next obsessed
the pink truth
moon
hugefullnow
hidden
risen
between Norfolk Pine branches
sprinklers meet heat
at our mozzie swarmed
feet
widening feeling
before the gates
shut
Originally published in the Red Room Poetry Project Sun Herald “Extra” Poems.
The stone of self worth
I thought I was spirit and didn’t matter
A fall and a view both sides
on the ridge of wiped memory
The petals blink in the rain
like a child who cannot hold her hand out for the strap
Asking for naked photos back
You may as well enjoy it
Because of you I don’t want to settle
His words crawled like snails out of his mouth into my pinned ear
I kiss the cold of seeing but not opening
Her body like a flag stuck in his skull
The rose of surgery
Originally published in the Red Room Poetry Project Poetry Crimes.
the familiar grave grit in my eyes
a forgotten unbroken roar of ocean under skin
betrayal caught in the blades of the ceiling fan
I open the curtains to the forgiving page
the storm in a cradle
the flickering leaves aflame
the bed porous
I remake movement every morning
poured into the shape of a shelter
from shame
a cup of hands
I cannot remember without a swallow
solitude a cool glass of water
unkinking the hose
after too many coffees
watering plants bathed in light
she got too close to the dying enquiry
it reignited
her throat caught fire breathing the text
a cup of water poured over the drain and constricted larynx
nobody listened to the content of my mother’s complaint
I did but she didn’t see me
the rain came down with the words
From Claire Gaskin’s collection, Ismene’s Survivable Resistance.
the mattress holds the heat of the mind haunted
e dream-rivers reason with the tree roots to remember
the cradle flinches in the breeze fracturing
holding through the night of nights de-realized
this journey does not involve going anywhere fragmented
my mind outside my body having a body is to blame
pulling the rip cord of silk self-blame
not present feels like I am ghosting haunting
my skin alight with the pain of a refrain fragment
blood to forgiveness throbbing in my knuckles remembered
narratives run through my fingers de-realized
time calculated in the imprint of my face as the clay fractures
the stone dropped into the pool of my pelvis fracturing
I forgive you father for you have sinned and are to blame
the glass of water on the window sill reacting to the foundations de-realized
I am matter I do matter I am a spirit haunted
thrown into the sea of ancestors remembered
my feet are rubbed out as the waves fragment
the ticking of the passing bike in winking time fragments
I see the effect but not the cause fracturing
the floors worn through in a puddle of raw wood to remember
my hands mangled birds the weather blames
you cannot perceive the imperceptible through perception but meaning is a haunting
awareness is one thing action is another substituting is depersonalisation
disintegration of identity experience de-realized
how traumatised people talk in sentence fragments
a demolished base is not a safe haunt
scenes flash topic switching and my credibility fractures
the two major tasks in life are to love and to work not to be blamed
the more severe the less remembered
I fight through the curtains to get into my psych’s room to remember
the smell in the dark of my mother’s wardrobe their bedroom depersonalised
it’s harder to be autonomous when the culpable don’t take the blame
in murky water hair in waving reeds submerged trees and bone fragments
on the surface of the lake the clouds fracture
wanting it to be other than it is doesn’t stop the truth haunting
a poem is re-membering in collaged fragments
limits de-realised from forming fatigue fractures
a child with no outline feels to blame it is an oceanic haunting
From Claire Gaskin’s collection, Ismene’s Survivable Resistance.
I can tell you about powerlessness
step one
knowing it is going to happen and being able to do nothing
Antigone chooses to die rather than survive abuse
pinned down his sweat dripping in my face
saying you may as well enjoy it
something severed it
wasn’t love and sex it was abuse from love
he didn’t love me
all my abusers before that had loved me
I dreamt I was walking through the rubble of my family home
seeking shelter there
I loved them that is what children do
consequences of knowing things I could not believe
I had sex again with him to make him feel
I could have learnt
not spent a life trying to make my abusers love me
if I’d been able to be present
my boyfriend’s parting words it’s not the same
he came back thirty-three years later
said he could have dealt with it better
believing it I knew it was not true
sitting on the steps of ourselves
cleaning my feet
constantly re-traumatising each other
I did my best not to survive it
meet and repeat the annihilation in addiction
I am here because I know about a life time of refusal
I dreamt I was painting
I wasn’t in control of my medium and I had the wrong brushes
you don’t have to believe to pray
survival is the radical act
wasn’t I reason enough for her to stay alive
what is survivable resistance
Polynices was already dead
I know the Greek Tragedy thing once it is set in motion it must play out
but I’m still here to feel the sun on my body and the water to witness my blaring heart
my abuser was giving me admission
something my family could never give me
I have to grip the arms of my chair to stay present
I use sex to avoid intimacy
did she love Polynices more than life
is that love
she made him her god
I get that she felt like he was irreplaceable
what was I
but so was she
sister
I could bury my dead in private
she needed it to be seen by other
is to survive it to comply
she died to what they call sanity logic law so I could live
she covered up that the first burial was mine
I couldn’t stay in the house with Creon
I took off
got as far as Sydney before I met someone
we swam drank had lots of sex moved on to the next beach whenever we wanted
a job at a magazine the editor had sent everyone out
lying on a hot rock by black water
the sound of metal bowls being placed on the ground
I am left I am what is left
my body a bargain with presence
where things move in the breeze
it was the gaze of the train
the inevitability
the lake hollows the sound of voices
From Claire Gaskin’s collection, Ismene’s Survivable Resistance.
