Prose poem: The compleat cake
March 12, 2025
The compleat cake
1. Acland Street, Victoria, 1980s
Licking the windows, the cake-shop windows, with their peppermint swirls of galaxies, their new-born stars of strawberry creme; their slices of half-forgotten history lingering on the mind’s tongue. See that poppy seed twist, curled like a strand of DNA? Is it a memory of a 1960s dance, sister of the hula-hoop, or does the warming bite of the seeds take us back past wars to an older Europe, wrapped snug in coats against a so-long winter coming in? My mouth’s history stretched to pink-jammy-rolls and vanilla slices, sunny and seemingly vacant, or simply stuffed with more white. Here I first tasted a sweet warmed with a spicy aftertaste, and sensed that sadness and joy often walk hand in hand, supporting each other like an elderly couple, out for a weekend stroll. My tram-caught Newfoundland, my Acland Street, where abundance somehow whispered of loss to my thought-shy ears. Past the strawberry tarts, open and brazen, calling for business; past the rum baba that tingled like a taste-bell for the dead; past the endless tales of one thousand and one cakes; I rumbled, ate, and paused.
PS Cottier
This is the first section of a three part prose poem first published in a wee collection called “Selection criteria for death”. This was part of Issue Three of Triptych Poets, published by Blemish Books, who sadly, are no longer in business. The other sections of this poem are 2. Politician’s birthday cake, Florida, 1965 and 3. Royal Easter Show, Sydney 2011. I may post them over the next little while. I think I chose the archaic ‘compleat’ as I’d just seen a copy of The Compleat Angler, by Izaak Walton, but I really can’t remember back thirteen years or so! (That’s when I wrote the poem, which refers back to the 1980s.) Acland Street is in St Kilda, Melbourne, for those who have never visited.
The other poets in the collection were J.C. Inman and Joan Kerr. And once again, the illustration was found in Old Book Illustrations, and is by Leonard Leslie Brooke.
Reviews and sniffer dogs
November 18, 2024
The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin has attracted some thoughtful and positive reviews.
Firstly at Compulsive Reader, where Magdalena Ball wrote the first review of the book. She calls it ‘quirky and strangely haunting’. Secondly, at The Australian. This one is behind a paywall, but the reviewer, Jack Marx, uses phrases like ‘so unusually brilliant’ and states that ‘There is not a bad chapter in The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin, and a delight of some sort – usually many – on every page.’ It’s enough to make an author blush! Seriously.
In other news, a poem I entered in The Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing was commended, which is great. I am working on a short manuscript about dogs, and the poem was about sniffer dogs. You can read the winners here. And here is my poem. And a dog.
Ardent nose
We sniff our way through violence,
the dropped hat or jeans removed,
splatters on grass, the blood-crumbs,
we call them among ourselves.
Some of us disinter computers containing
hidden quests for poisonous feasts.
Here a soupçon of arsenic, there
a sprinkle of fentanyl, adding spice,
designed to remove a troublesome life.
Recipes rarely handed down.
Others detect stashes of drugs,
or cash converted from same,
secreted behind hasty plaster walls.
Our indications cause such a havoc
of mattocks, a stucco snowstorm.
We are taken outside, in case we eat
those attractive disentombed baggies
neatly counted into incriminating piles,
photographed and fussed over.
We’d rather be out after truffles,
chase sticks and toys, roll in dung,
but we sense delight when we unearth
what your dodgy senses cannot catch.
Your poor excuses for olfaction
are unable to detect screams of scent
slapping the face of the air.
My friend, the springer spaniel,
trained from a floppy ball of pup,
all long hair, tongue and wag,
tastes the cadaver air, helps reveal
the buried answer to a search —
for don’t all dogs love bones?
Long before your Poirots or Bosches,
your Holmes after that fog-bound hound,
we sleuths found what you could not find,
found the worst of humankind.
We barked, or sat, and simply waited
for you to finally catch us up.
PS Cottier
Note: The word sleuth derives from slough dog or sleuth-hound, a bloodhound once found in Scotland.
New book published
October 26, 2024
The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin is one of the winning books in the Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Prize. Co-written by NG Hartland and myself, it is a novella. It’s a comedic exploration of identity and politics. The other winning book is Tremor, by Sonya Voumard.
You can read about the book here and buy them if you like. There is an interview at this page with the winning authors. Or come to a launch either in Canberra (Harry Hartog, ANU) or Sydney (Gleebooks). The books are also stocked in a number of independent bookstores.
Tuesday poem: Nothing mechanical
June 13, 2023
Some say they are machines for love but there is nothing mechanical, nothing electronic about that truffle nose pushed into my leg, the translation between species without the need for words. PS Cottier
I think I would like to write a poetry collection entirely about dogs at some time. The poem above is really a kind of note towards a longer poem. I can’t imagine living without a dog, but then I am lucky enough to have a yard, and no hideous landlord making pet ownership difficult.
Tuesday’s Child is Full
October 20, 2022
This is the front cover of my latest book, a collection of poems first published on this very blog. I am particularly delighted with that cover, which relates to one poem inside the book about the Australian White Ibis, or tip turkey.
I have been writing this blog for thirteen years, frequently posting new poems, usually on Tuesdays, hence the book’s name. Thank you to all readers who have followed/commented/read the blog.
The book can be ordered here, from In Case of Emergency Press, which is the best name ever! It is priced at $20 (AUD). Re-reading thirteen years of this blog and selecting the poems was an interesting process, only occasionally bringing on a cringe. Dealing with Howard Firkin, the publisher, was a pleasure.
I will shortly be arranging a launch here in Canberra. Details to follow.
PS Cottier 