Tuesday poem: Alice looks back
April 15, 2014
Alice looks back
Since furniture regained its proper size
and animals ceased to speak;
since teapots evicted rodents
and the Queen became so very nice
I find myself looking back
more and more and more.
Everything now is normaler and normaler,
and normalcy has its limitations.
I play patience, play it out,
wishing that the cards would rise
and assume that manic thinness,
that monarchy would lose itself
in ordering the loss of heads
for no known reason at all.
But we have assumed the robes,
the tight beige robes of logic.
Mathematics begets statistics,
measuring the mundane.
One day we’ll hear again
of these parallel places,
rabbit holes or worm-holes,
and falls into other worlds.
For now, I corset myself in common-sense,
and stuff memory into quotidian hats.
P.S. Cottier
This poem was first published in Eureka Street, and then in my book The Cancellation of Clouds.
Alice in Wonderland is a perfect book; one that can be dipped into again and again. It makes us all flamingos; turning pink as we sup on its immortal shrimp. And if that’s not the worst metaphor you read today, I will eat my quotidian hat.
This feather was dropped by a rare New Zealand flamingo, known for its total lack of defence, unique accent, and inability to fly. Click it to discover more poetry:
Apparently, poetry is the WordPress theme/prompt/challenge for the week. I wrote this before knowing that, but given poetry is my life-long challenge, I’ll sneak in a link anyway.
Happy birthday Tuesday Poem!
April 1, 2014
Yes, Tuesday Poem is four years old today, and a what a rambunctious lass she is. Born in New Zealand, she simultaneously exists in Paris, Canberra (and lesser parts of Australia), England and even bits of the United States.
Every Tuesday you can read wonderful poetry at the hub site and the members’ sites. Click this feather and go to New Zealand, for a far more comprehensive explanation of the birth of Tuesday Poem, and a poem (nay, four poems) on a food theme, broadly interpreted.
We all contributed a food related sentence, which have all been stewed together, by clever chef Michelle Elvy (TP Hub sub-editor) along with Mary McCallum and Claire Beynon. It’s all rather like this extract from Dickens:
“‘It’s a stew of tripe,’ said the landlord smacking his lips, ‘and cow-heel,’ smacking them again, ‘and bacon,’ smacking them once more, ‘and steak,’ smacking them for the fourth time, ‘and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious gravy.’ Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.”
The Old Curiosity Shop Chapter 18
Regular readers of this blog can probably spot the sentence (or part thereof) contributed by this poet. Think quirk. Think juxtaposition. Think ‘yuck!’.
Enjoy your dinner.
Tuesday Poem: My stalker (via link)
March 3, 2014
Here is a link to a poem by me called ‘My Stalker’, just published on journal Verity La:
http://verityla.com/my-stalker-ps-cottier/
I know this means that you have to click the link, dear reader, but it will take you to a beautifully designed and seductive on-line journal.
Here I am contemplating the passing of time…
Or, if you prefer, click this link, and see what poets in New Zealand have been doing:
Look what I found at the beach…
February 6, 2014
This is a small version of the cover for The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry (Interactive Publications), which should be out in late April. Click for a better look.
Not a bad piece of flotsam. Or is that jetsam? No, they were the cartoon characters who lived in a perfect American future, weren’t they? With nifty jetpacks?
When all this egregious specpo is over, I am going to read a novel of such staunch realism that you wouldn’t read about it. With a plot so heavy it would drown you, if you read it on a lilo floating on a pool.
Unless, of course, it was a hover-lilo. Now there’s the ultimate personal transport device. I sneer at your pathetic jet-packs, American cartoon people.
Tuesday poem: The research scientist discovers snow
December 17, 2013
The research scientist discovers snow
The first time she saw snow
she thought it must be a film,
perhaps that old Christmas flick shown
in forty degree December heat
— that’s celsius, she’d explain
to bemused Americans,
wearing bright badges
of innocent face —
year after turkey-stuffed
mince-pie jammed year,
as they lay on the sweating couch
too whale-like to go to the beach,
full of cold-climate food, rendered
into puddings themselves,
leaking custard from pores.
Somehow the grainy surface
of that dreadful sentimental
drifting narrative had been
projected onto the sky,
and she ran outside to greet it,
overwhelmed and underwearing.
It was another language, this snow,
as weird as a marsupial to old Europe’s
bemoused science. It was harder
than she thought it would be,
not cloud-thrown confetti
settling in pillows, but
much blunter than sand to her splayed feet.
It is not a reversed beach
at all, snow. It is not a soft bunny blanket,
or a white towel to lie on.
She felt it for the first time, this dinted
elemental heaviness, as if water had collided
with steel, a sky highway pile-up,
and felt her heart melt, for the sea throb,
and the sharp sprint to water
when sand cuts like glass, too hot for flesh,
and light spears eyes with shards of clarity.
She was suddenly blue, as she stood in snow,
shivering, clamouring for that biggest island,
crouching, sunning itself, languorous;
the world’s big browning bottom.
Her first white Christmas, and surely,
she swore, nervous bikini clutching
chickening skin, her last.
P.S. Cottier
This one was included in my first collection, The Glass Violin. I didn’t see snow myself until I was quite old, and remember reading about an Australian studying in the United States who gave herself mild hypothermia from running around in the snow without sufficient clothing.
Cool.
I was reminded of this poem by the snow on my blog, the snow in Christmas cards, and generally everywhere. Meanwhile, the Australians are beating the English in Perth in 40 degree celsius heat. The visitors are melting like oddly clumsy snow. It’s a game of ashes and snow.
Thank you to everyone who has read my blog this year, and particularly to those brave souls who have commented.
May peace and love be part of your life in 2014.
From an early age, his abilities in slip were manifest…
I can’t resist the combination of Christmas and cricket…
Click this feather for more poetry:
PS Cottier 