Tuesday Poem - Avalanche by Vivienne Plumb

Avalanche

There was a war on TV,

the snow, the people lying on plastic

in the snow, death arriving

with his suitcase full of tools,

the delivery out of this world

offers such a dazzling

variety, and the snow, forever this

white tableau becomes forged

with the recollections of your last

oncology visit

and the people lying on the plastic

in the snow.

At the doctor's I sat with

my tiny hands held in my lap the way

I've been taught, two lovebirds,

but the flesh was as cold as sheet ice

I was up to my elbows

in frostbite and snow.

There were stories on the news

each day and in the morning paper,

death can happen overnight, may

be in your house if you don't move

fast enough, in a trench, or

the dreadful football-stadium one,

under the trees in a dark

wood, against a hedge, or even lying

on plastic in the snow.

Such soft subdued footfalls,

but a goodly advance

over a long stretch of time.

Others shift their seats away from me

leaving a pencil

thin cavity, a subtle margin,

but you and I are crouched

together in the snow reading the

avalanche instructions;

they are torn and dirty, tacked to

the cobwebbed wall of some

wild and woody mountain hut:

Construct earthen fortifications

behind your village. In the case

of serious exposure it is

best to wait for rescue dogs.

We must read the instructions

we must read the instructions

but there are no instructions.

I believe there are no instructions.

This poem is from Vivienne's book Scarab, published in a hand bound edition of 250 by Seraph Press. I lucked out at Unity Books in Wellington and got copy 211. It is the first time I have cried reading a book of poetry since I read High Windows by Larkin. Scarab is a very powerful and poignant read. The cumulative effect of poem after poem about her son Willy's progress towards death knocks you about a bit. But Vivienne is a consummate artist and her strength is her light touch, her wit, her wry angles, so one can just about take it.

Vivienne has a couple of new books out from Seraph Press, Crumple and The Cheese and Onion Sanwich and Other New Zealand Icons, so check them out.

http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/

Tuesday Poem - Songs for Paul by Ian McBryde

Songs for Paul

Beware the fury of a patient man.

John Dryden

1.

Handsome as Adam in your car mirror,

leaves from the clearing still stuck

to the back of your jacket.

2.

That got your nose open didn’t it?

Her scratches on your back. The sweet

rank pussy smell on you as you swagger

into the café, looking around, head held high.

3.

You dream of nipples, music. What is it she likes,

Mozart, Beethoven? Something like that.

4.

The highway. All those radio songs written

too late to help you. Illinois, Virginia,

the Carolinas. That skinny blonde

who stole your wallet afterwards.

5.

Late May.

Guess she’s had the kid by now.

Little bastard.

6.

Whiskey helps. Another bottle helps even more.

7.

Onscreen at the drive-in there’s always some girl

who falls and twists her ankle. She’ll be scared, pausing

on unlit stairs as your new date wipes her mouth and

zips you up. The car reeks of popcorn, beer, semen.

8.

You dream of an empty theatre, you alone in the seats

waiting for you to come onstage.

9.

The boys at the factory will love it. You can tell them

you were at it all night, and how she wept when you left.

10.

One day you will stare into another cheap motel mirror

at the face of an out-of-breath, fat stranger.

11.

She never did come back.

12.

It is already too late for the magic you once laughed at.

13.

No cheating now. Spell rescue. Don’t look.

Spell ruin. Spell empty well. Spell memory.



This poem comes from Ian McBryde's recent book The Adoption Order published by 5 Islands Press.
http://www.fiveislandspress.com/IMB.html
I love Ian's work and he is such a powerful performer. He's from Canada but he has adopted Melbourne and Melbourne has adopted him.

Tuesday Poem - After The Wake by Jennifer Compton

After The Wake

Just us left

some were in the kitchen washing dishes

someone swept

tables were stacked

chairs chocked into teetering towers

the baked meats wrapped

the rubbish bagged

all set square

then someone said

a photo of you four

the children

and what a lucky mother to die

before any of us

we took hands

stood like a palisade

one of us quipped

we know what this photo is for

how we laughed

the one who had scanned the family album

for the funeral slide show had complained

how there were shocking gaps

no photo of her with this one or that

so now whichever of us went first

there would be a pic of all of us

together

holding on to each other's hands.


This brand new poem was dragged out of me by the editor of Qualm http://www.qualm.co.uk/maincq.html
who begged for a poem, and I had nothing. But my mother has just died and the death of a parent is always good for a poem or two so I managed to squeeze out After The Wake. Since then I have also written The Shock, but I haven't managed to pull the central poem of the experience into shape yet. That is going to take some time and some distance I think.

Tuesday Poem - Some lingering questions by Emilie Collyer

Some lingering questions

why does a piano played slowly
in the high register sound scary?

why do red bricks remind me
of smashed teeth and rusting water coolers?

what about her cracked lips
meant she was nothing but trouble?

why was I so scared to
say people's names out loud?

why wasn't I good at foursquare
or skipping or elastics or monkey bars?

why did I run after his car
calling out his name?

why are recordings of children laughing
used so often in soundscapes?

why is an antique tea set exquisite
but a dead person's coffee cup just stained?

why did grandpa's pipe smell sweet
but dad's cigarettes choke me?

why did they never fight, was it the
same reason they never kissed?


