Linda M. Walker


from I will not vanish

Then is it not not

A price is paid for my given name it’s alien plucked from the air flows through me a word said in answer to what what is table chair bowl pen book the name promises the promise is my name i was mistaken and yes won’t do it’s a nuisance i appear you appear in time in fate one mandarine one banana their smell like a dream and the mandarine orange the banana yellow and what if writing takes flight it rattles me the passage between prayer and spell narrow and rough as what carries me what carries murmurs and tourists from other stars the friend the ghost the wind



The loss that isn’t quite that

All kinds of bad thoughts surface it’s the land of grief who will come to stay who is here already who will heat the milk who will make me say inky words have i seen you lately am i stopping time am i running away i should put my glasses on stay inside it’s impossible it’s impossible it’s possible i can’t do this it’s possible words will make things worse and i’ll be stung by what words could do if i was someone else and i’m not and i’m lost in the loss that isn’t quite that but is too if i’m true so airily i do my job and walk below the earth and recall a shop and food with tight skin that today is even tighter and a drop of water in a deep cut on the table that I thought would vanish in a second is there an hour later a door closes it’s a grating sound



Heading for disaster

Adapted to the place i live but only just as i’m years beyond the hills and glittery lipstick shiny bells it depends on reading something breathy yet i feel desperate growing poppies and there’s poetry backing away and guilt i’m not wandering around making my presence felt i don’t want to talk to anyone the noise is birds waking a woman goes too far everyone knows what they’re doing i make mountains out of molehills i’m right therefore to lock the door nought is a word like sword the nice round sentence camps on the coast like a plate or vase or knife i can stretch a minute for hours



I will not vanish

Renunciation is not for me it’s an animal creeping close scalding and leaving is a crushing hushing tense somewhere passed past in the scrub or swamp and it is tense when i fall and a word i hate is yelled and everyone sees me walk to the counter and order a tuna sandwich and coffee and laughter fills the air and i will not vanish that’s the trouble i sit down and feel the warmth in my body what else is there to do do you think and if i did renounce what would it mean exactly eventually as a condition from which to proceed nothing easy i suspect nothing joyful and then the awkward angle of an imperative move summons a gesture a method a wish a round glowing bead on the floor dropped from a box

Linda M. Walker is a writer, artist and independent curator. She used to live in Adelaide, now she lives in Mount Gambier. Trainwreck Press will be publishing a chapbook of her poems early next year.

 
 

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