And because it’s nearly 2017…
December 31, 2016
I feel almost forced to reflect, like a cross between Narcissus and the kid in that eye device in Clockwork Orange.
Achievements:
I leg pressed 200kg, which is pretty damned good.
Lots of publications. Lots!
My chapbook Quick Bright Things came out.
I did more live readings this year.
I was highly commended in many a poetry competition, which is winning’s peculiar cousin, sitting in the corner playing endless games on his device.
Not so achievey:
I spent too much time worrying about the news, and letting it affect me.
My budgie won’t talk.
My canaries won’t sing.
Irresolute:
I don’t do resolutions, partly based on the fact that I heard two very fit people at the gym sneering at those they called ‘the resolutionists’, who join in January and are never seen after February.
But I will continue with the poeting, the gym, and letting the budgie teach me budgie. And this blog will continue as long as blogging is a thing, and Tuesdays exist. Back to Tuesdays after the celebrations end.
Happy New Year, and easy on the Rabbie Burns!
Tuesday Poem: Watching the tango
January 9, 2012
Watching the tango
Legs cut the air; fleshy scissors open and close
and notes fall like syncopated snow.
There is heat here, and a buttoned coolness too,
as the bandoneon squeezes breeze into noise.
Chests press, heart reading heart,
but the pulse beats down below.
Balanced on an unseen rope,
coiling and uncoiling silken loops
the couple moves time backwards,
suspending gross disbelief on
such questing, yet assured, feet.
P.S. Cottier
This poem won second prize in the inaugural Australian Tango Poetry Competition held in 2009, and was first published in Tango Australis. And no, I can’t dance, let alone tango. I thought it was an appropriate choice for an early Tuesday poem of 2012, as we’re now nearly a couple of weeks away from New Year’s Eve, when anything seemed momentarily possible, before the hang-over, when you woke up and could no longer speak English, let alone the other language you believed yourself to be fluent in last night. (You sometimes means me, you know.) Tango will always remain a foreign language to my two dumb feet, unable to translate themselves into anything so complex.
I recently heard that I won last year’s tango poetry competition, and I may post that poem here some time as well. Too much tango is barely enough.
For many more poems, go to the Tuesday Poem hub, and enjoy yourself immoderately. (It is on official hiatus, so there’ll be no new poem in the middle of the page, but many people are still posting. Check out the side-bar.)
This poem is included in The Cancellation of Clouds, order details in the first post above.
PS Cottier 