Michael Farrell
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Michael Farrell’s most recent books are a raiders guide (Giramondo), and as coeditor (with Jill Jones) Out of the Box: Contemporary Australian Gay and Lesbian Poets(Puncher and Wattmann). ‘word seen from a bus’ and ‘country from a mans neck’ were written during an Asialink residency in Nagoya.
word seen from a bus
Maybe a word i know. But the mountains are covered-in,
different examples-of forest different water reflects. A bittern rises
from the page like a stick &s gone, it was a vision, white
word of childhood myth. Read unread.
Its context, framed Perfectly, the single word was there room or time for another?
a word in the river.
Or the sky: hawk
perhaps. Man woman or sugar
Could be anything.
Readers snooze,
Its like the midwest,
Or eden-monaro,
At home id-know,
Feels like glass,
A name,
Lifted by a crane,
Word post-card,
With without wings-amen,
country in a mans neck
Happiness in the night, last.
I know where im supposed to take you,
on stage, for a moment.
the tiny venue, the throbbing figures
nothing i can quote, but i approximate
by writing there were lots of toys,
& Nothing like a jimmy barnes oh.
Nothing i can quote, but i approximate,
these notions come from reading books by tanizaki,
The absent pearl earring draws my attention to his dark white neck.
Ive taken off my coat & my popover & remain inactive cool.
halfway home between one & another like an oyster…
a less observant guy than youd miss my thirsty shoe…
(not a better metonym than ass)
‘alluring aspect’ –
(unknown to the uncolonised as scrub)
‘or greenitude’ –
no sun Fell Hard
on my mental verandah
or the mushroom underneath.
The product of short days