Stefanie Bennett- Three Poems

AFTER ‘A WINTER EVENING IN YALTA’         

 

And – I am clothed in Brodsky’s skin.

It is not alien. It fits

Like a noble hand-me-down

With its old wearer still breathing

Through voluble mendings.

 

The exile in me sees

A dissected day-break star

Lifting

                            The dream-ship of Anna:

                            The bloody Polish October.

 

New York City, Prague, the Great Divides –,

There are many

Cat-walks in your veins.

You house those catalytics, yet

They say very little these days.

 

Tell me... is it that

Insomniac moonlightings launch

Only left-over salutations?

                            “The Gods know if we’ll

                            See each other again...”

 

Friend Brodsky, I kiss the cataract

Of your eye.

I hail the torn sky and

Do my best to keep

Our penetrative night-watch burning.

 

Clothed in your skin I too become

Over-worn, twice as vulnerable.

 

 

(First published in The Foundation For

Australian Literary Studies. N/A)

 

 

 

THE VISIT...         

 

Time-slot? A sometime August. The book,

Rather – the pamphlet – holds

The ingredients of

Another Queenslander gone lame.

The Red Queen plaits her grief:

Drops the assessments

Into a Brown River. The folds

Of King George Square.

The University’s hole-proof apron.

 

Much later we wheeled in ‘the cold’.

Again, a one-bar heater.

The place setting un-auspiciously quaint.

Poets and shanty towns

Complement the over-occupied.

Cake – without frost. Coffee – non-sweet

At the double.

Didn’t I say – “The ear believes

What the heart forsakes?”

 

Selected climatic graffito bursts from

That pre-loved folder.

I add a pinch

Of salt. Contemplate. “I refuse

To let them die.”

Meaning, the versifiers

Gone before

Through the wintering

Jaws on nonchalance.

 

You... envied... me! (Tete-a-tete).

Choose a fate; any one.

Sweetgrass and sage blends

The smoked

Bearberry leaves.

These I import far below cost.

Ah! The one-bar hiccups!

- Near obsolete. Hand-to-mouth

Living is snug. Is contagious.

 

Outside, just for the record, we posed.

The wind-swept mountain roared

Of guttural terrain

As Cedar and Pine danced,

Contorted.

The storm-bird

Quipped and cloud covered. Recall,

I sent the black and white

Copy? And... postcard...

 

Answers come and go. I read of The Red

Acquisitions; am privy

To what’s called ‘border notes’.

My smudging bowl

Abundantly supplies opaque signs

Of the endangered ones.

Yesterday – I swear I saw

Old Mallku (Inca, for

Condor) ... hovering...

 

 

 

STANDSTILL     

 

Forget me. Place me upon your un-wanted list.

Tell your friends. Tell your family:

This stranger was no more than fiction.

 

Forget me. My words set your head aching.

Your body, a testimony of too much ruin.

Your young heart, fit only for breaking.

 

Go now! Speak with authority and confidence

On how to escape from the twin selves.

Take love’s grey ashes and bury them deep.

 

Laugh again, even if the laughter be shallow.

Buy back your spirit. It will be cold – but

No matter. Put on a warm front.

 

This is what you wanted! Your ghost has slipped

Within the key-boards of memory. There’s

Just an odd chord you’ll hear occasionally.

                                                            Ignore it.

 

Forget me. Forget yourself. The shutters go on

Creaking. The new moon is ablaze. The night

Lawn is silver... Inside the room the lamp

                                                            Is raining.

 

 

 

Stefanie Bennett has published several books of poetry. Over 40 years she has acted as a publishing editor and worked with Arts Action for Peace. Of mixed ancestry

[Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee], she was born in Townsville, Queensland,  Australia in 1945.