Wherever she tumbled I fell

up hill and down dell dale

and wherever we fell I lay I she lay

panting pantless that day

she me on top of me her

on the ridge of shifting sand

the sea pounding below our

frantic & ampersand

later we packed our gear

our thoughts regrets delight over bright as the moon

[later we left the beach

back to our lonely rooms]

a hug a kiss a quick look round

‘I’ll call you soon!’

trans. Tracy Ryan

When you close my eyes to the light, linger

As you kiss them, for they will have given

All that endures of loving passion

To you in the last glance of their last ardour.

By the funeral lamp’s unflinching glow,

Lean your sad, lovely face toward their farewell

So they can be imprinted with the sole

Image they’ll keep below.

And let me feel, before the coffin’s shut,

How we join hands upon the pure white bed

And how upon the pale pillow beside

My brow, your cheek rests one crowning moment.

And after, let me go far off, my heart

Preserving for you a flame of such strength

That even through the dead, compacted earth

The other dead will feel the heat.

(from Les Heures du soir, 1911)

My father had an upper lip that was quite long

Whereas my mother boasted one that was short;

Such is the intermixture of parenthood.

Who can discern the specific claims of ancestry

By this or that small detail? The nose or the jaw

Tell only so much,  and even that proves dubious.

And yet, seeing my aunt in her old age

Take on the attributes of her father – that Scottish nose -

Revealed to me the hidden clams of ancestry.

I’d never guessed before that she carried those genes

Seeing only herself and the world that she had made

But there it was, in the open at last.

We carry a long line of ancestry. My lip

May seem as if neither parent had claim

But  am continually taken by surprise each time I stare into a mirror.

Germane to the nth reach of the chimney
grew a random vine that laced itself round all sides.

He arrived, invited, grew gregarious, and proffered
pandemonium for those who found it difficult to wake.

Summer happens almost apart from an awareness
that the skin, no longer cold, releases new endorphins.

Woodwind players resolve to grow accustomed
to the nasal tones of mothers calling children after dark.

Heresy reputed to be less-than-obvious,
remains the truth in minds least fastened to dogma.

Sheila E. Murphy‘s most recent book publication is a collaboration with Douglas Barbour (University of Alberta Press, 2012), Continuations 2, recently shortlisted by the Alberta Book Awards for the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award. Her home is in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

 
Near the bedroom blind
dark pales to light.

Embodied still
to my surprise

I stare – blink – flutter eyelids -
test toe movement.

Body may see me
through another day.

What had I dreamed, then?
It must have been

of disembodied travel
leaving flesh behind -

almost to the terminus
once more, once more

checked and passed
by the stern conductor

return ticket valid  -
safe passage -

looking in to where
my stilled shape reclined

surprised it would be
reinhabited.

Spent such a short time, a cold time, in a small town a seven-churches-three-Chinese merchants town a town of unbreakable rules and habits even the rabble obeyed

but not the wild dogs that bayed at the stars, ripped at the lambs out in the night, fell to rifles, hung lifeless from spotlighting utes  outside this cold town, icy river town that floods sometimes, a blackfella drowns,  tents and bridges washed downstream, the wailing

and the screams got a brief mention from some pulpits in this bullpit town

being slowly worn down by bendable rules and changing habits so that if we’d hung around

a few more years, taken out a mortgage on a house on nob hill, joined a golf club, the CWA, got on committees, got promotions, gone through the motions of converts, who knows,

a long time, a warmer time, a few good crop seasons, mangy dogs eradicated,

three or four churches shutting their doors or amalgamating, giving all the blackfellas their rights after getting their gratitude in triplicate, who knows but with another generation,

each with a one way ticket up to the cemetery, we might, just might, have stayed on, but it’s a handout town, hand-me-down town, father to son town, a hold-on-to-what-we’ve-got town,

a run-them-down-town, a run-them-out-of-town town…and we’re still running.

Gideon left me a bible
whoever Gideon is –
good if I was able
to thank him.

The bible’s new
but full of old words
lots I don’t know.
Who is Begat?

The plot’s odd too –
far too many stories
and the main guy in the new
bit ends bad.

Not a bedtime read
if you ask me
so why did Gideon need
to leave it beside the bed?

Maybe he just forgot
and I’d like really I would
to return it not
just leave it but

I don’t have his
mobile number he’ll
just have to buy
another and

next time
be more careful.
Sorry Gideon
brother.

Tang Ying Chi, ‘People in the Streets of Hong Kong (II),’ acrylic on canvas, 38 x 150 cm, 2012

Andrew Burke

On an ancient poetry list, tatjanalukic (from Canberra) asked -
andrew, is there any way to explain very briefly, in two lines,
and in the best tradition of your clear and to the point poems:

what are all these man in fact doing when they play cricket?

So I wrote ‘a quick single’.

Cricket

1
I like a dark mystery
in the sun for five days

2
there is a book of rules
and lots of people have read it

3
my friends and I
don’t talk about each other
but about the men out in the centre
who we attribute various character faults to

4
it has the wonder of chess
with the athleticism

of billiards

5

as a nation
we are good at it
and we beat the poms and kiwis
on a regular basis

what more could you ask?

6
once upon a time

in the playground
i could hurtle down balls
at bullies