I
I stumble on steps that flow with water
we only do this because we love you
I dreamt my boots filled with water
leaving drags afterwards
when you left I drank a bottle of scotch a day
the anaesthetist asks if I can climb a flight of steps
our story leaves a trail of bread crumbs for the birds
your flowers between me and the man opposite
he says no to any more treatment
on a suspended staircase that waits
I’ll pray for you, I love you, god bless you
my body weighted my mother’s valve leaks
as you drive the sun halves you
through polarities our life in pieces
2
through polarities our life in pieces
I stumble the stereotypes flow with wattle
we only do this because we lullaby you
I dreamt my bootlaces were film
leaving drags afterthoughts
I drank a boulder of bougainvillea when you left
the analyst asks if I can climb the flight of stalemates
to tell our story leaves a trail of breadwinners
your flowers between me and your management
a no scalds to any more treatment
a suspended stamen waits
I’ll pray for you, I’ll lug you, I’ll lullaby you
my body weighted in my mother’s vapour
drooped the sundial halves you
3
drooped the sundial halves you
through polarities our life in petals
you lose your footing on the sandbar
the sea rocks us together locks the sea out
to go in deeper you had to come in closer to shore
what would happen if I allowed myself to feel
your promise a stone of anxiety
the broken wrist of the beer glass the wet asphalt
I feel the rest of our timeline wet salt skin
a slippery afterbirth ribbons through my fingers
the cicadas are so loud
so the birds won’t eat them
the extremities are easy it’s in-between that’s hard
can’t see the person for the paper cut-outs of profiles
4
can’t see the person for the paper cut-outs of profiles
the years break like facts
the years fall like anchors
you lose your footing on the sandbar
the seabird rocks us together locks the seer out
to go in deeper you had to come in closer to shortage
what would happen if I allowed myself to feel
your proof of aphorism
the broken writer the wet aspiration
I feel the restatement of our timeline’s wet salutation
a slippery afterbirth riddles through fires
the cinders are so loud
so the births won’t eat them
the eyes are easy it’s in-between that’s hard
5
the eyes are easy it’s in-between that’s hard
can’t see the personality for the profundities
the years breakfast like angels
the yells fall like anecdotes
my memory is a bruised apple
the sink unblocks as the alarm goes off
the fact that we are together again proves
the inner worm as boneless as the outer world
I sew cumin seeds into the seams of your jacket
I fear sandand living life not accounting for
in your reappearance is your disappearance
his dingo breath hot in the face of you leaving
the sand from our day in my bed
a cloth over the mirrors
From Claire Gaskin’s sonnet series Eurydice Speaks.
we live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us
says Austen
the dead are useful as paperweights
practical like a piece of soap
in a stocking
tied to a tap over a bucket
in a front garden
three pots of tea I sit here
while the cafe is selling cool and the look of the staff
the body must be heard
says Cixous
the moon is full
the pain in my uterus
she keeps pulling
her blue tailored shirt down
over her lower-back tattoo
my mother on the phone shocked she has spoken
to my dead father out loud
suppose, for instance, that men were only
represented in literature as the lovers of woman
says Woolf
her orange-singlet breasts
rest on the laminex
she leans forward as he leans back
the glass holds water
the rotating blades of the ceiling fan
and light
A Very Easy Death, de Beauvoir says
The sight of my mother’s nakedness
had jarred me. No body existed less for me:
no one existed more.
their graves are shallow because the soil is rocky
a child of sand
the wind remembers
and blows away
a world of comfort and family
that disappears when the match goes out
part of her dress
hangs out the car door
as she drives past oblivious
cool defines itself by what it rejects, it has no substance
and the workers are pissed-off by what is required of them
Woolf would say it’s not good to work from anger or defence
so long as you write what you wish to write
she says
for another six pages while my vegetables get hot in the car
functional like a piece of soap in a stocking
tied to a tap over a bucket
my heart a paperweight
on a fiction of self-possession
From Claire Gaskin’s collection, Paperweight.
