isawhitney

[isawhitney]

Lifetimes

I am on the train (i spend

much of my life in trains)

and a girl (a little girl, more

properly i guess you could

consider her a toddler) with

a Frozen bouncy ball (anna

is on one side and elsa on

the other, so that i am mak-

ing eye contact with elsa

and remembering my old

copy of the snow queen)

throws a smile my way.

[isawhitney]

Genealogy of Thought

I am what I am because

You are what you are, and

You are what you are because

Your mother is what she is, and

Your mother is what she is because

Her mother was what she was, and

Her mother was what she was because

A seamstress in Antwerp caught the boat over to Maine, and

That, of course, is why

Your grandmother was what she was, and

Your mother is what she is, and

You are what you are, and

I am what I am

And here we all are,

Reading this poem together!

[isawhitney]

My Life As An Edgy Poet, Pushing Against The Barricades Of The Mainstream (And Yes, That Does Include My Overly Long Titles)

Today I think I’m gonna write about my tits

Or something else fucked up, or even about

My cunt and make Judith Butler cry. I mean, I

Could write about our climate crisis and how

Our planet’s gasping like a whore on her last

Legs, or one of those other hardcore things

I read about in magazines that people want

To write about. Like cancer. Fucking cancer,

Man. That’s one quick way to write a poem.

Just say cancer over and over. Or name them

All. Blood cancer. Brain. That one where those

Blokes’ balls fall off. Pretty soon, the whole

Damn poem becomes a statement about our

Health system and our kids, which is almost

Guaranteed to win some kind of thing. A schtick

Is what I need, as an edgy poet. Some trauma.

I guess I could cash into all my racial drama if I

Wanted, but Americans have that basically in

The bag and as it lies my skin isn’t dark enough

For anyone to empathise with me anyway.

Well, it’s good to try, but really I should stick to

Musing on my tits and making Judith Butler cry.

[isawhitney]

What the Hon. Jemima Braithwaite, Late of the Stage, Said

Tired?

But yes!

too tired to think of an oration or to tango. indeed,

I’m far

too tired to type or even to minaret

(if that’s the word I mean, that is, and not a type of barbecue)

no,

darling,

my star power’s been set with a

use-by date,

In fact,

all my good soliloquies got used up years ago

(despite my many, manifold attempts)

and

oh my dear!

I appreciate you

coming,

trying on the cloak

and smoking jacket

and dagger of the artist,

telling me that one more jaunt

round the proscenium couldn’t possibly

hurt

(and can’t you hear the applause?)

but the salt of the matter is

speaking plainly

that the stage isn’t what it was

all the flashy new directors!

and these actors!

my heavens,

the WoPA-taught little sods don’t know anything!

why, I expect

that the devils would,

without any prevarication,

simply out-and-out say

the name of the Scotch play!

which play? well, dear,

what else but

Macbeth!

oh

shit

[isawhitney]

Haiku

Daylight leaks. Through the

Bamboo slats on my window,

Rash sunbeams drip in.

[isawhitney]

Me To You, Driving On The M11 At Midday In March

“It’s too much blue,

man

i’m telling you

that one more drop of

colour

and all that sky

it’ll well up - yeah, it’ll well

up at the edge

of the horizon line, until

the meniscus breaks, sudden-like, and

a great big

Warrnambool tear floods

the road out.

and then

I don’t know how

we’ll get to where we’re going.”

[isawhitney]

A Happy Little Poem

Today, I think, I was happy.

That’s enough for a poem, really,

But I’d like to stretch it out some,

Clarify things a little for you.

So, today I was - thinking back

And contemplating it - happy:

Content is the best word, perhaps,

Because I wasn’t radiant or at all

Built up, brick by brick, of joy.

Rather, I was happy in that quiet way,

Happy in the mode of an orange peel

Or an early chrysanthemum in Spring

(It is Spring, as it happens,

But I assure you this fact is incidental)

And I don’t know why I was happy,

Except for the obvious - I am happy

Because I am not miserable,

And because I have mostly all my teeth -

But the fact remains that I sat

Today, in the spring shrug,

And was quietly, commonplace-ly happy

For quite a while.

[isawhitney]

Mona Lisa

It’s funny,

When you look at it, that really

All my inscrutability,

My indecipherability

That critics, with agility

(and - it must be said - virility)

Have been working with facility

And their creative fertility

To assess

Is the fault of tummy trouble

And a little IBS.

[isawhitney]

Love

Scratch out your eyes!

Come on,

Scratch out your eyes with me!

[isawhitney]

this is not poetry this is just a list of me thinking of mental things to say

I wonder why we say

mental

when what of course we mean is just fucked-up

like a mother’s itchy love

or a rain full of rain full of raindrops

but then we don’t say fucked-up

I assume out of a sense of decorum or propriety

or a lingering want to honour the fucked-up things

like a tree unanchored with all its roots showing

or an old woman’s underpants in the breeze

no instead we say

mental

or deranged or confused or befuddled or befogged

which of course sounds a little like fucked-up but isn’t

not like hope

or the last ant on the kitchen counter with your fingertip primed to squish

and the mental things

which are boring things really

get all caught up with the truly fucked-up

like a stain on your third favourite shirt

or the window that you rest your wishes on

and then where are we?

nobody knows anything’s anything

not anymore

and the things that are fucked-up crumble

must do

like an end to a sentence without a full stop.

[isawhitney]

Thunderstorm, 25/8/24

Eyes pouring I watch her watch her countdown.

Out the window, the bolts and start Quickly now:

O

n

e

T

w o T h

r

e

e

F

o u r F

i

v

e

(and)

S

i

x

As the sudden soundwave crests and makes her grin.

[isawhitney]

Ode on Paul Cotterell

I can still see them sat down there: the man

and the dog. He and Theo, every evening. Stout

in his hand, he’d key into the thrum of the Drover’s Arms:

Farmer Murray whining at the price of good bull calfs,

A chiming of pint glasses. The man would overcast

His eyes and laze, but his crook-like smile

and the ears laid flat on his heart-dog’s head

Would tell you they were listening: he and Theo.

Theo: the dog in the corner, chin on the barstool. Theo

of the lager-coloured pelt. Theo with the lump

beneath his groin that wouldn’t go away. Until at last

the dog lay trusting on the veterinary’s table

And there was bile instead of bitter flowing

As the anaesthetic pulsed along: the sorrowful needle

and the man, eyes overcast. He and Theo.

Ah, but there’s nothing like a dog for bringing it home to you:

Leading you leashwise into that dark side-street,

Tottering home after closing time.

[isawhitney]

Double Dactyl

Carrily, carrion!

Emily Dickinson

Wrote in terse verses ——

She hadn’t the time!

Ecclesiastical,

Grim and fantastical ——

And did I mention, she

Did it in rhyme?

[isawhitney]

Please, Mrs. Avery

Sylvia’s mother says…

“I’m sorry to tell you this, young man,

But Sylvia’s broken it off. She’s a flighty thing,

As you’re probably well aware and - to be

Blunt - she just doesn’t care to talk.”

She’s typically found it enough

For the boyfriend of the month, but now

The phone will not stop ringing. On and on,

Until Sylvia’s mother can hardly stand it.

Turning to her daughter, she says

“For Christ’s sake, by all that’s holy,

Sylvie, will you please just talk to the lad?”

But Sylvia,

Packing in her room,

Pondering, red dress or white?

Or maybe the blue? (she knows the blue one

Drives the boys crazy) just widens her eyes

At her mother. “Please, you talk to him!

Tell him I’m busy! Or that I’m sick!

Come ON, