Miguel Jacq's Blog, page 3

marker horizon

Sometime between mid to end of February

the night cools down, makes audible of

circadian rhythm stabilising

and the concrete letting out

a breath.

Somewhere a map carves out something

for itself,

divides the land and lovers.

A headache occurs, heart breaking.

Spray meeting shore, a thought erodes

or is chosen to forget.

History perseveres,

commits the moment to memory

in soil

still warm and beating.

Filed under: Poetry

the last poem of my 20s

This is the last poem
of my 20s

Not even a revision
will count

Even if I choose to
forget
as I have other

wars
in my 20s

This is the last of
the hot July
or snow-capped

Christmas,
and all the other things
that never happened

This is the last drop,
a dividing line
in my relating world

and all the sand becomes
different
from here

this is the last poem
a telescope stretching
a universe groaning

watching it escape
as gas does

wild and instantly
everywhere
up into the blind

relief of night

Filed under: Poetry

cryptograph

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...

Nine Year Microwave Sky

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...

trainwreck

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...

anti-inflammatory poem

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...

Magnetics is on sale!

Use the coupon code 'MAGNET' to get 20% off my second poetry collection 'Magnetics' - available until the end of the year!

That's $10.40 AUD with free shipping. Only 20 copies left so be quick!

http://store.migueljacq.com

A recent review of Magnetics:

"Fresh, contemporary, moving poetry.

Words and phrases are manipulated in intriguing ways, with careful subtleties heightening the mood and concept.

This is an intricate, exciting read and is best enjoyed slowly."

travel

I was awoken by a buzz,
a mobile phone, a
splinter cell malevolence

I was a single thread,
poised,
a silence before
Higgs decisions

I was a mid-afternoon
between shifts,
a southerly wind
perched like a cold heart,
ambushing
an Australian November

I returned
from the mother country,
broke the clay on my face,
wondered
if all my chances
missed their fly-by
past the new moon

I felt I may have been
cast
by Rodin’s lover,
my head in my hands,
having spent one day as a lion,
or as Atget’s gatekeeper,
not yet unsettled
by Haussmann dreams,

by being dragged
by the gills
against the tide,
or a raging
change,
a splitting ear of
bells and whistles.

but still I trailed back,
different as every time,
an uncoiling spring
scattering crumbs
up the arms
of the GMT,

my mind a steamy soup,
a foggy sensation,
an over-cooked idea,
a thirteenth Apollo
sprouting from the ground.



I was awoken by a buzz,
a reverie strangled
in its sleep,
and ever since then
my dreams
tease
their dancing partners,

sending mixed signals
to radio towers

but they always return
home
when the black coffee
of that sunless space
calls
for last drinks

--
http://migueljacq.com/2013/11/21/travel/

Sunday the 8th of September, 2013

dreamt I made
an autonomous man
from metal

sent him to be
my eyes and ears
sent him on a slingshot

to the sun
as a domino of demi-gods
rained down,

fossil record graffitied
with the ashes of
refugees.

I woke wiping the grit
from my sockets
and looked up to see

the dormant decision
roll across the Australian
sky.

--
http://migueljacq.com/2013/09/08/sund...

‘Magnetics’ reviewed on Unlikely Blond

Jeremiah Walton of Nostrovia Poetry / Underground Books / Unlikely Blond has written a positive review of my book Magnetics and given it 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Check it out over here. Thanks Jeremiah!

Add the book on Goodreads