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DIAGONAL
"the unfaithful couple won't lie down"
Adam Phillips
captured in a snapshot of Kodak-yellow heat
we can't lie still, choosing to experiment
with the sexual chakras, the calm insertion
of phallic words into the sound sites
of our bodies, waiting for resonation,
an occasional climax striving for orgasm
& the echo & pulse of flesh, a brief ripple
as a soft light rips off Elizabeth Bay's
nightdress, exposes her thin bony ribs.
we watch waves entering moonwhite buildings
simply to lap on capsized wet dreams.
drowned voices from the Cross
rise up like ghosts, giving head to where we sit
discussing morality & the absence of bodies
along the infamous Wall, how clean & content
Sydney appears in this post-Olympic
morning-after, & the over-flow, two people
struggling to remain faithful, how we cast
hope & charity to the street as if burley
for circling sharks, the simple things
we haven't allowed to lie still
fearing that they might walk away
I pick up my bag but you call me back,
remind me, the sun has not yet risen.
Richard Hillman has just completed a PhD at Flinders University (South Australia), and has had another book published last year
(Jabiluka Honey: New & Selected Poems Bookends Books, 2003). He is now a contributing editor for papertiger (cd rom poetry journal)
- links available on web- since he had to let SideWaLK: an antipodean poetry & poetics journal slide late last year.
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