Five poems for Deakin University Journal - Windmills


These five poems are to appear in Windmills Issue #5, thanks to Alyson Miller at Deakin University who publish the journal from Australia. They are part of a series I have been working on the theme of the Natural History Taxidermy museum in Tring
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/communication/literary/words-at-deakin/

(Allenopithecus nigroviridis)

the Allen's Swamp Monkey

I wet my bed
I made not my father proud
even my mother would wince
when I tried to swing
from tree to tree

I have only known alone
now is no different
that is why I killed that child
pulled its arms off
I did that okay, didn’t I?

I’ll drink your blood
as though it were wine
the policeman is my uncle
dance around your own bones
dig your own monkey grave




(Steggr)

the Stag

a rattle whittled from an antler
the animal had fallen by the
dead of starvation
the brown needle nittle
could be hewn or settled
with string or gut from the same carcass
instead it was placed point-first
beneath the fingernail of Ivan
and edged beneath
tick by tick
until he shared his secret
of fainted from the pain
we learned which herbs were poison
which rivers ran north
we learned the lathe of magnetism
and salves
made of mud and roots rotting
put to use as glue
to replace a fingernail, severed
now black in water’s blue





(Galago)

the Bush Baby

read my report
I am unafraid
we both know fear of death
controls you and not I

accusations of financial impropriety
reflect more succinctly
your desperation
than my bad book-keeping

I live where you visit
and in that space I thrive
treeless
glass lines the floor
here I have children with myself









(Aries Ovis)

the Ram

it is not unfortunate
that I am associated with lust
paramound
is shamelessness
in the steady cold

protrusions become intrusions
and then, suddenly
progeny are legion
then they become forgetful
of the sack, the funk

Vico knew Cyprus
as the Templars knew Malta
he spoke of corpse
as others speak of ‘sleep’
and I listen still
and rut





(Apteryx)

the Kiwi bird

I once had work

I repaired Cacti
using cotton

should thirst hack
from a flower its time
depriving it of it’s corded
bee
they would call me

I would gut the fruit
pickle its inner walls
a fix it an exoskeleton
of teeth and chickenwire
and brim it with tumblecotton
then I would sell it at markets
to pilgrims and lost lovers

a possession
for the dispossessed
of all but the forlorniest of hopes
as I am now

Samuel Twardowski

then, flying from the town

that stupid child, dimpled with deep renown

came to a river banked by graceful trees

he chose a myrtle from among all these

and hanged himself. the branch above him bent

the rich cord tightened. Gold haired and innocent

his head bobbed heavy as a poppy pod

Ramon Buenaventura

leave my corpse

to whomever wishes to burn it:

make an end

to the life we’ve made

warm my memory

and die gracefully

when you wish to

youth, in some way

redeems mediocrity

in the United states importance is only granted to best selling writers (the rest are part of an indispensable mudhole over which statues are erected). As for the french, all french writers are important. In England there are no writers of any importance to anyone: letters keep a safe distance away from the pub. In spain, before discussing weighty matters, it would be a good idea to explain to the people what a writer is. Above all to the professors, and the fleshy critics.

Takis Papatsonis

before the advent

I feel myself to be a man disgraced

great shall his reward be who without hesitation admits

the likelihood of error in every day of his existence

more wretched than the wretched hour is to measure it.

let is pass by unmeasured

and, if you find this at all possible, without leaving its traces.

William Hazlitt

to think ill of mankind, and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom

those who are the most distrustful of themselves, are the most envious of others; as the most weak and cowardly are the most revengeful

Marina Tsvetayeva

they blow themselves up with pettiness

as if they were swaying with drink

for such gentlemen what

is the sunset or the sunrise?

They swallow emptiness,

these readers of newspapers

Look, friends much

stronger than in these lines, do

I think this, when with

a manuscript in hand

I stand before the face

there is no emptier place

than before the absent

face of an editor of news

papers’ evil filth

Emile Roumer

high yellow of my heart, with breasts like tangerines
you taste better to me than eggplant stuffed with crab
you are the tripe in my pepper pot
the dumpling in my pears

your fesse is a gorgeous basket brimming with fruits and meat

Manuel Vazquez Montalban

when you are very old and I have died

one afternoon you will discover the special hours

the scent of setting suns

the profound darkness of the twilight air

on streets without return

you will wander eternally in search of the mirror

that restores happy moments

/ go out naked onto the balcony and piss on the world

before the closed windows execute you

Bartlomiej Zimorowic

the sun will faint from sudden fear
the face of the moon will be covered with gore
thrown from heaven by foul disease
terrified stars will fall and freeze
the earth’s foundations will jerk and rocks
like sea waves, will give each other knocks
all human craft, all human deeds
will be burnt up like moorland weeds

poets rape words. With ignorant dissonance
they croak away like magpies on a fence

my wedding dress is just a winding sheet
a handful of earth my dowry when I meet
the worm, my bridegroom: the grave, my marriage bed:
my children are the tears my parents shed

Ricardo Reis

The god pan isn’t dead.