there is no story
just letters the cormorants form
in the sky
when flying
in changing
formations
their feathers are not water-proof
you bought him an umbrella
these birds are well adapted though
to life in and around water
he wasn’t dressed for Melbourne weather
like eggs
hope and belief are self-contained
the brown warbler’s song
goes up in scale like a question
keeping finality at bay
the yellow-throated honey-eater
takes wool
from clothing and floor rugs
it is not distressed
by snow
rain
death is an umbrella that doesn’t keep off the rain
tears came to his eyes
when you leant across the café table
took a thread from his top
for their nest lining
goldfinches have been seen taking
cobwebs from clotheslines
the nest is neat, cup shaped
made of grasses, cobwebs, strong fibres,
with a lining of down or soft material
this bird witnessed
the crucifixion
it tried to pull the thorns
from the crown
was left
with blood
on its
face
this is why
these birds are so often found
in and around thorn bushes
this is why
after you asked him
if he was attached to that bar stool
three hours later you saw him
in a romantic embrace
with the stool
on the dance floor
he is like Christ
in that he has lived hard and will die young
the egrets
walk with wings drooping
hunched as if they are sick
eyes downcast
James Dean scuffing feet
full of importance
the Indian Myna’s nest is crude and
untidy, made of grass and often the
paper of torn poems
the palm-cockatoo blushes
the red patches on its cheeks
turn redder when . . .
what happens when we lose the story
we mimic ourselves like drongos
‘I’m not a single-mother, never seen a double mother’
moves you a sun dial
relaxing in the downpour
his flattery and promises
only making you realise
the depths of your aloneness
there is a story
of a small boy
who ran
around
and around
a perched owl
convinced
that the bird’s head
was following him
in unbroken
revolutions
when really his
reverse head turns
between acceptance and enemy
rejection and friend
lover or self
partner and other
were too quick to observe them
From Claire Gaskin’s collection, Paperweight.
walking away down the bluestone lane
I saw him wipe my mouth from his kiss
windows watched from Rodin’s I
the keeper wolf said to the
I saw him wipe my kiss from his mouth
when I the first colour I heard thought I’d get up
the keeper said to the wolf
you don’t need to hunt now you are now being fed
I thought I’d get up when I heard the first colour
reflux like my childhood
you need a mate now you are being fed
her weapon is safety to scare me with her
my childhood like reflux
exist, addict I I
her weapon is to scare me with her safety
I dreamt I was the wolf keeper and the wolf
I exist, I addict
the wolf had eaten its mate’s legs
I dreamt I was the wolf keeper and the wolf
I was the wolf and the wolf’s mate
the wolf had eaten its mate’s legs
the wolf couple had an offspring
I was the wolf and the wolf’s offspring
the wolf couple had a human offspring
the wolf couple had an offspring
I watched from Rodin’s windows
the wolf couple had a human offspring
walking away down the bluestone lane
From Claire Gaskin’s collection, Paperweight.
after Sacks’ The man who Mistook his wife for a Hat
she made a mosaic out of all the cups she threw at the wall
I saw an opening
at a party in her garden
it was yellow and soft petalled
there is always an element of surprise in delight
I had never watched one open before
the brain has no pain receptors
with the skull open like a cup
the patient awake and answering questions
(the neuronal memory effectively regulates the implicit reduction)
the rain is awake
down your back from the tip of your plait
down between the cheeks of your buttocks
awake to the earth of you
—–man does not consist of memory alone
(the molecular ability intracellularly records the cellular reflexes)
—–Sacks said Nietzsche said:
—–Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit
(motor synthesis allows electrochemical habituation)
—–it animates the prosthesis
I am rent free
I have been living in the house of my body
all the windows and doors open
curtains wet with rain billow and whip
I sit
to remember is to put back together the dismembered
I close your hand around the open eye of the torch
—-Sacks said Freud said:
—-neurosis is reminiscence
(central interneurons close short-term amnesiac connections)
—–a phantom limb is essential if an artificial limb is to be used
the sky is so blue it has forgotten
every window is a ghost
—–disease as seduction
—–the vagueness before vision
—–a wellness can be genuine even if caused by an illness
and don’t let affirmation be an excuse to hold on
extinction blue
the cloudless sky
is opinionless
(lasting phosphorylates regulate behavioral transmitters)
extinction is not the same as forgetting
you replace one habit that holds up a beam
with another
—–you can only spot a deviation if you can identify a norm.
From Claire Gaskin’s collection, Paperweight.
Claire Gaskin Poetry 