Poem
If I ask myself why I write about lakes
(again and again the task of keeping on course)
I think how the lake veers and veers, always left –
I start that way, land bulked on my right
for my abler hand to be sure, eye and the witless
other hand still feeling, open to water,
half-trained, shaping and stopping intervals on rounded
strings sounding in the mind ti ...
after Koch/Cohen, Malley/Breton, Roussel!
This, too, is about a thousand characters. It’s much like the
last one. I wouldn’t even read beyond the following sentence.
The following sentence is a silky thing – purple in the late
day, drizzled in afternoon fog. Inside a microwave oven is
Obama has said that the person with whom he would most like to dine is Gandhi.
...Angels are made from banksia. They are grown in Prague, are
Exported in all directions, and turn grey in air. They
Only fly in places where the ground is hard. If
You try to count them they turn into numbers. If
You try to call them they turn into names. They
Are not decorative at parties but illustrative, of Guernica, for example
It is a kind of sleep we must learn,
seasonal as spiders, our bodies
weights no web can hold.
sparrow strung up
one foot knotted
in an accidental
backyard trap
They are stored in a box,
jewelled eggs:
The lover who says I’m sorry, I just
don’t want you anymore.
I woke up and the light
had gone out.
Seeing people who remind you
just a little of the dead
is always mildly disconcerting –
something in the face, the gait,
the shoulders from behind,
those likenesses that don’t surprise