Tuesday/Thursday Poem: Siobhan Harvey & Michael Onslow-Osborne

Two poems this week, by two poets from Auckland with whom I shared the stage recently at Auckland’s Fringe Festival for the Spit.It.Out Spoken Word series.  Really cool to stand up with these poets performing, among other works, these here.

 

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The Gifted Linguist Invents Language by Siobhan Harvey

Not code composed in ink, ether-screed or decibel, the word is
skin, blood and teeth. It starts as a star, blazing and nuclear.
In time, it will evolve into something like Wingding, all symbols
and screeches. Regardless, expressing affection is fixed like the sun.

Even now, change is upon us. We wake to familiarity:
stock-markets burning up huge mass like supernovas;
riots, fierce as red dwarfs, in Paris, Athens and London;
the gifted linguist translating hieroglyphs and Arabic
over the morning babble about uprisings in Egypt and Libya.

Then, from some future galaxy, travelling by speed
of light or across a wormhole, a new language,
Xeplos arrives brightly lit in his mind.

Eno is no; ess is yes; ans is can; Mesas is Mummy…..
Adjectives, nouns, tenses and verbs tumble
like stardust from his tongue.

Squeezing out light, new language replaces the clock.
Consuming us, new language steals particles of our lives.
In its perfection, we draw closer to our uncertain future.

As we do so, we hold onto space – moments
of deep thought; the pauses between
infinite questions; the cavities opened
when books are read – tight as hope.

These are the silences that transport us elsewhere.
These are the silences that keep us as we are.

(c) Siobhan Harvey 2013.

Siobhan Harvey is the author of the poetry collection, Lost Relatives (Steele Roberts NZ, 2011) and the book of literary interviews, Words Chosen Carefully: New Zealand Writers in Discussion (Cape Catley, 2010). She’s also the editor of Our Own Kind: 100 New Zealand Poems about Animals (Random House NZ, 2009). Her poems has been published at home and internationally in such magazines as Asheville Poetry Review (US), Best New Zealand Poems, Evergreen Review (US), Five Poem Journal (Ned), Landfall, Meanjin(Aus),Poetry New Zealand, Stnorkel (Aus), Sructo (UK) and Tuesday Poem (NZ/ US). She’s the Poetry Editor of Takahe and Coordinator of National Poetry Day. In recent years, she has been runner-up in Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize (Aus), Kevin Ireland Poetry Competition, Landfall Essay Prize and Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize (US). As part of the 25 New Zealand Poets Project, her Poet’s Page is on The Poetry Archive (UK).

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Two German Shephards by Michael Onslow-Osborne

I live in a quiet and safe suburb

in northern california

I live in a leafy suburb behind

thick stucco walls and black iron gates

thick stucco walls and black iron gates

I keep for companions

two german shepherds

I keep for companions

two german shepherds

I have the latest

deadliest personal weapons

and I am trained in their use

I have the latest

deadliest personal weapons

and I am trained in their use

I do not live in fear

I do not live in fear

I have learnt that out there there are forces

out there there are forces

I have learnt that out there there are forces

bigger than anybody

bigger than anybody

 

I live in a quiet and safe suburb

in northern california

I live in a leafy suburb behind

thick stucco walls and black iron gates

thick stucco walls and black iron gates

I keep for companions

two german shepherds

I keep for companions

two german shepherds

I have the latest

deadliest personal weapons

and I am trained in their use

I have the latest

deadliest personal weapons

and I am trained in their use

I do not live in fear

I do not live in fear

I have learnt that out there there are forces

out there there are forces

I have learnt that out there there are forces

bigger than anybody

bigger than anybody

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Michael Onslow-Osborne has been trolling around the Auckland poetry scene since 1996, developing collaborative and generative writing practices, and working with found language. He is an organiser for the occasional Soft Boiled series, and was vocalist with Scram. He occasionally teaches reading writing, for money and for kicks, and recently co-edited Courtney Meredith’s Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick. He doesn’t keep good records, but his poetry has been published in ABDotWW, Salt and Flint, and Potroast.

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Be sure to stop in and see the other poems posted this week by the Tuesday Poem collective — by clicking below.

For more Tuesday Poems, go here.

 

Tuesday Poem: ‘The biographer’s body’ by Elizabeth Welsh

The biographer’s body

Her hand is always in view. A love
letter, perpetual game of hide-&-seek
played, where you catch a corner
of shirt-sleeves, the sole of a running shoe.

