We are all working our way up, towards the birds
We are all working our way up, towards the birds.
Outliers like Icarus, 70s pterodactyl hanggliders,
twitchers and breeders of weird coloured parrots:
they have all felt the urge and responded
to the best of their beakless capacities.
But they are not the neo-orno avant-garde.
The egg must come first, before the flight —
putting aside philosophy, that is just true.
So who is nature’s true Anna Wintour?
Where is the next Paris to be found?
The catwalk of the world is spiked by echidna.
Platypus pouts there too. (That is hard with a bill.)
These two are the fashion-forward models,
who will soon sprout wings and launch and fly;
it is happening now, as I type and you read.
Placenta will be ditched, like yesterday’s rags.
Next year, unaided flight will be de rigueur,
and song will erupt, without instruments,
deep from the gape of seven billion throats.
We are all working our way up, towards the birds.
P.S. Cottier
This poem was recently highly commended in the Interstellar Award for Speculative Poetry. Fellow Tuesday Poet (and lovely person/editor) Tim Jones was placed second with a poem that blends the speculative and the political, and Kevin Gillam (who may be lovely, for all I know, but who lives in Western Australia, which is much further away than New Zealand, at least psychologically) was awarded first place with a fascinating work that demands several readings. (A little like that monstrous sub-clausey sentence, but much much better.) You can read their poems and the detailed judge’s report here. This was the second thing I was highly commended/shortlisted/close-but-no-cigared for in the last fortnight! I won’t bore on about the other one though, as I don’t want to publish that poetry here just yet.
If you like humorous, short poetry, I promise that some will be read at Manning Clark House on 24th June at 7.30pm. I hear there will also be some quite angry stuff, and, of course, some speculative poetry. That’s by me; I have no idea if Mark Tredinnick writes any of that sort of thing. (He is the other reader.)
Come along to 11 Tasmania Circle and find out. Also; wine.
Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
Tuesday poem: Carrying an injury
June 8, 2015
This is a link to a poem I just had published at Verity La, called ‘Carrying an Injury’. I an settling down for a few weeks watching the World Cup in Canada, so it seems appropriate, although the players in the poem are male. And this is an image of a far less pretty sport than that being played in Canada:
Last week I bought the latest Stephen King novel, Finders Keepers, and read it in the usual feast, all in one sitting. Each new book by Mr King leaves me actually trembling until I hold it, and obsessional until I have finished it. It’s a weird sort of bliss!
I can’t stand the idea that eventually, there will be no more new novels by Stephen King; his Carrie and Cujo and Pennywise will haunt his study like Dickens’s characters, looking for their creator.
Hopefully not for another thirty years! (Though I suppose that might be up to the writer himself…But can anyone believe that Stephen King would voluntarily stop writing?)
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Wednesday 24th June, I am reading poems old and new at Manning Clark House in Canberra at 7.30pm. I think that Mark Tredinnick will be the other reader. More on that later.
Tuesday poem: ‘P’
June 1, 2015
‘P’
Pregnant with puppies
your long stroke body and
fat little tum, poking out like
a bad boy’s tongue, reversed
(b = p topsied, topsided, pissed).
All the green puns that woke
the princess; those pesky vegies
that pulled her out of zeds
nicking peace, hatching doubts —
… elliptical peas …
P.S. Cottier
Now that Little Poem started as an ekphrastic response to an alphabet that was displayed at the Canberra Museum and Gallery…Different letters by different artists…Sarah Rice facilitated the workshop, I recall…But I can’t remember which artist did the P, so to speak. The poem is no longer as ekphrastic as it used to be…I love ellipses too much, obviously…
If you want puns (and who doesn’t?) there may be some written by other Tuesday Poets. I know not… Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
What’s the betting that the poodle above is called Prince or Princess? If I ever adopt a poodle from a shelter, I will call it Chopper.
Tuesday poem: Gone in five seconds
May 25, 2015
Gone in five seconds
And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
Luke 24:11 KJV
So all that spiteful back story erased
by my birth to a woman,
and my walking with women,
and my resurrection revealed to women
and it takes about five seconds
for the old dispensation to reassert itself.
Idle tales; how they will rewrite things
and take the story into their dumb hands
and make idols of themselves
and never learn to listen
and pray, noisily, to a one-eyed God.
P.S. Cottier
So that poem is a bit of a whinge written as if in Christ’s voice. Who saw the resurrected Jesus first varies between the gospels; but it is always a woman or women. And the men don’t trust her or their report. Classic!
Of course, some notable Christian churches still don’t allow women to be priests.* You can’t get rid of poverty unless you see women as fully human, including spiritually. Just sayin’.
And of course, Jesus would have voted yes in Ireland, for all couples to be able to be married, despite the religious conservatives who align themselves, theoretically, with Christianity. Well done you Irish! Love is love.
Now I don’t know if any other Tuesday poets have written on religious themes this week, or feminist ones, or on sexuality or justice. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here. I intend to have a look presently!
*Bizarrely, that includes the Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church, as well as the Catholic Church. Radically freaky stuff!
Tuesday poem: Which hands? Also, a reading.
May 18, 2015
Which hands sewed these hands?
The girl’s flapping exclamations,
two arched pink dolphins beached
framing that Tim Burton waif face.
Blank panic screams to eloquent air.
Thin spaghetti legs show bruises —
a manic teacher worked her too hard
at the barre of a ballet sweat shop.
Her hair a nest of vermicelli.
Blue eyes stare past sense —
blue eyes gape despair.
P.S. Cottier
This is why I sometimes love online shopping almost as much as op shops. In this case I bought these two puppets from the Salvation Army’s online store, combining two favourite shopping destinations. (Well Anglicare’s op shop in Queanbeyan is my favourite; you get a nicer class of second hand stuff, in general…)
The above is really notes towards a longer poem. I have yet to tackle the other puppet, complete with his magic cape of jewels.
I may use these puppets in a future reading. You have been warned.
UPDATE: A forgotten hat arrived in the mail with an apology from the Salvo’s store today. This puppet just keeps getting better.
***
Last Friday I was lucky enough to attend a reading by Stuart Cooke and Michael Farrell at Manning Clark House in Canberra. (Stuart is on the left of this photo.)
I have been reading Michael’s poetry and was delighted to hear him read his allusive and intellectually tantalising works in person. It was a small but enthusiastic audience.
The poets read a couple of poems in turn rather than dividing the time into two discrete blocks. I was particularly happy to hear ‘A lyrebird’, previously featured as a Tuesday Poem (posted by Jennifer Compton, with her comments) here. Stuart’s poem about Durras sticks in my mind: I was driving there the next day, escaping the desperate need for beanies and coats and bus stop conversations about how ‘chilly’ it’s getting, for a single warmish day. Minus 4 is not ‘chilly’, peeps. It’s appalling.
I found myself searching ‘ug boots’ on eBay the other day, which is slightly tragic. Particularly for sheep. That direct segue between fleece and foot enacted in a boot…where does puppet end and clothing begin?
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PS Cottier 