Tuesday poem: Pod, cast
April 29, 2014
Pod, cast
Cradled in my pod, my body shut up like a bedside book, with a bookmark of drugs inserted to continue me some day, I had a nightmare. It was an old fear for the fourth millennium, that of being buried alive. And it came to whisper panic in my ear; you are forgotten. They have entombed you in speed. No-one will be there, at journey’s end, to dig you out, little podded pea. Fool, to accept this alien life, to dream in airless space, a ghost not dead, a man suspended beyond hope. Hanging in time, rope of frayed expectations slipped around your neck, tightening. And still you fly stupefied, dumb, trusting those not yet born to release you. Listen to your heart beat the retreat, a jerking jazz rhythm of fear.
The living dead, that shady cast of zombie, of vampire, flickered like ancient film shadows through my mind, a hazy cloud of horror where no cloud ever forms, out here between one star and the next. Feeble belief of resurrection somewhere, beyond the years.
Sleep left me. Gulping, choking, drowning in doubt, my eyes scanned the dark inside of the pod, looking for escape, for any feature to tell me that I was, in fact, awake. That I was, in fact, alive. But the pod was like a closed eye, and I was trapped inside its blindness. How could I know? Was this lulling pod a grave? I fought to feel the walls of the capsule, read their enclosing story in Braille, but my arms were pinioned, would not shift. I was wrapped in spider’s silk, a stupefied unbreakable embrace. My disquiet lead me further inside myself, with no twine of reason to bring me out. Knotted in a strait-jacket, tangled in progress, I sped on into darkness.
Machines detected, read the chemicals, adjusted. Put me back to sleep, rocked a thousand years. But now I dream only of death, and the heavy years and the speed of light smother me. I staked my life on stability, that there will be no upheaval in which I will be swept away, an insect unmourned, amongst the crumbs of swarming stars. I am the unborn, dreaming in the womb, this metal womb, quickening towards my second birth, but bracketed in iron ifs and buts. Icarus with untried wings of steel. Hiatus, hubris and hell here, inside me, inside the pod, cast away.
P.S. Cottier
I wrote that piece of prose/prose poem for a competition in the United States way back in 2008. I was lucky enough to win, and actually went to the convention which had organised the competition in Wisconsin. (The Odyssey Convention.) This was a turning point in my writing, and although I had been exploring the speculative in my work, it certainly helped to strengthen that element.
Since then, ‘Pod, cast’ was republished in the Indigo Book of Australian Prose Poems, edited by Michael Byrne.
Currently, I have a poem up at Eye to the Telescope, the online journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association based in the United States. This one is edited by Robert Dutcher, and is one the interesting topic of ‘mundane’ science fiction, that is, the idea that we are basically stuck in our solar system with no aliens and no journeys to other galaxies, as undertaken by a million travellers in a million science fiction novels and films. And by my nameless traveller in the prose poem above.
Speaking of speculative poetry, here are the launch details for The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, which I have been editing with Tim Jones for several light years:
Melbourne, 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Friday 6th June, Collected Works Bookshop, 1/37 Swanston St, Melbourne. To be launched by renowned poet Philip Salom. This is to be a joint launch with Gemma White’s new collection, which is also being published by IP.
Canberra 6.30 for a 7pm start on Thursday 12th June at Manning Clark House, 11 Tasmania Circle, Forrest, ACT 2603. To be launched by the multi-award winning novelist Kaaron Warren.
There has been a wonderful response from poets to our request that they read poems from the anthology at the launches. I am looking forward to the two launches so much. Anyone reading this is most welcome to attend.
I’ll post the proper invitations here, and of course, sent them out (by email) to lotsa persons.
Click this feather for further poesie:
My last post!
September 26, 2013
No, not on this blog, dear reader. Still those sobs.
http://www.australianpoetry.org/2013/09/25/pucks-girdle-or-the-web-and-poetry/
If you dare, click that link and read my final post for Australian Poetry on the Wonders of the Web or How I Learnt to Love the Difference Engine.
This blog tends towards the short and sarcastic, so it was fun to be able to write some long pieces elsewhere.
Australian Poetry’s inaugural on-line Poet in Residence
September 5, 2013
I will be writing about poetry at the Australian Poetry site over the next month, as their on-line Poet in Residence. Inaugural Poet in Residence, which makes it sound slightly Presidential.
http://www.australianpoetry.org/2013/09/04/introducing-p-s-cottier/ If you feel like it, press that link which will take you to the site. This first piece is just a general introduction to me.
You can see what a keen mind Australia Poetry has on its hands for a month…Gloved in synapses, they will be.
I’ll be talking about reading only poetry next week, and how I have gone nine months untainted by prose. Should be fun!
Tuesday prose about poetry
September 3, 2013
I just had to write about last Friday, which saw a flurry of poetic activity at The Front, a café/bar/gallery/performance space in Lyneham. The regular poetry slam held there, organised by Josh (JC) Inman and Varisht Gosain also saw the launch of the fourth edition of Canberra journal Burley. Patrick Mullins and Cara Foster edit that journal, although I understand that the editorial team is being enlarged for the next issue. Lots of wonderful poets performed in the slam, which was expertly judged…(Why, yes, I helped with that. Chris was the winner.)
But most interestingly for this little rhymester, there were two guest poets: Jackson from Western Australia, who radiates energy and plays the guitar, and Jennifer Compton. Fellow Tuesday Poet JC. Here we are before the slam started, and you can see Burley-related activity going on in the gallery space behind us:
Berets aplenty!
(Thank you to the pretty young man who took the photo! If you have a name, I have forgotten it, unfortunately.) It is the first time I have met Jennifer, who has been performing right down the east coast; notably at the Queensland Poetry Festival. She was tired, but her poetry was far from tiring: she does a very nice job in wicked and quietly disturbing.
This was a night that showed all that is good about Canberra; even the weather is pulling itself up by its bootstraps. I am, however, referring to the energy of the poetry, in both written and spoken form. All happening within a very short walking distance of my house.
Wonderful stuff, with a real mix of types of poetry and ages of poets. Sometimes I really love Canberra. Not the politicians’ Canberra, but the place where people live.
Click this feather and go to New Zealand for good poets who published actual poetry today:
Thursday prose: The dark side of the desk
August 8, 2013
The Edited Becomes the Editor: On moving to the dark side of the desk
See that link, dear reader? Follow it and you will glean valuable insight into the process of editing. You will read horror stories about Bad Editors! You will meet knights, zombies, ghosts and Me. Tim Jones appears as a back story, too.
Have fun!
PS Cottier 