It is a pact, this dodge. Promises
that involve replacing apricots & leaves
with her noon-time shadow. A dust sheet
over a marble statue; although the body is always there.

A niggling twig snagging your hair,
is what it is, this zipping up the skin of another
to find a toe poking out; a call to let
another notice you, under all this hiding.

Let the Teumessian fox be trapped, caught, stroked;
Let hagiography reign; let me note down the noter.

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This poem first appeared in the November 2012 issue of Magma, edited by Judy Brown and Cherry Smyth. The theme of this issue is “the visible and the invisible” and even if Elizabeth shares her aversion to writing to themes on her blog, she nevertheless tackles this theme with grace. It’s a delicate poem, one containing secrets and glimpses and bare truths. What I love most about this poem is the playful nature of it — the way the physical presence is both hidden and revealed. This interaction between what one might see and what one might not — both literally and metaphorically — creates a wonderful full thing. And then there’s the imagery and language — phrasing like “catch a corner/ of shirt sleeves”,  ”a niggling twig”, the “zipping up the skin”.

Elizabeth blogs more about writing this poem here. Do go and see the poet’s own reflections on this issue of Magma. I thank Elizabeth for sharing her poem with me for this week’s Tuesday Poem post.

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Elizabeth Welsh is an academic editor and poet. A New Zealander, she currently lives in South London. In 2012, she won the inaugural Auckland University Press Emerging Poet prize. She is currently working on a chapter for an edited collection on short story writer Katherine Mansfield and her influences and recently spoke on Mansfield at the Sorbonne. She has run an online magazine – The Typewriter – for emerging Asia-Pacific poets for four years. She blogs about all things literary here.

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Be sure to stop in and see the other poems posted this week by the Tuesday Poem collective — by clicking below.

For more Tuesday Poems, go here.

Tuesday Poem: Two things by by Gus Simonovic

Two things with upcoming performances by the always energetic and creative Auckland performance poet Gus Simonovic…

Cosmos of Hearts

hide you lips
don’t say words, that they
want to say
hush them up
even if nobody is listening
save your ears

cover the mirror
kiss the moon instead
moon … moon … moon
the moon is full of crescents
on all sides
popping up like kisses in the sky
smiling, capping, turning, tide-ing it’s sharp ends

it whispers soft light to guide our hearts
as every heart is a planet,
round, ticking, listening in
revolving around the moon
heart stays always full
on all sides
it pumps out words to occupy our lips
it pumps out thoughts to occupy our steps
as our beings revolve around our bellowed’s hearts
moving, feeling, screaming, writing, filling verses of our
silent universes

shhh …
keep quiet
let the moon do the talking
words wonder, in and out of the shadow
thoughts wander
in and out of shape
but they are no things,

nothings!
if we don’t talk about them

(February 2013)

and…

Insomnia in a Daydream – watch the video!

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The above poem is part of the Aotearoa Found in Translation project which was dreamed up by Gus Simonovic, Siri Embla and the  Printable Reality team. This is a collaborative extravaganza including 42 other poets — classics and contemporary, local and international. As Gus says:  ”an epic performance by 8 professional actors + 6 poets live … the scale of this community project is unseen and I feel so blessed to be a part of it !”

Meanwhile, Insomnia in a Daydream is a performance piece by Gus and Siri, with music by Dubtext.

Catch both performances next week in Auckland!

Aotearoa Found in Translation location/times:  Basement Theatre, March 19-20-21.

Insomnia in a Daydream location/ times: The Basement Theatre, March 21-22-23.

Note that March 21 is a double bill at the Basement, featuring both shows. 

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Be sure to stop in and see the other poems posted this week by the Tuesday Poem collective — by clicking below.

For more Tuesday Poems, go here.

Luminous MICROW

Delighted that my story “Wanderer” was selected to be included in

MICROW 8: LUMINOUS:

This latest collection of flash fiction and photography is a beautiful thing of light and shadow. Many thanks to Editor Michael Solender for his work here.

This issue includes contributions by  Lynn Alexander, Walter Bjorkman, Ron Burch, Sara B. Chaney, Erin Cole, Aleathia Drehmer, Michelle Elvy, Kristin Fouquet, Joseph Grant, Abha Iyengar, Laurie Harris Kolp, Len Kuntz, Kate Mahony, Thomas Morgan, Rouschwalawe, Linda Simoni-Wastila, Jessamyn Smyth, Janice D. Soderling, Joanne Spataro, John Swain, Tikuli, Cynthia A. Williams, and Angel Zapata.

