Kate Fagan - Poetryetc Featured Poet - Series 3, #13
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statement
history in form
dragged into dialogue
with a sense of cultural present
we perform _not just any experiment_
but, peelingly apparent,
_what must be done_
wringing from alluring parataxis
one measure of response
an ethics about living
collated in scrivening
in series
(from departure notes)
************************************
from return to a new physics
beside ourselves
we wait for light
and arrange lake things
spectating upon the inevitable
this breath pulls apart a dandelion
with related intensity
seed-heads
springing into maps
leaving speed
to other equations and valencies,
we are splitting prisms
hoping
for slow fantastic
disturbance
and pointing at nothing
as it empties
*
crossing flowers,
a morning becomes
instantly red and yellow
a trade of
perfectly animate matter
what is it about narcissism
that suggests
only deserved loss as an option,
when detailing the space
of conflict
is possible
and exquisite?
saluting air,
contesting vacancy,
we sift and pull among
calm strings of zeroes
*
we step into locations
and change them, or they
happen to us
this tries to acknowledge
a hazardous story
of occupation
as night fell over the hill
or a leaf startled
it became apparent
that the vista
would reinterpret us
space incremental,
collecting in events
the sheer height of the harbour
or the way one light
offered a series and clairvoyance
*
so a river repeats,
one narrative
of urbanite _getaway_,
water in service
to monotony's break
or a paddock
ghosted
by seemly gums
language squint
and referring
lyric interjects
demanding specific
impatient approval
quick like junk,
memorial about position
and meaning
*
the effort gathered in one digit
navigating one dense region of skin
pressing onto acculturation
this sensuality
resides in mobile boundaries
take off your body
accretive, porous, speckled
against imperious narrations
about perceivable objectivity
or becoming by
a creased lid
yesterday's struggle over syntax
untidy veins
until grass emerges
or moss edges between,
complex as water
*
or from this eye
to there
the peripheral catch
of wind
rocking wire
a shadow
redistributes,
becomes the impact
of autumn's way
of moving things
how to distinguish
sight from perception
leaning into description
pulling on letters
as they shift,
attuning eyes' work
*
superfluity
present elation
near a tilting bridge
a crowd
moving over
my bodies'
skew compositions
even,
openly
graffiti bawls
at each extremity
lips' density
uncertain,
words accident,
sitar limns
a high window
*
what approaches
immaculate indivision
there is nothing
we tease apart a rain
of spectra
cast in sentences,
each spit of matter
volatile, capable
pressing into a day's
peculiar gravity
in response to queries
about sincerity,
the text
patiently accretive
arranging scorched wrists, breath,
sweet morning, echo, ambivalence
*
and this
coruscation
close to knowledge
what else
can it offer
sky's break
over distance
puzzling clouds
version after version
of between and blue
a record for the living,
notice pinned
to detail,
observation and dream
cognisant
of light's change
*
here morning
is another inquiry
our body
waiting to happen
suspicious about placement
but not unhappily
i find this elegant
your hand's move
in rearranging
dust motes
on one quiet sleeve,
consequential
or how loose hair
eddies at a corner
with each absenting
and arrival
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from lighthouse series
Evolving map
spitting up a whale, dragged skein of a whale,
each current of hide or fin,
material density.
This and this step sinking,
unit of interference approaching a boundary
assembled in wash, blubber, observation,
folding silica, seaplant stem beside.
Cell decay, now regenerate
lingers on a hand attentive to bone jag,
unable to gouge
a twisted molar cavity,
quiet desecration perplexing.
>From every point on a sand crescent
a remnant worded, punctual as light.
*
Vanishing form again, zeroes
start up in surprise.
Or a table of sun, dragging
at my arms, a cast,
a way of responding to weather's gift.
Screen door enters. A music
of occurrence or one thought
punctuated & met by shore,
breath, prismatic
and exquisite. Shift as it does.
A scene happens and moves me
off a mote of regard
without anxiety. Stars of green
strung light to a stem,
convolvulate, strophic.
*
Again, speaking this present
and its rapid drift into distance,
proximate time spilt
among tenses. We acknowledge
how a moment moves
to local completion. You say
what is the moment. Adjusting scale
for each print, gesture or thing
pressed in as texture,
repeating later in a photograph
or letter, quieter & looser.
Some details pass unarrested,
there is pleasure in forgetting.
Subjectivities cohere and melt.
Cloud as cloud is.
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from calendar
(april)
Against a grey sky thought appears differently, drowning in soapiness. A
handful of change connects my hearing to a remnant of technological
presencing. Something unutterable comes to rest between two morning letters.
As soon as you begin the low walk down collapsing wooden stairs, a lens is
directed to record a sense of purpose and I am startled at what returns, weeks
later, in a quieter metropolis. Tulips and their messy gravity remember a
thing previously imagined, now actualised. A shared vocabulary, that
mechanical and cellular recognition. Cars glint almost charmingly along the
river. Buildings have their impressive disregard for sound. Everything happens
because of this chance encounter, a series of circles a street sign a long
pavement or music which appears crazily on cue, wrapping into branches.
Falling up adjunctive steps into a second scene. The future is just the
future, starting yesterday.
(october)
Muted trumpet absorbed by a cold watching dam, scratchiness of nights without
intimacy. The gap between expectation and eventuality. A stunning cerise, long
clouds turn between rows of glassy leaves. Nothing but the difference. A flash
of breakfast on Bourke St, a room glimmers, utterly you say. Already things
are receding. There are weeks where nothing happens but the memory of other
weeks, a pub near the hospital, contesting forms as evacuated shells, this
quiet appreciation. Meticulous jointed mornings. We can’t say for sure what
will not occur. Exact rounds of lotus, floating downhill. Events outstrip our
worded attempts to arrest them. A novel applauded, gathering in respectful
circles to provoke and reminisce, departure like the sun. The smallest actions
return storms of consequence. Declarations hold. Arriving to burn written joy
on the doorstep, trust stemming, displacement repetitive and indelibly historical.
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Kate Fagan (b.1973) is a writer and musician living in Newtown, Sydney. Her
work has appeared in Salt, Jacket, Meanjin, The Prague Revue and Calyx: 30
Contemporary Australian Poets (Paperbark/Craftsman House 2000). A pamphlet
entitled return to a new physics was published by Vagabond Press earlier this
year. Kate has performed and recorded extensively both here and overseas, and
is currently completing a PhD thesis on Lyn Hejinian’s writings.
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