Tuesday Poem - Air Variations in C & D by Jennifer Harrison

Air Variations in C & D

This is the cart my father did not drag behind his life

This is the cartel: the headless girl in Mexico

This is the carton of cigarettes sodden from Toowoomba flood

This is the cartridge in the chamber of my father's rabbit gun

This is a caravel, a poem

What is its lost oar? An empty marriage?

This is cash, a delicacy

And this is the delegate smoking a cheroot

This is the delay between loss and déjà vu

A delectation of swans, deliberating

This is drama and deceit

The same sink with different dishes

This is a backpack of dynamite, trees at night

This is Dominique Strauss-Kahn's defense

Cardamom for rice, rose-water in the desert

This is the moon on my dead dog's collar

What is definite? A claw? A door?

This poem is taken from the extremely interesting book called Notes for the
Translators collected and edited by Christopher (Kit) Kelen at Cerberus Press
– Flying Island Books. I have rarely found a book so fascinating.
142 Antipodean poets take time to explicate, elucidate (sometimes obfuscate)
the meaning and intent of the poem for a possible translator.
Jennifer's explication begins – This poem is inspired by the alphabet.

http://flyingislands.org/books/

Jennifer Harrison is a notable Australian poet who lives in Melbourne. Her most
recent book is Colombine, New And Selected Poems put out recently by Black
Pepper Press.

http://blackpepperpublishing.com/harrisoncnas.html