Tuesday Poem - Damp little Oedipus by Helen Lehndorf

Damp little Oedipus

The bed is a boat, filling with, filling with—

we are trying to launch into sleep

limp, limp, lull and skull

hot, close night—95% humidity,

5% humility,

0% humanity

His naked six year old body in the lamp-

light taking up the bed. Breathing the air

holding my cheeks in his hands, using

my breast for a pillow, grinding grinding his knee

into my thigh. We tried so many times

to put him back to bed but he was so hot

he sprang back, he would spring up

and we keep finding him here,

right in the middle of us.

He is clam,

all clammy and cling-cling.

You peel him off the bed:

'Damp little Oedipus', you fold him in a sheet

and mail him back to bed, you wedge his door

shut with James Joyce's 'Ulysses'. He goes

cry,cry,cry but we select deafness.

We are finally drifting off and then I wake us up to say

'What are you thinking about?' and you say

'Computer hardware' and make a small

mock-orgasmic sound.

Tuesday Poem - James Dean by James Norcliffe

James Dean

When the workmen had finally finished cutting the heavy black rubber tubing from the machine, they retired to a bench for a smoke.

One sat apart from the others with a faraway smile on his face. He was shirtless and his upper body was bronzed and shiny.

When he leaned into the circle of his hand, a match flickering there, I saw at once that this was James Dean.

He sat alone then, smiling, his cigarette like a tiny white exhaust pipe, dangling from his lower lip.

I wanted to speak to him, but I was too shy. He was already famous. I wanted to warn him of the flickering flame, the drifts of smoke.

But it was not possible I knew. I was too shy to attempt more than a small nod and a half smile, which he did acknowledge with a tip of his finger.

Besides, he would have thought I was referring to his Lucky Strike. Besides he was writing his own story, and it was his alone, not mine.

Here's another lovely poem I found in the latest edition of Poetry NZ. 

Tuesday Poem - how long until the accident? by Helen Lehndorf

how long until the accident?

When I move to the new house will I be a better person?

We are leaving behind the placenta under the kowhai tree,

and the kowhai tree. I hate myself for caring what happens

to that tree. Hullo, hullo, I have to go. People don't write

letters any more, they send pixellated kisses. In today's news,

Finn broke his ankle again, says he has weak ankles.

More likely it is the stairs he falls down when he's drunk.

Scandal, scandal birthday candle.

He suggests a movie where 'there is no hugging and nobody

learns anything.' I will see if I can bend the hinge of family

enough to be let out. Smothered. Sfathered.

Starting to finally leave, to stare out windows to the south

of the city. Words/deeds. There are real birds and cd birds.

There is real rain and radio rain. When I move to the new house

what if I end up in flames? Not arson. Spontaneous.

It'll do, in the Manawatu. In the new house, I learn the weight

of the key, the contours of the lock. Mind that step,

it wobbles. I take my first drink of water from the tap, baptism.

His cupboard sticks. Place things on shelves gingerly,

like the house might shake them off. Watch your step.

I came upon two of Helen's poems in the new Poetry NZ. I really like them,
so intimate and playful. I will post the second poem soon.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Helen-Lehndorf/220615784632554

Tuesday Poem - Ceilings by Joyce Lee

Ceilings

In the sleepout,

the pattern in one corner

of the pressed metal ceiling

did not match, offended me.

Parents watched pennies;

the handyman patches

instead of using another sheet.

Joyce Lee 1913-2007 was for a short time the oldest poet in Australia. I have just read her book

'Bountiful Years' and found it wise and calm and loving.

Anne Carson, her literary executor tells me - “I still have copies to sell/give. Happy to give any away to a good cause or post out for a small charge.”

Her email is am.carson@optusnet.com.au

Tuesday Poem - 20th day by Graham Nunn

20th day

on the couch we lie

heart to heart, as sleep

buttons you to my chest

and though my body

aches, I dare not move

this climate we share

so intimate: slow

synch of heartbeats

as our rivers converge

I heard Graham read some of his new book – The First 30 and other poems – at Geelong Library and it was quite something. Such tenderness, such sureness of tone. The First 30 is a poem a day written after the birth of his son. And what a beautiful cover! 

Available from Another Lost Shark Publications.

http://anotherlostshark.com/2012/07/27/sneak-preview-the-first-30-and-other-poems/

If you want to read more Tuesday Poems click on the quill icon at the top.

Tuesday Poem - Ornithology by Natasha Dennerstein

              

                 Ornithology                                                          

In his tombstone hour she elevated him through

the radio, her fantail chirrups and twirbles.

All washed up he was, ready to check out

when an avian voice penetrated his fug. “This

is going out to everyone,” it sung; he

thought 'Does that mean me, too?' then put

down the gun, the can of petrol, the lighter

and ripped the note into a million pieces and

on his long-haul flight the soundtrack was Bic

(she kept the passengers blissful, quiet). In

France there was La Môme Piaf and here,

there was alchemy and a golden Bic and

from her wax eye did leak a platinum tear

and from her beak did pour a string of pearls.

Natasha Dennerstein was born in Melbourne of a family originating in Poland and Russia. She is currently living and studying in Wellington. She has been a psychiatric nurse for twenty years, which has given her an interesting perspective on the human condition and has been writing creatively most of her adult life.
Dennerstein says: “I have always admired the singer Bic Runga: chirpy and dark simultaneously. I was inspired to write a sonnet, not in praise of her, but celebrating her sound and her aesthetic. Any nature poetry or poems praising beauty that I write end up having a can of petrol in them, or the equivalent. I can’t help it: I am made that way.”

Tuesday Poem - The Hard Shards of Class by Peter Lach-Newinsky

The Hard Shards of Class

Devising figments to temper his nothingness.

-          Samuel Beckett, ‘Company’

So much, he thinks, felling & furrowing,

blasting & wiring into the hard body

of this land till we forced out its food.

Now we’re fat as slugs or locust plagues

in a rainy spring, as the train speeds on

to Cootamundra. Why do the folks

milling on the platform fill him

with sudden sadness, taught awareness

of his lazy paunch? Maybe it’s just

the Beckett on his lap, the train lunch,

dun poverty, hardness of faces used

to yakka, biff & debt as he is not

cosy & looking out of smeary glass

like a class voyeur into hardiplank

yards filled with rusting cans & cars

flagpoles, a boat far from navigable

rivers or liberating sea. The train

creeps past. Trapped in bodies, history,

class & always some infernal glass

between himself, them, him, a mirror

refracting hard shards of inside out.

Next stop: Harden.

I got to launch Peter Lach-Newinksy's new book Requiem (Picaro Press) at Collected Works in Melbourne last week. And I chose to read this poem because I have travelled many times on the train to Melbourne from the Southern Highlands where Peter still lives, and between Yass Junction and Cootamundra is the station called Harden. My mind has played with that name many times. I also like the station called The Rock. You know it is coming up when you look out of the window and see the bloody big rock.