In the disquiet that repose must bring to our lives
When all we do is think of what
We were, and outside
There’s just night.

The only freedom the gods grant us
Is this: to submit

How short a time is the longest life
And our youth in it! Ah Chloe, Chloe,
If I don’t love, don’t drink
And don’t instinctively not think,
The unmovable law weighs on me,
Time’s endless, imposed hour afflict me.

And the useless name that your dead body
Used, like a soul, when alive one earth
Is forgotten. This ode engraves
An anonymous smile.

Rule or keep quiet. Don’t squander yourself,
Giving what you don’t have.
What good is the Caesar you might have been?
Enjoy being the little you are.
The hovel you’re given is a better shelter.
Than the palace you’re owed.

Nothing of nothing remains. And we are nothing.

Calm because I’m unknown,
And myself because I’m calm,
I want to fill my days
With wanting nothing from them.

Alvaro de Campos

It’s before I take opium that my soul is sick.

I’m atoning for a crime in a suitcase
That my grandfather committed for fun.
My nerves hang from the gibbet by the dozen,
And I’ve fallen into the pit of opium.

If you’ve got the truth, you can keep it!

Nothing holds me.
I want fifty things at the same time.
I long with meat craving anxiety
For I don’t know what…

Don’t worry: they won’t cry for long.

You can be happy in Australia, as long as you don’t go there.

Alberto Caeiro

Love is a company.
I no longer know how to walk the roads alone,
For I’m no longer able to walk alone.

When spring arrives,
If I’m already dead,
The flowers will flower in the same way
And the trees will not be less green than last spring.
Reality doesn’t need me.

It makes me enormously happy
To think that my death is of no importance whatsoever

You can pray in Latin over my coffin, if you like.
If you like, you can sing and dance in a circle around it.
I have no preferences for when I can no longer have preferences.
What will be, when it is, is what it will be when it is.

One, like a child, I suddenly got tired.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

Dan Pagis

I died with the first blow and was buried among the rocks of the field
The raven taught my parents what to do with me

If my family is famous, not a little credit goes to me.
My brother invented murder, my parents invented grief, I invented silence.

We might imagine that the most terrible thing was Job’s ignorance; not understanding whom he had defeated, or even that he had won. But in fact, the most terrible thing of all is that Job never existed and was just a parable.

My teacher, the gorilla, is severe; does not approve that I’m a modest youngster

In the cage of the Siberian snow fox,
a distinguished prisoner,
they have installed the freedom machine.

In the blank space below, state
how long you have been awake and why you are surprised.

Sadegh Hedayat

What comforted me was the prospect of oblivion after death. The thought of an after-life frightened and fatigued me. I had never been able to adapt myself to the world in which I was now living. Of what use would another world be to me? I felt that this world had not been made for me but for a tribe of brazen, money grubbing, blustering louts, sellers of conscience, hungry of eye and heart - for people, in fact, who had been created in its own likeness and who fawned and grovelled before the mighty of earth and heaven as the hungry dog outside the butcher’s shop wagged his tail in the hope of receiving a fragment of offal.

The pressure which, in the act of procreation, holds together two people who are striving to escape from their solitude is the result of this same streak of madness which exists in every person, mingled with regret at the thought that he is slowly sliding towards the abyss of death…
Only death does not lie.
The presence of death annihilates all superstitions. We are the children of death and it is death that rescues us from the deceptions of life.

Generally speaking, it is ordinary stupid conduct that makes one laugh, but this laughter of mine arose from a deeper cause. The vast stupidity that I saw before me was part of the general inability of mankind to unravel the central problems of existence and that thing which for her was shrouded in impenetrable darkness was a gesture of death itself.

Morris Rosenfeld

the groans of slaves, when they are tired
awake my bitter songs
it’s only when I’m inspired
I reckon up their wrongs

don’t look for me where fountains splash!
Not there, my darling, shall I be
where tears are shed, where teeth are gnashed
that’s the only place for me

there’s steam and smoke and madness here
there’s no place for a guest to stand
I can’t so much as touch you, dear
for I have hired out my hand
Be careful! I’m a lion, sir!Don’t play your games with me
for all I have to do is stir
and mincemeat’s what you’ll be

Shumpo Soki

No single bone in my body is holy
it is but an ash heap of stinking bones
dig a deep hole and there bury these remains
thus, not a grain of dust will stain
the green mountains