Belated Tuesday poem: (haiku)
June 24, 2015
The scant electric tree
sheds a furred question —
let the answer comfort
dead possum
Poor little guy found under power poles on the way back from my usual café. I think he* was electrocuted, rather than hit by a car, as there is no sign of injury. Some people in Australia hate possums, but I admire them for their ability to live amongst us, running over roofs and reminding us that we aren’t totally divorced from nature.
Off to do a reading soon of nearly all new material. God but I’m prolific! Prolific as a healthy possum with access to unlimited fruit. Which is, I hope, what a possum sees after death.
Other Tuesday poets are more punctual. Read them here.
*I can’t see a pouch, so I assume he.
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: 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?
Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
Tuesday Poem: This is a poem, not a listicle
April 26, 2015
This is a poem, not a listicle.
1. It tastes like leather. Hold the stick tight.
2. If you listen you will soon note that it speaks bad French.
3. It has never been to France, except in fairly standard dreams.
4. It bought cheap steroids in Bali, but is yet to bulge.
5. It would like to contain the word ‘roseate’, but can’t.
6. It read itself out loud just last week and was well received.
7. It just watched the film The Brain from Planet Arous.
8. It keeps reciting ‘After I’m gone, your earth will be free to live out its miserable span of existence, as one of my satellites, and that’s how it’s going to be…’
9. It can’t translate that into French, even French of the worst sort.
10. This is a poem, not a listicle.
P.S. Cottier
Yes, this poet (and not just that poem) just watched The Brain from Planet Arous, in which a nasty alien brain inhabits the cranium of a scientist, and a nicer alien brain inhabits the head of the scientist’s girlfriend’s dog.
No alien brain here
Only to be watched when drunk. There are seemingly endless scenes of people tiptoeing through caves, and the woman who owns the dog never stops serving the men food. The direct speech in the poem is made by the nasty brain, who does do a mad scientist chuckle quite frequently.
I am interested in how flat the language in a poem can be before it ceases to be a poem. Also, the word listicle caught my imagination. So like popsicle, but often so disappointingly flat AND chunky.
Other poets may be playing with form, if not risking brain damage by watching dreadful 50s science fiction films. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
Tuesday poem: The ineffable boredom of Polonius
March 30, 2015
The ineffable boredom of Polonius
Hamlet had a go; stabbing him behind the arras,
which does not mean what you may think it means
if you didn’t do Shakespeare in your degree.
But he never dies, this Polonius. He pops up as
Scoutmaster, Deputy Principal, minor MP, Mayor,
spouting cliché through his immortal mouth;
To your own self be true
he tells graduating students, some of whom
have read of him being stabbed behind the arras
and have suffered quite enough already thank you.
Youth are the future of Australia, he adds,
and I’m sure there are American and Indian and
Kyrgyzstani Poloniuses, for he has bred, you know,
splitting in two in each grave; coming up each morn
at fifty-five years. They go on cruises, Polonii,
and spend their ineffable boredom in other places
dripping like middle-aged piss for
Travel broadens the mind
which, in this case, it clearly doesn’t.
Never put off until tomorrow, he exhorts.
I feel that there must be a way to kill off his breed.
And I will work and work to find a way to eliminate
every smear of Polonius from discourse public or private.
Make hay while the sun shines,
and I am forming daggers from papier-mâché
made from the most tedious editorials still written,
in real print newspapers
crapping on about the
sacrifice of previous generations
and the inevitable
need for fiscal constraint
and I will sneak up on him, like Hamlet, but less hosey,
and force a cliché dagger down his moth-eaten throat,
though I fear he will just regurgitate the dagger,
waste not want not
he will say or
Violence is the last resort of the unintelligent and never a solution
and it is, Polonius, oh yes it is,
and may you choke on your sayings
and die, smearing the arras, wall, or whatever
in horrible, tedious wisdom, like the worlds greyest
graffiti, little vombits of save and safe and think and
look before you leap
and it will be too late, and nobody, no nobody will weep
for the death of the boring uncle, with his inexplicable fetish
for hiding behind arrases, which is the only interesting thing
that the mouldy old sententious prick ever did.
And may flights of silverfish sing him to his rest.
P.S. Cottier
Now this is not a Very Nice Poem at all, but sometimes it’s nice to have a bit of a rave.
Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here. That includes New Zealand, where they are quite good at cricket.
PS Cottier 