know you singly: whistling in cages,
bowing and bobbing, rattling plastic mirrors.
Driven mad you ring and ring chink-chinky bells
or make love to that hard, hard-to-get reflection.
What joy to see you
just once, as you swoop,
one stitch amongst the tapestry,
a blade of grass in feathered turf carpet,
magically landing,
transforming dreary waterside
with that fallen sward of Eire.
Swift dragon of twenty million wings,
fluorescing with your simple, beak-filled joys.
P.S. Cottier
I wrote this poem quite a while back, but haven’t found the right place for it. Until now! Budgerigars live in huge numbers in inland Australia. Apparently they are our most successful animal export (excluding the woolly things). They are, I assume, no longer exported, but their proclivity for breeding makes them the world’s most popular cage bird. I’m sure they’d rather be back in the wild, if birds were capable of such choices.
For further poetry, click this feather, which is most definitely not that of a budgie:
PS Cottier 