Poem: Eggshell garden
November 10, 2022
Half an egg, hidden in a drawer, a tiny half-skull among the socks. She gathers dirt, careful not to leave a tell-tale trail, fills her tiny cup, waits until dandelions are blown into wishes, wraps a seed in tissue. She puts her garden on the windowsill, a promise behind the curtains, which are printed with pink roses and stringy effusions of lavender. Sprouting towards the light, a tiny green finger pokes into being, and the eventual flower is more dandekitten than anything fierce. It purrs in her mind, her flower wattle-like yellow, punctuating her bedroom with a freedom of glee. PS Cottier
Somewhere there’s a photo of me as a child holding a plant which is growing inside an eggshell. That memory inspired this poem.
Tuesday poem: The night I grew wings
April 12, 2022
I woke from uneasy sleep, as feathers tickled my suddenly sneezy nose. That has not stopped, and I need to bless myself twelve times a day. I carry tissues tucked between the feathers. If you are hit by sodden snow, it is probably a cloud-like tissue, slipping from inexpert wings. I would call the wings adequate, though, as I do not miss the morning commute. Please do not mistake me for an angel. I often swear, up here amongst the fluff, and my fingers pluck no cunning harp. Mittens cradle my blue-cold hands, and a beanie holds my head like an egg. Why this happened to me, I can't really say. Who has not dreamt of flight? Yet so few wake to feather doonas sprouting from shoulders like quotation marks. 'Anything becomes usual, given you have enough time to get used to it,' as I said to the press. I ride updrafts, and predict the patterns of sneeze. It is quietly wonderful, to share a life with pigeons, and to perch, a woolly gargoyle, for a quick cup of tea. PS Cottier
A fun poem, more than the illustration by Hans Tegner, which is excellent but a bit grim. And everyone should recognise the origin of that first phrase!
Tuesday poem: The backcomber
October 16, 2017
The backcomber
Her hair is coiffured once a month.
Though she goes to bed unkempt,
glamour descends like a dream.
A scissored were-poodle inflicts revenge
for ridiculous, hedgy trims,
those uncouth bubbles of fur he wore,
imposed without his will.
She awakes to a memory of spray
and a beehive, tall as any tower.
Next month’s moon may well mean quiff.
Next month’s moon may just mean mullet.
PS Cottier
If I didn’t think that my next dog must be a rescue dog, I’d be buying a poodle. One of the large ones. But I don’t think I’d clip it into weird shapes like a hedge. One of the more intelligent dogs has to put up with a lot; do they envy the border collie?
One another note, I have a kind of short story, of a vaguely horrible sort, published at AntipodeanSF, called The Blood Parrot. Enjoy!
Tuesday poem: Not the full Fiat
July 24, 2017
Not the full Fiat
Pushing up, lying back,
I imagine a Fiat 500
clamped to the end of my toes,
flying into space.
500cc, 500 kilos,
give or take,
that darling wee Italian.
I am at 450kg, so not
the full Fiat, not yet,
but it’s like birthing a bambina.
Or bambino, for weight
doesn’t discriminate.
My knees swell like tyres.
PS Cottier
Yes, possibly the boastiest poem ever. I am managing, sometimes, to load 400kg on the leg press and to push it up and back, even if not far enough down to be beautiful. (The machine itself weighs about 50kgs, without added plates.)
The statement ‘weight doesn’t discriminate’ is a bit iffy, as obviously, most men can move more weight at the gym. Upper body particularly. But the leg press is a bit of an equaliser, I think. Or could be, as I have to say that most women are less likely to push themselves to the point of vomiting than the current writer, who is just discovering strength at a comparatively advanced age.
I have no idea if this particular 500 is 500 kilos or not, but it looks great, and allows me to include the word Spotto! Which has to be a good thing.
(Image by TTTNIS Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)
Tuesday poem: Notes towards ‘Feral’
March 14, 2017
Feral
Feral is the weed that walks hops or swims
that we seeded here first of all.
Like weapons in Afghanistan to fight Russians,
they shoot back against the giver, given time.
The irony in the soil, the punch-line
that keeps moving.
They are the spoonful of toad that never
helped the sugar.
The feral is the new devil;
we burn them, use their live bodies for cricket,
run them over.
They are our scapegoats, scapetoads, scapecarp,
whipping boys for our royal, stupid selves.
Varmint, pest, pets gone wild, rejigged —
dancing to their own tune.
PS Cottier
Continuing thoughts about what is a weed from my last post, this week I touch on feral pests, with which Australia is now teeming, after 200 years of colonisation/invasion.
Cane toads are probably amongst the most famous, although even cats multiply like mice (ew!) here, and feed on parrots and lizards and all the tiny marsupials that most Australians in cities have never seen.
I am working on a sequence based on this; though trying to organise my thoughts is like teaching cane toads manners. (And that’s not a cane toad above, but it is a cool illustration, courtesy of the wonderful resource Old Book Illustrations.) The guy peeping at the main figure is 100% Gandalf, and I’m sure he has Powers over toads.
Either that or he uses them for their interesting secretions.
PS Cottier 