ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Rico Craig's first poetry collection Bone Ink will be published in 2017 by Guillotine Press. Recent writing can be found in London Magazine, Cordite and Glasgow Review of Books. He has been shortlisted for the University of Canberra Poetry Prize and the Newcastle Poetry Prize. His poem 'Angelo' was awarded third prize in the Dorothy Porter prize by Meanjin.
Goodbye, a premonition
The first voice we hear is blue flashing lights
your mouth opens and sirens appear
Trains yellow-nose a hole in the summer storm
every minute there's a tremor
If it rains hard enough rib bones
flood from drains the cardboard city starts to melt
Eels flip on sidewalks and all
we remember seeps from leaves
Night dogs yelp our indiscretions
across the city's tiled back
Christians want to drag combs through our hair
and coax us with saintly intercessions
Their words are a mouth in motion friend is a hand
on the arm belief is the way you shape my name
Our vows are lifted from the menu at Happy Cup
your smile comes in three flavours
We're hiding from rain
clouds in our ears pinkies bound with sugar syrup
Saviours arrive in white smocks eager with motion first a van
then the promise of a bed for the night
Hands flutter in front of your milk tea smile
empty as a discarded cup
They tell me you have forgotten to breathe
their fingers dial up the future
I don't remember the name you had
before we met in this place
the letters they need to mark
your position on a list
Make you another life floating electronic
through space into sieved arms
Under the tracks we who remain
scratch pictograms into cement
We're up against the pylons
breaking soil for you
The dirt is loose so we dig fingers taut
brothers and sister thigh to thigh
We hit the water table black sludge
fingerprints worn smooth
Our bodies streaked in Botany black
loam on our cheeks shovel hands digging us into silence
My writing is often a fragmented investigation of place and transformative moments in the lives of young people. "Goodbye, a premonition" comes from the western suburbs of Sydney, from places where there are roads passing over creeks, where sometimes the best place to be is under a bridge with people you love more than you'll ever love your family. And as you wait there, out of the rain, you know something will go wrong, and someone will try in an ineffectual way to help, and the only thing left after they fail is to build a memorial to the people who were hiding with you. This poem is digging down into the soil, trying to find a way to remember the people who hid with us.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
