BATH POETRY WORKS
Image by A.R.Paul
A grain of poetry suffices to season a century
- José Martí, revolutionary and poet (1853-1895)
SOME SAMPLE WORKS
On His Knees
by Jennifer Wong
He meant to tell her.
It was just the way
he stumbled from
one thing to another.
He meant to say
it was never quite clear
to him and now it became
too late. He wished
he had handled it
better. He asked
for forgiveness
and generosity,
for the right
to be freed.
Moonlight Rhapsody No.49
by Jennifer Wong
If life were not a luminous halo
then what is it?
A semi-transparent envelope
without a love letter;
a piano stool, a broken vase?
All metaphors, pared down,
offer little understanding
than what we already grasp.
At night, the sea looks so pleasant and calm
I don't believe it will drown.
I walk on barefoot, hearing the waves,
my thoughts crawl back
ceaselessly into the past.
(Published in Questions, Australia-base online journal: http://www.questions.com.au)
Americano
by Matthew Paul
This Advent morning,
the gastronaut can’t resist
a zebra spider
(it’s the way it hangs
from the station rafters
at a gulpable height);
pushes the door
of the platform snack-bar
and orders a regular
black Americano
to wash down
a couple of legs
awkwardly lodged,
like blackberry pips,
between her teeth.
High Wire
by Matthew Paul
On a good day, which, by the sunrays
tripping through the cumulus, this could be,
when my toes reach along and my heel
presses down to finish the foothold,
my thoughts sometimes wander
to the possibilities of lunch
– fine dining at La Pesca with the crew,
or the remnants of yesterday’s fennel risotto –
and how I ought to buy a new pair
of red-and-white wire-walking shoes,
custom-made in Milan; but today,
when I step out from the small door
on the thirty-first storey’s breeze-block roof
and balance upon the beautiful tautness
stretching my mind, I sense
after just my seventh tread,
and know for definite on the eighth,
that three-quarters of the way to the other side
the banshee winds which scrape my face
would send me plunging like a gannet;
so I devour consciousness
as if it’s the last and greatest meal of my life,
arch my toes upwards
and ghost the eight paces backwards
to a frosted shot glass of grappa.
Escapology
by Louis Hawkins
The nurse poured me another vodka
inviting me to carry on
but her charm is wearing thin
and I had told enough lies for one night.
Outside the barred windows
of the white tiled room I hear a siren calling;
the footfall of fugitives following
the masked ball from town to town.
On the lawn a piano is sleeping
in a pool of light issued by the soft clauses
of a moon tethered to a pylon
the colour blind mad deem ironic.
I collect my distress flares, an old atlas
and hand in my apologies to the primate
playing poker with a dead airman
on a tea chest in the guardroom.
My orders are tattooed on the wrist
of another woman who keeps a guru
in a bird cage on the balcony
for me to argue with.
We all share the same signal
its light attracts the nightshift:
the itinerant gifts of big black taxis
old stations release on parole
To freelance the supply lines
for calling cards of the casino healers
who fall in love with the dreams
of those who have been discharged.