Clade Song 12 left

Clade Song 12

Semi-Optic

The sun’s immense geranium
is squashed against the screen.
Seduced by the siren
of the river’s closing eye,
I approach like the willows, our
shredded woes along the bank,
and dilate in the drift
toward the sea’s flowering shore.

Pelicans radiate with language,
a swamp hen draws an arc.

All afternoon, I go blind
in dense, green light.
My fear erupts sporadically
in a flurry across the bowl.

Underneath, ripples fan from a gentle elbow
where a miniature star might reside—

until those hidden convictions gnaw it to pieces
then flee, like the fingers of an opening palm,
through the streets of this liquid town.

 
Clade Song 12 Right
Stuart Cooke is an Australian poet and critic. His latest books include the poetry collection Lyre (UWAP, 2019) and a translation of Gianni Siccardi's The Blackbird (Vagabond, 2018), and he is the co-editor of Transcultural Ecocriticism (Bloomsbury, 2021). A new chapbook, Land Art, was recently published (Calanthe, 2022). He lives in Brisbane, on Turrbal country, where he lectures in Creative Writing and Literary Studies at Griffith University.  

 

 

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