NOTES TO ANOTHER POET    [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

It’s the enigma of it all. And, as they say

In this country – I’ve a tendency

To ‘bat the breeze’. Forsooth, I am

A talker but I also walk

My tongue into the heart of action.

 

Perhaps... it’s in the blood spilled

On other shores. The pedigree

I refuse to mock. There, the hand

                          Of Campania valour

Would slap me on the back –,

Project, ‘Speech is richer when life’s poor!’

 

So – verbose or no, critical to the lee-side

Of sullen human nature

[... A term I’d not invent nor let loose]

I specify, ‘a mouth was not meant

To yawn itself to comfortable ends.’

 

Countryman, never of the same barbarous roots –,

Rather my words be pulped

By the olive-press; by the grape-

Treader’s feet and thrashing elbow than

Forget to breathe free union of thought. And

 

These opinions drafted first as epigrams, con brio,

Deserve the roughest plywood case

To let the fearless elements in. Later – when

The last mask covers both our names, there’ll

Come a constant whirring...

 

‘No comforting ends!’ Just nardoo, thistle, fleur-de-lis.

 

 

 

DINGO LINEAGE    [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

High-tech hermetic groans

From the parapet -

That’s an inner city paraphrase.

As they say, living’s diatomic.

 

Later, outbound where highway

Meets the sun

Head-on, a pencil line

Of long division calls me home.

 

Ladybird clinging to the windshield

- You migrate with finesse;

Colour strapped

In speed and earthen light.

 

Stopped outside a country pub,

The last groundswell

Before that spinifex

Regime takes over – you alight

 

With me. Taking your place

On the veranda rail

I hear you

                Click out

The most yellow of songs ...

 

Something to do with space

Molecular.