Joanna Walkden Harris & Pete Spence


The Slippery Edge.

a violin undresses a road sign at dusk
browsing blue strings to some passing crows

darkening the evening where the humming
of a plague of bees colours the air warmly

a sort of bee-life aria an evenness to the buzz
undoing the strings of a Stringy Bark glowing

through hollowed branches throwing a sonata
or two or a sonnet over the rising of some

woodwinds under a very spherical operatic
moon some right moves for some night moves

breathing recitatives vis-a-vis-a-vis mugged
by a baritone dismembering cicadas fleeing

the slippery edge of sopranos secreting
shadows maybe hire some stars to throw

a little sparkle over the deeper shadows
walking toward the horizon that melts

descaling the chorus distorting the view
turning over the one dangling leaf

where's the choir when you want them?



Militant Grasses.

summer vapours tumble into the harbour
mosquitoes breathe easily through this part
of the cosmos landing on a dogged ear of land
where ducks flash zealously in the wings
feathers settling into the outcrops

o! the dabbling brooks rush raggedly
to the perilous edges of the sea feinting
a little as it tiptoes over a festoon of militant
grasses whittling their way through even
the most serious landscape

of organized hedges slipping out into
the evening tide and plunging past a mesh
of sheep singing like amoebas in a storm
anguishing the forelocks of a few clouds
that would settle here if the offer

was even faintly proposed as they step over
the misty breath of sand banks staining
the air above gasping stones what would a pelican
think of this stepping over the sea weed
as the shoals fly north for winter





Joanna Walkden Harris is a photographer/printmaker/poet who has always lived in Melbourne. Born there in 1950.

Pete Spence was born in 1946. He is a poet, visual poet, editor, and filmmaker, and has worked in various jobs to cover the ongoing deficit.

A collection of his visual poetry, 5 X Y, was published last year by Red Fox Press as part of the C'est Mon Dada series.
 
 
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