a poem or something that kind of looks like one -
best
A
behind the baroque
mask a blankness
inflicting itself in concentric circles
she asks:
is this really my own damage
or a wound torn in others
that they must diagnose
through my skin
predictable as a tragedy
leached of all colours
in which the painted actress
pouts and blinks
such blackening tears that all response chokes
on the absurd
ancient seductions
smudging the heart
and again: finally
in the yellow dusk I understand
how a book opened prematurely
might be a fatality
dazzling the mind's innocence
so it forms a mirage
populous and exact in every detail
while the desert breathes
livingly beneath it
cheated of the eye
she asks again: what is more real
the life formed
out of our delusions
in all its tender
quickness of flesh or the vast
desiring cell
that mindless replication
swarming itself
out of its decay: or is this
not a question
the torment is always as the woman said
to find oneself speaking
like a bad novel though fiction is seldom
so misleading
as these selves we claim
to live by squatting
by middens of bones the sand
scours to whiteness
damasks of civilisation
woven by ill-used hands
rotting in those endless museums
of self regard
et cetera she asks:
if I have been asleep
how do the pains of dream
differ from waking
and how much does it matter?
this finger on this pulse
conscious as a snail
absorbing rain
--
Alison Croggon
Blog
http://alisoncroggon.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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