I
am currently writing a lot of prose poems. The poems just seem to fall
that way on the page, regardless of how they start out. Precision, brevity
and appropriate verse form have always been of value to me as a writer.
I’m trying to bring these things to bear on my prose poems, but to an
extent this mode is unknown territory.
I like the idea of a lateral narrative—telling a story in a way that appears
fragmented but has an internal, intuited logic. Of describing the psychological
reality of a story via the choice of literal descriptions. It’s hard to
do, and I’m not sure why it is important to me—my earlier poems have very
little narrative content, are more ‘still’ in that they take as subjects
particular moments.
I
guess I like the idea of following my ideas through, of testing the limits
of a metaphor until it hits the point of absurdity. And maybe drawing
some new, inferred meanings from that which will lead to new poems.
Way
of poppies, I climb upstairs – hurts to think, bliss to move. And I won’t dispute a cigarette on the famous corner. Hummingbirds; stars. I never saw how hemispheres breathe differently. Are hamlets of equal worth, is globalisation a mirage? An antidote to poetry could be spring in America – cures that make us stronger, champions of all we crave. “Long hair is a sign of patience if nothing else.” May mine become that shining river... Places aren’t of equal worth. Sudden cold in a forest, with ghosts of the lynched, streets in San Francisco, or the chicken factory on the highway to Geelong. Will memory fade, or grow more intense?
Winter
District
I throw
you bread below the roadhouse sky. I am a child and you, a bird. My mood of hope slides away
as the dust flares up like bolts from the sun. Sudden sympathy rolls out its red carpet for you,
as you skirt around my world. I forgive you. You can fly. You stay above things, not amongst them. Or rather,
strange forces assault you. Winds curled by spires and damage done. Walkers seem safe, like sailboats
and I possess no records, only my mind. Toll bridges stand at its entrance,
and the price? A word. I throw you bread below the nomad sky, as the roadhouse lights drop off.
Pelicans sleep far from home and misers think I’m lost. A child, a warm breath in the cold.
Black
River
Fumbling
home he sees tangles of chicken wire, and how he was forever clumsy, generous
whilst the desert entered his words. Or the image of a girl lying under
the moon. A sudden chill in his bones: he’s cold, feverish and cold, this
mild night. He craves relief from a flat world. From watching stones thrown
from a jetty, abysmal little stones in a bottomless pool, floating downwards
on some mystical arc, probably to surface again later in another country.
Coming home he feels nothing. Objects sold or thrown out over years. And
the people – all older. Pain is so filthy when it affects the body. Each
night, he stubs himself out with sleep. And her face will move with him
like fever when the sun has gone from the fields. Who is holding him now
like glass, with a like compassion? Black river, his second wind.
Silent
Running
Isolation
has made a still place for her pluralities, resurrecting parts of sailors’
lore. Waves form a tunnel of havens, the same water rotating tirelessly.
Skimming on that uncivilised green surface, in deep fog, what would confront
her if not this. There’s no closure in words like ‘loneliness’. Mirages
are projected hope, and land is hoped for less than closure. Rhymes, strange
vapour...
Cartography
For Two Brothers
Steep
hills force a rider’s breath. He’s like a rainstorm, softly sorrowful.Pure motives like bells? A hell just beckons to him – ugly – strangely
seductive. Riding, as symbols of a life decompose, reform. Like bones
knitting and the joy of old maps. If my brother hurts then I hurt. If
he wakes I dare not sleep. And it won’t stop, this vigilance. Because
in darkness hope can grow, as in a womb. Days dip into oceans of feeling,
and the rider cannot rest until he arrives at the other’s side. But who
needs care and who is frantic? Can injuries be traced to one body? “Surrounded
by desert stars, I want to touch their cool faces, I want to touch something
vast for luck. Besides terror. Look at the half-truths in this wild park.
Cities expand, and I compose my keynote speech, slowly unfurling like
two bright wings.”
Some
of these poems have appeared previously in journals and other publications,
including Jacket (e-zine), P.N. Review (UK), Meanjin (Aust) and Thylazine (ezine).
Bio:
Cassie Lewis was born in Papua New Guinea in 1974 and lived in Melbourne,
Australia until 2000, when she moved to San Francisco. Her work has been
published in literary magazines from Australia, New Zealand, the US, the
UK and in various internet journals. In 1999 Cassie received a grant from
the Australia Council. Her poetry is included in the anthology Calyx:
30 Contemporary Australian Poets (eds. Michael Brennan and Peter Minter,
Paper Bark Press 2000). Cassie’s first collection, High Country,
will be published by Little Esther in Australia in early 2001.