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Kate Fagan - Poetryetc Featured Poet - Series 3, #13 ************************************ 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 ************************************ 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. ************************************ 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. ************************************ 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. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%