Pam Brown


That yawn

it's quiet
it's dark

tonight's clouds
obscure a comet

only
a helicopter's
blinking lights
& 
a couple of stars
are visible

in here
words stuck
in a yawn 
between misquotes

poetry's geographies
become
coaching children in sport
someone else gets
sex in the bible

the status quo 
is the catastrophe

you wanted to be 
part of the big picture
but they demoted you
to car pooling

the west, they said,
is twenty recipes
for a boring sausage

you found 
the 
hidden aggression
&
whacked it one

at an experience
promoted as
'yell into the abyss'
you heard
the metal rattle
of the security grille 
shutting 




Typo cocoon 
              for Maged Zaher


a concrete buddha
carrying a sack
plonked to corrode
        on a plant pot
at the entrance
     to a festival
of domestic equipment

on an overstuffed shelf
handbook spectacle 2.0
is the when to
       & how to
guide to reading
               unread books

the 5th column
            narrows
& the class struggle
takes a sleeping pill

there is no now
but
the exhibition
          is open
&
straight white beards 
cheek kiss
the homosexual artist
                 (so politic)

eraser smudges
& strike-throughs
disrupt
your quivery blue cursive
          listing across
          ruled line paper

your poem softens
& slowly sinks
    into fibre's
         calm cocoon
    
if you have time
let's meet 
when the ampersands
             quieten down

let's get some sunshine
  down at the rockpool
&
laze in the photic zone
where the nixies hang out

Pam Brown has been active in various modes in the Australian poetry scene for decades. Her recent publications are Stasis Shuffle ( Hunter Publishers, 2021) and A Love Supreme (now orries press 2022).

 
 

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