This poem is from Emilie Collyer's new book called Your Looking Eyes which came out of the Cafe Poet Program run by Australian Poetry. Only Emilie wasn't ensconced in a cafe but in an art gallery called C3 at The Nunnery in Abbotsford in Melbourne. The book is embellished by beautiful art works by Eirian Chapman.

For more about Emilie check out her blog Between The Cracks http://www.betweenthecracks.net/

If you want to see more Tuesday Poems click on the quill icon.

Tuesday Poem - Empty Stop by Matt Hetherington

Empty Stop

the woman lights a cigarette

the man takes out a paper

their masks are making them thirsty

they stare through grey air

to find friends as easily hallucinated

as arrival on the horizon

she dreams of sand as pale and soft

as the skin of a beloved

he of the constellations

in the bottom of a glass

there is no early or late now

there is no reason to stand up

home is waiting like a bed

deadlock your heart

pull down the blinds on your eyes

it’s not as if it really matters

I have made a lot of good friends in Melbourne and Matt is one of them. A fine poet. A fine friend. I like his sensibility very much. 

This poem was previously published in Second Sight.

To read the other Tuesday Poems click on the quill icon.

Matt Hetherington is a writer and musician living in Melbourne.  He has published over 300 poems during the last 20 years throughout Australia, Europe, and America, and his most recent collection is ‘I Think We Have’ (Small Change Press, 2007).  He is one of the initiators of the Moving Galleries Project http://www.movinggalleries.org.au, and is also on the board of the Australian Haiku Society http://www.haikuoz.org/  Some current inspirations are: Miles Davis, Sawako Nakayasu, and plain old sunshine.

Tuesday Poem - The Blue Dressing Gown by Ross Donlon

The Blue Dressing Gown

It hung in my boy's wardrobe

an army regulation item

no one could throw out.

And it would be hard, wouldn't it,

to discard the only thing left

in something like the shape of him.

It hung on a wire hanger,

skeleton of his shoulder

cutting across collar bone,

the drape of it swinging side to side

if nudged into a shy dance,

or if asked up by a breeze.

I used to wear it, with no sense

of feeling weird or spooky,

alternating with practical flannel,

yet at night sometimes woke

frightened by its doorway shadow,

a man hanging on the moon's hook.

I never realised I'd outgrown him

walking tall through one summer

while his shoulders rode my back.

The tassels swung like incense

as I walked in his shape

trying to sense the being inside him.

This is Ross Donlon's famous blue dressing gown poem, that won the Arvon International Poetry Competition (Wenlock Festival Award) judged by Carol Ann Duffy. It has just been published in Ross's new book – The Blue Dressing Gown & Other Poems by Profile Poetry.

http://www.rossdonlon.com/

Ross lives in Castlemaine, where he runs a wonderful reading with poets invited from all over the country, at the Guildford Pub. The open mic takes the form of a slam with poets competing for the Castlemaine Cup – which is always a superbly inappropriate egg cup.

To read the other Tuesday Poems click on the quill icon up on the right.

Tuesday Poem - Launch Poem by Anna Fern

first time I met Jennifer, a supreme court judge's wig of crimped grey curls
she said she was wondering when some clever girl would snap up The Maurice
her blessing
but why had I not had any children; it was a weakness of character
she vivisected my regret, there on the polished parquetry floor
a blessing can also be a wound
but her fierceness made me laugh, helpless

I didn't snap him up, it was a laborious beginning
arm in arm, a wooden dolly and a teddy bear struggling  up the paddock
dry grass and dust, still radiating
the heat of the day at Montsalvat, the poets and the wine and all the carry-on
he leaned across the car, over the gearstick, talking excitedly the whole way home as
we wound along the cool river flats. I tried to reply and drive safely and listen and
change gears, him and the electricity pylons buzzing into the night air

back at the bachelor flat, he sat me on a kitchen chair, cooked me an omelette
cheese and tomato - I thought of that when Jennifer said how mothering he was -
and he told me about this literary lioness, performed plays around Australia
who relished the whole shambolic love-in that was Overload
her all clipped and controlled - knocked out the quaint New Zealand vowels and
went her own way, even though she was frightened of flying, and of being driven
but fearless on the back of a galloping horse

now she wears a cap of ringlets wound tight
declares she is old and invisible
but those imperious cheekbones are still there
and that steady gaze, seeing everything, our pathetic ephemera
buttons and razor blades, their eloquence and mystery

she said I wasn't there yet, my poems needed to take more risks
she wanted to see blood on the floor
I don't want to show myself unravelling
but she already knows
knits me a shawl of encouragement
fierce poetry mother

I couldn't resist posting the poem Anna Fern wrote for the Melbourne launch of my book This City - she and Maurice McNamara did the honours on the night and, as I had hoped, they were fresh and surprising and amusing and just generally fantabuloso. I am pretty sure a good time was had by all at Red Wheelbarrow in Lygon Street. I know I had to make two runs to the bottle shop next door!
Just one thing though - I am not fearless on the back of a galloping horse. I don't think I have ever been fearless on the back of a galloping horse, and these days, what with one thing and another, I just don't climb up onto a horse, that is another thing that is all over for me. Ah, so sad LOL.