Pam Brown


Only a fool buys real estate
                                    for corey wakeling

just woke up 
as the gavel hit the brochure 

cladding as orange
         as the flames

the monster struggled
             with property

like,         once
the monster struggled
                with milton

had ye been there – 
for what could that have done?
                      (milton enquired
  anacoluthonically in 'lycidas')

here & now
who knows milton

plus             what's
      an anacoluthon

---

after the blaze

we bought a bottle of port
            to give to our host
but first we took a swig or two

that was
a normal exception

---

in the pink 1990s

neon lit bookshops
foamy cream beer
                    fissured
peony mosaic curios

analogy tiled the bar

the gay club
      in tatters

arson anonymous

---

behind iron & lace
marooned in post-cyrillics
   we found a few tea bags

valerian root
       that dark forest musk
        or garden heliotrope
(may cause mental dullness)

we dragged ourselves off
 down a hallway of doors
 & 
 toppled
     into an alkaloid reverie

Pam Brown has been active in the Australian poetry scene for decades. Her most recent set of poems, a booklet called Endings & Spacings, was published by Never Never Books in early 2021. Pam lives in Sydney on Gadigal land.

 
 

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