The Collective Corner

That time of year again? Why yes, yes it is. <33

1. April, 2012

Learning by Rote

I found the trail you left on my side,
stripped bare and waiting for the go.

These two tongues signing inside my skin,
this the deeper well of bone. I woke to sounds,
how the throat vibrates with too few breaths,
and sank into the morning.

Exploring the line of sighs from throat
to eye, mouthing the cause out loud.

We keep sight, one on the other,
and leave our dishes in the sink for tomorrow,
a half-spoon of sugar congealing in the cup;
tea still warm on the edge.

Against my lips, two hands
becoming alone with you.

2. April, 2012

I have begun forgetting and not yet 25,
how to go on living?
One shoe, still warm, lying beneath the rail
of a bridge we often drove over.
I had a fear of water, of diving in so deep
that it was black from my iris to my lid.
Shoe turned to one side, toe to heel
an orange stripe glinting at midday.
‘Takes guts.’ A record playing over a piano,
the static cling of his shirt on my shoulder.
The feeling of heat sinking.

3. April, 2012


The Desire to Publish;
also known as Loss.

I do not have the words for a poet.
We scoop the mass of language
into our hands and type to the motion
of our thoughts. I still find pieces
lying between sheets of rice paper,
pressed and dry, waiting to be displayed.
Or one might say I am not a poet,
and should have no claim otherwise.

4. April, 2012

Abecedarian

Amid the suggestion that we are coming
broken from the war, the pain, we are
crying as children still learning how to breathe.
Derelict buildings fall in our wake, the sullen
effigy of Us. Or the Other.
Forgetting which we are, the foreign or the native
gathering strength on the home front.
How many must have died, making this home?
I struggle now to see our loss and make it right,
Justice has so many masters, and we abuse her also,
keeping quiet on the western front as though we belong.
Loss is infinite when one is young and prepared,
marshalling the heart ache and moving forward,
never so bold or beautiful as time would ask.
Or
Pushing together our riotous causes,
quelling the surging tides. We are fighting anew,
renegade eyes and ears.
Soldiers tipping hats to their mates,
too many sides to the one coin and we wait.
Unless this war ends, unless we are beaten, unless what?
Victory.
We thicken our skins and roll backward through our histories,
xenophobia our defining trait – or theirs.
Young and begging, dragging ourselves together to this,
zenith.

(Don't hate me for how bad that is)

The first has some beautiful images and the rhythm is so soft yet haunting. I love that half rhyme with go and bone. The only thing I would suggest is cutting the last two lines. The image before that is so strong and resonant that it can only feel like a down step from there.

Two is nice but not your best.

Three could use some tightening up but as I already told you, I love the form and I love that you've made it work and made it seem natural <3

5. April, 2012

Driving Home

Midnight is lighter than two,
the cold streetlight stripping
paperbark trees from the space surrounding.
It is easier to speed now
when the lights are on and no one is home.

- Ohgod just got in on this one. Serzly.

6. April, 2012

Saying Goodbye

I just wanted to say.

I made your marker a gravestone,
heady and carved deep,
and dropped the papers down the well.

I thought we'd get along better now,
the thick ridge of brick meeting brick
catching the flight on the way.

And these are the things we remember
when the well goes dry, tapping the walls
to hear the echo of our words.

I said -
there are so many things I said and didn't.
Goodbye.

~ Cancelled indefinitely.

These are all a product of tonight's NaPo workshop. It was amazing.

#7

Summer Speaks

The blue beauty of the sky stretches
in small, breakable dams,
the cluster clouds smoothing their hands
along the sun-streak sights.

Where the echo of serpents
meets the deep red earth
lay the creeks melding into rivers
into waterfalls into meadows.

Colourless eyes single out
the cool green waters by the bank,
goannas soaking up the heat,
bellies slinking on shallow rocks.

#8
All I know, I learnt from Zorro

I was always ugly but never mean,
when I dove under the bathwater - five - I saw a sea.
I was playing sandbox and there were bones,
waves of blue sweep up the sand;
ghoulish monsters’ bones clanked lazily next to my ears,
grappling at my skull, where my eyes were twinkling,
masked mirrors that echoed these cat’s bones.
And there, Zorro always takes the top -
If you got in a fight with a bar of soap; you’d lose,
I’ll clean your rubber ducky, honey
but this rubber duck leapt into the laundry
escaping from his soapy clutches.
And when I took a breath, there was nothing
left but foam and airy bubbles,
where soft blue waves lie concave
to space; the sea.

[Credit to Cadi, Rydia and Lavvie for one quarter of this each. The Poetree game involves word association, writing lines from wordpairs, choosing favourite lines and rearranging them.]

#9
Pinkerton’s Palace

Soft blue waves lie concave
to the ugly black deep,
those foam bubbles
echo the cat’s bones,
ghoulish monsters
masked in this mirror of light
and space; the sea.


#10
ANZAC

Sweat trickling behind the young man’s ear,
sharp creases in his tan trousers,
he stands to attention in the main street.

My father stood before me, and my grandfather
stood behind, three generations all going
blind.

Bugle begins the procession, ages lining
down the white stripes, dressed to the nines
and medals shining out steps of glory.

I didn’t see my mother when I left,
one grey face among the crowd,
she kissed the air where I stood.

For what we are about to receive,
we thank you.

#11

First Meeting
Co-write Pengi and Heather

I have few words to give today,
they fizzle on my tongue like acid
pops or ricicles, the sudden crackle-snap
of knowing what to say
but not how.
There is a silence captured
between my lips and my teeth
poised in the event of madness
the cold reckoning of sense still settled
in the back of my throat.

#12

A Day in the Life of a Poet
For Sabre

I wrote a poem for a penny
and put it in my pocket,
I’ve got rhymes a plenty,
but they’re waiting for the rocket
what will take me to the moon,
and I’m sure that you’ll understand,
that it can’t be too soon,
I’m just waiting for it to land.
The worst thing I found
was that the money was useless,
I threw it out, lying on the ground,
I guess I will be that seamstress.


#13
Temple to Hindsight
For CaT!

I found a sepulchre waiting
on the edge of a cliff I recognise
from a conversation I think I had,
once. The soft etchings beg understanding.

(Here lies, here lies, here lies.)

This shared grave, tomb to the ancient form,
I see Isis and Athena wrapped around themselves,
what love is here overarches, echoes, mourns.
All things come in threes, bad or good.

(Our children, our parents, ourselves)

I ache to know their existence,
clusters of nerves bunch and spring
in anticipation. I feel I am forever waiting
for this (Closure).


#14
It Was An Accident
For Blue

I maimed a man on the train,
took one look at his ruined eye
and turned, fled for home
through the carriage doors
- No travelling between compartments.
Rules are strict guidelines,
if the nuns couldn’t fix me,
this sign hardly will.
His bloody retina detaching
as we watched, my fist still pulpy
from his cheek bone.
The human body can withstand so much,
I am waiting for the siren,
huddled in the back carriage.
Stowaway, the rattled wheels cry,
clinking over one more rail,
he had it coming but - stowaway,
so intense and loud and.
And is what comes before,
after. The intermittent sound between -
and.
The next stop rolls forward,
juddering between two stone pillars.
I am off between the rail and grass,
slipping into wilderness like home.