Thom Sullivan



Omina


you can’t see me from where you stand
spanning two continents : laurasia
& gondwana : the hemispheres
of the ancient brain that knows itself

only as the bird-brain : the songbirds
of an epoch tiered in silt & clay :
i’m the wishbone of a song :
a spine of song cracked open to mark

a page : winging in with a multitude :
papyrus-feathered : shore-stoned :
the hemispheres lighting up in tourniquets
of red & blue : of wine : of gentian :



Fugue


tonight you’re driving crosstown : through
the rainy twilight of a poem i haven’t
written yet : licked by streetlight : shadows
slipping through the car : cold-blooded :

over the dashboard : lightning rolls
around behind your eyes : untempered :
clouds with their pin-ball ache & flash :
you’re driving back through the smoulder

of a song that burns out & reignites : the
hemispheres discharging bolts : garlandings
of throb & swoon : your vision, fine bone
china : porcelain with a hairline spark :




Thom Sullivan grew up on a farm in Wistow/Bugle Ranges in the Adelaide Hills. He had a short collection of poems, Airborne, published in New Poets 14 (Wakefield) in 2009. Since then he's edited or co-edited seven published books of poetry. Most recently, his poems have appeared in The Best Australian Poems 2014, The Best Australian Poems 2015, Australian Love Poems, and as part of Australian Book Review’s “States of Poetry” series. He was a featured writer at Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2016.
 
 
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