Tuesday Poem - 'Angels' by Luke Fischer

Angels

I wonder sometimes whether angels are waitresses

and we spend our lives at a large table in a dim bistro.

A business man recounts the success of a trade-deal

with China while a mother relates how her son broke

his leg in training for the junior Olympics. A football match

unrolls on a corner screen backed by drunken cheers and sighs.

Roses for your lady, a migrant asks a spruce young man,

pleading with his gaze and wafting the perfumed bouquet.

And he scores! We toast with full glasses that shimmer

like dusk on the wine-dark sea and graze on plates of pretzels

that never run out. Have you heard the story about the donkey?

says a man with a bristly beard. Well, once upon a time

there lived a donkey, a very happy donkey. Every morning he went

to his trough and always found plenty of feed … Meanwhile

a mademoiselle lures the tide of her date's feeling

with her shadowed lunar eyes. At times we overhear

the decanting of a spring, glimpse silhouettes

of supple hands, a disembodied face in a tea-light's flicker

but pay little thought to these apparitions

until the waiter appears at 2 a.m. : a final round

or shall I bring the bill?

Good stuff from Luke Fischer's book 'Paths of Flight' put out by Black Pepper.

I happened to be at the Melbourne launch (jointly with Chains of Snow by Jakob

Ziguras – Pitt Street Poetry). You know how you can just happen to be at a launch.

Had a good time, heard some good work, invested in two books.

http://blackpepperpublishing.com/current_releases.html