Blue Butcher Orchid

for Miss Jane's birthday



Inking the fingers
dialect and echo
Blue Butcher of tongue
peeled from its industry
          from roof of mouth
to reluctant curls
turned slightly left, new
        implication in Orchis
sepal to petal
cupped calyx, funnelled
modified into a lip

A Thought

wide as lightning
bodies of the lovers
skin sloughed off
and still rubbing

Sleeping Beauty

That whole time
she slept

all those years
amongst overgrowth
in ivory

They pounded
on her door









*There's some more of these over at now! --> heroin love songs

Chapbook Review. Paul Harrison's meet me at gethsemane

I had made a rule for myself that this blog would be a simple little repository for my poetry, with a little aside from time to time, but I’ve decided bend it a little and share my thoughts on some things that catch my attention.

I was asked to write a blurb for Paul Harrison’s first chapbook “meet me at gethsemane” But I’ve enjoyed reading it so much I have decided to share a short review of it here.


meet me at gethsemane



Paul Harrison is at times the propagandist of his own opinions and maybe that’s just the anti-venom needed to take on the irresistible allure of blind faith. He doesn’t test a statement for truth, there’s no hesitation or disguised plea for corroboration in these poems. Self-consciousness is stripped away then returns to dance in your lap.

later she says
you know doll
you’re not
supposed
to touch
& i smile
& say
i didn’t know
but really
i knew
exactly
& all along
what went down
& what it was
i did to her
& you

~from “doll”

Simple language, natural as speech serves as a vehicle for a psychologically dynamic exploration of absurd social rituals and sensation.

The givens of life are what they are, often enough our lives are a dark and obscure mission. These poems, with their blunt, claustrophobic lines and lack of artifice, stark paralysis pressed against the stasis of the page are life affirming, they bring us into a direct encounter with lacerating relationships which layer rather than expose. They invite us to celebrate and grieve our shared isolation and the failure of responsibility.

the grown-ups
taught us kids
property rights
are based
on violence

~from “watching another ad for fridge and washer city”

Even the literary references, though many, are pared down, splayed and pinned to the page.

and of course
a rose is a rose
impossible
to overlook
or fathom

~‘all at sea’


Someone pointed out to me recently, the Latin origins of passion stem from passio ; to suffer, to endure. compassion being, to endure with. The delusion that the creative act is somehow redemptive excludes. This collection showcases the irreparable, it encourages trust because it doesn’t try to hide its purposes.
What did Jesus meet at Gethsemane? a final test of faith, prayer, the first consent of divine love, or a torturous death, an empty tomb and three screaming women running in terror? No god, no loyal followers, but leaving “mark lost in the forest” to invite us all to walk in his teacher’s shoes?

Paul wants us to meet him in Gethsemane, I might have resisted if it weren’t for the pleasure I take in the final poem in the book, all four words;

rothko
painted
empty
graves

Then, there is this, from “some things are known” which I think sums ‘it’ up quite nicely.

having lived fourteen thousand times longer than
the flies that congregate around this lake
cannot be remembered or numbered
only repeated
cannot be described or shared
only encountered

~Brilliant! I’m there, with bells on.

Go get yourself a copy from the most excellent and quite new Mulla Mulla Press here; Mulla Mulla Press

Architecture

Always the animal
in her, unable to find a room
long enough to get a bit of speed up
in.















And something here: clickety link The Diamond and The Thief

Gimme Shelter

Gimme Shelter is a not-for-profit event with every cent from ticket sales going directly to feed and nurture the homeless. Tickets are dirt-cheap at $25 + booking fee in advance, $35 on the door from www.heatseeker.com.au, The Fremantle Arts Centre and usual outlets. Under 16’s are $10 and kids under 6 are free. Gates open at 5.30pm.

Also performing is Brave and the Bird. And who are Brave and the Bird? Gimme Shelter organisers are remaining tight-lipped on this one. “We can’t tell you for legal reasons”, said event organiser Phoebe Corke. “All I can say is it’s a couple of big name performers, we’re very excited and the crowd is going to go wild when they see who it is.”






I hope if you're in Perth you come along to this! (oh & and I know who Brave and The Bird are ;P na nah nah nah naaaah! )

Pop This Date in The Diary or on The Back of Your Hand or.... anywhoos it's December 17!

Come celebrate the launch/arrival/release of In Hand, my book of poetry. 7:30pm, December 17 @ The Fringe Gallery, 94 Bawdan st, Willagee.

To be launched by Dr Andrew Burke, with readings from ze book by the dapper & strange, Black Rider himself, Jeremy Balius and the sky snapping, word mistress of Recoil, Coral Carter and music by the wildly delicious Kissin' Cousins! Bring your dancing slippers... and a poem to share!

Some blurbs ..s.... s

Amanda Joy's In Hand is a sustained love letter, a farewell signature in a handwritten flourish. It is a celebration of the body, of loss and acceptance, family, water and landscape. These poems work their spells in language cast under pressure into a sublime, lyrical whole. ~Anthony Lawrence


The poetry of Amanda Joy stretches out to touch the reader both physically and spiritually. Her words penetrate to the heart and soul of relationships, opening to the naked eye not only those we have with lovers, friends and strangers, but that which we have with the natural world that surrounds us. Then deeper still, to the relationship between our own thoughts, needs and desires.
In Hand has a devotional quality. Each poem an experience, to be carried with us and contemplated throughout the day; each poem a flower of mystery, whose petals await their revelatory blossoming.
~Ray Sapienza, Moongaze Publishing, editor of Fragile Arts Press, author of Tumbled Streams


‘In Hand’, by Australian writer Amanda Joy, offers much in a diverse selection of poems. These are poems of love, desire, longing and language as experienced in these and other states. The common trope these days of the body as language is nevertheless used in many vivid and quite extraordinary poems.
Any reader who engages with Joy's poems will find many such subtle constructions, courage to confront the real, or the mysterious, and the general adventure of life and language. Knowledge and sometimes some ‘difficulty’ in this writing, thus enhances a life lived - but a life revealed in subtle ideas, and vivid images and sharp details, and as language, lived intensely. ~Richard Taylor, Conversations With a Stone


Amanda Joy's writing conveys perfect fragility as she tells of a world where beauty is temporary and to be held reverently for the moment it exists
~ Victoria Fotios, Sunday Morning Spiders