Miguel Jacq's Blog - Posts Tagged "australian-poets"

It always comes back
rushing in,
one fell swoop
of southerly,
the grass turning heads
in a stampede,
stopping some sightless
traffic as if to
gridlock the earth
with her glamour
and airy graces.

You don’t fight back
but instead let her cool
fingers run through you,
attempt to be weightless
instead of spineless,
to be taken for a ride
instead of kidnapped,
to where stiff old stone
doesn’t crowd around,
murmur of stockholm
syndrome among
the weeds in your yard
and your story.

It always comes back
rushing in,
but only after the heat
has been trapped
in too long, like you,
and you stand in the path
between bricks,
seething,
waiting to be turned
into gossamer.

-- originally posted at http://migueljacq.com/2014/01/26/anti...

Worlds away in the grey
harbours of St Nazaire, I saw railway tracks
embedded in dockyard walls,

where the concrete was called
to arms
while human shields
and sister structures

were smashed to dust.

My grandfather wore his medals
embedded in his chest.

Having outlived the organic,
the gaping maw of metal is
stopped mid-scream,
mistaking me for a soldier

with my trigger-happy finger
ready to expose
more horror
onto Instagram.

And I freeze, then,
reminded of Fed Square
yawning at the sun
10,000 miles away,

its visitors oozing
a thick tourism blood
into the streets, where our
concrete and tar carry it in veins of

King, William,
Queen, Elizabeth.

So I travel back there,
back home,
to my other invaded blood-city

which has more carefully misplaced
its history
in so short a time.

Where is the memory of conflict,
that tired one-way ticket,
the message which should be
plain for all to see,

as it is in the railway tracks of St Nazaire,
whose docks you still can’t catch a train
to Tullamarine
to do so?

-- originally posted at http://migueljacq.com/2014/01/27/trai...

This poem was one of eight shortlisted for the Australian Poetry Science Poetry Prize in 2013. Here it is again in case you missed it.


Nine Year Microwave Sky

You thought you could dive through time
as you did the seventh waves
of Cape Conran as a child

You thought the gaping black
was hollow,
except for the odd miracle

languid and creaking, bejewelled
in moons and singing.

But it’s a dusty contradicting force,
full of debris and decisions
colliding like chance love.

You didn’t realise your ballooning mind
dined on curiosity
at the periodic table,

impossibly expanding in
the belly of a finite law, stuffing

hot stars into your skull
[ as much as its pockets
could hold ]

You didn’t notice your flesh
was blushing,
even as you lay your cooling gaze

on me

I didn’t notice
because my newlywed’s red dress
had me burning up

on her entry.



-- -- more about the Nine Year Microwave Sky can be found here and here

-- originally posted at http://migueljacq.com/2014/01/29/nine...

write it down,
your whir of brain,
of algorithms dancing

to a tune
only you know.

key it in,
this cipher spider
you pseudo-random you.

pattern on the page,
hidden in plain sight,
a braille, a treasure map,
a most dark chocolate
of secrets.

I implore you
to keep your private key
private.

see your string,
your electric eel
swims to me
fragmented

assemble
chinks of armour
to the obsessive music
of order

until I have your thoughts
in sequence
and in snake oil



-- originally posted at http://migueljacq.com/2014/01/30/cryp...