Enjoy LUMINOUS here. Thank you for reading. 

Tuesday Poem: ‘In the Mission, after Lines from Pasolini’ by Gary Sloboda

In the Mission, after Lines from Pasolini

The steadfast eye is agony.
The soul no longer grows.
Along the inner Mission
the street people clamor
for change and little boys

scatter from alleys like mice,
cursing from the pumped up
barrels of their chests at elderly
shopkeepers and delivery men.
I see the lifted chins of art students

who sling their work home
in canvas bags, their pierced faces
glinting like mica in a languid stream.
And always the panning of these eyes –
marveling lenses – snap shooting

the subtle changes in the tint
of the clouds reflected in windows,
the scuffed apricot of taxicabs
shearing the mad street corners
with rubber screams and “fuck you”.

My hand in her hand as the damp
scent of her hair whips like tiny pins
against my face, the strident flesh
of ice plants searing the blue-black shadows
of the median flecked with garbage

as if we had displaced our old wounds
onto the world with our seeing.
The hush of no pedestrians for half a block
as we lean our bodies towards
her doorway redolent of pine wreaths

and the pensive flare of garlic
burning the slanted stairs that climb
from the street with the ache
of a wholesomeness so ripe
that I disappear into it, believing.

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This poem was first published in the January 2013 issue of Blue Five Notebook. 

Gary Sloboda is a lawyer, writer and musician, not necessarily in that order. His work has appeared in such places as Rattle, Drunken Boat, The Cortland Review, and EOAGH: A Journal of the Arts. He lives in San Francisco.

 

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Be sure to stop in and see the other poems posted this week by the Tuesday Poem collective — by clicking below.

For more Tuesday Poems, go here.

Tuesday Poem: ‘Sea Song’ by Michelle Elvy

I have a  circumnavigation on my mind, plus this week we’ll publish the travel issue of New Zealand’s flash journal, Flash Frontier (current issue here), so this poem suits my mood for a number of reasons. 

This poem was featured last week at ArtBeat in Whangarei — and was also featured for last year’s Valentine’s Day poem at Lou Freshwater‘s site. Thanks to the organisers of the Poetry Wall at ArtBeat 2013, which included works by other poets in the Take Flight poetry group as well.

Sea Song

you’ll be gone forever
and a day
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnaw. just three oceans. once
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaround the world
you’ll meet mermaids
and sirens
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAyes. but my journey
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAends here, with you
you’ll forget
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAi’ll see you in the sea
how do you know?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAbecause your eyes are in the sun
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAyour hips on every wave
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAyour breath the wind
will you remember this?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAthis i’ll remember most of all
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAthe space between your belly button and rib
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAthe distance from your shoulder to wrist
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAthe miles from knee down to toe
ok then
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnow shhhhh
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAlet me dive into your southern ocean

 

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Be sure to stop in and see the other poems posted this week by the Tuesday Poem collective — by clicking below.

For more Tuesday Poems, go here.

Tuesday Poem: variations on the theme of ‘bed’ by Peter Schwartz

variations of the theme of ‘bed’

bed as woman

your bed has hips like any woman
your sheets are love letters written, folded and forgotten
as you turn into yourself like anyone

with nowhere else to go, as you sweat in foreign languages
in a place too big to pretend back from, a sad bed
that’s become your everything

bed as ship

honesty works in a variety of ways; you lie on your barely
swaying mattress and push out thoughts like a midwife
but they have no hot spot, no breaking

point to send them flying to the furnace, so you cling to
the fog around your wrists, cloudy as a sailor locked
inside a landfill, imitating yourself

to death.

bed as grave

sorry, but your bed’s been growing plants nobody wants
your entanglements were not provocative
the sky was meant to stay that way

the mud you never loved was your best and worst flaw
how cleanly you imagined the rain, how you mixed
your feelings with your blankets

to fall asleep.

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First published in the December 2012 poetry special of Blue Five Notebook.  

Peter Schwartz’s words have been featured in Wigleaf, Opium, and the Columbia Review. He’s also an artist, comedian, and dedicated kayaker. More at Sitrah Ahra.

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Be sure to stop in and see the other poems posted this week by the Tuesday Poem collective by clicking below.

For more Tuesday Poems, go here.