Carolyn Gerrish
Carolyn Gerrish is a Sydney poet. She has published five collections of poetry, most recently The View from the Moon (Island Press, 2011). She runs creative writing workshops in the community and at WEA adult learning. She is currently working on her sixth collection and hopes that one day satirical writing will save the world.
War of Nerves
sometimes the feeling nothing can harm you
the dizziness of freedom where anxiety’s
a useless passion & there’s no vigil waiting
for the end to begin you’ve lost the fear
life could just haemorrhage away or that the
mobile phone tower could morph into a Transformer
& ruin the suburb & there’s plucky Bette Davis
who after receiving a negative prognosis from
the handsome doctor claims I’m young & strong &
nothing can touch me
every exit
is an entry
somewhere else
but why are there so many security guards at the
Mall then there’s the worry of wrong weather
(this year summer was autumn) & those nimbus clouds
painters’ inspiration or evidence of Apocalypse
& that shadow just resting on the road becomes a
suspected portent & please note the asteroid
passing by us if we collide could certainly
take out a medium-sized continent so with
Armageddon averted for now one antagonist
is missing but the 24 hour news cycle never
stops as a rogue Afghan soldier kills
Australian troops
the disaster
takes care
of everything
Ground Zero
the omniscient narrator peers down the air
stoic rather than heroic no ignorant armies
(that) clash by night & Stendahl would find
nothing to swoon about it’s just a mess of stuff
detritus of the city’s zeitgeist & are these
your pets? dogs? camels? a baby in a backpack
on the way to Kindergarten Adventure Travel &
objects Jung would love to discuss a key for
no particular door residences are generic here
a torch to search for your neglected self a
globe of he world beginning to shatter after
ignoring all the warnings a lady’s hat housing
no skull & sheep & goats wander the street & he
shall set the sheep on his right hand but the
goats on the left a decaying apple brain in
cognitive decline when I am dead & doctors know
not why a life-size doll with attitude & paint
brushes that achieve an extinguished palette
but unfolding unfolding as being emerges
from concealment
After Rita Lazauskas, View from the Ramparts # 5
(drawing in charcoal, gesso, conte)