The art of telling

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In our family we held each day

in a slack semiloop

the stories always felt drunken

the art of telling like mapping

a thousand-foot ridge

 

the blue steal lifting me up

our hands palming stars

 

It’s hard to imagine

a day after tomorrow

it’s hard to remember

the silk-wrapped shimmer

of being young

 

the way I wanted four aces

without quite saying so

 

I walk to the creek

my father lifting me up

to wade across

our heads turned like street fighters

fish splash parting time

 

morning and evening spread and slip

when I look I see half of myself

swimming downstream

 

 

 

 

 

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Watching earthquakes at home

by


 

 

You can keep watch

on earthquakes at home

with odds & ends

scraps of copper wire

an empty tin of

Planters cocktail peanuts

a diamond stylus (never used)

a motor from an abandoned alarm clock

 

The urgent temporality

of underworld shocks

and death-dealing blasts

your new routine

 

Transported for a penny-a-day

to the Aleutian Islands

(steam rising from snow-covered cones)

or the fault six miles beneath the floor

of Sagami Bay

 

A permanent signature of

River Red Gums rising

granite tors splintering

rainwater tanks bursting corrugated seams

 

Marks for every minute

the turning drum inscribing

a parched wind  a cresting wave

 

our juddering palimpsest

 

 

Note:

Watching earthquakes at home was described as a new hobby in PIX Magazine, September 26 1953: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-467484165/view?partId=nla.obj-467517730#. The Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1 1923 emanated from a seismic fault beneath Sagami Bay in Japan.

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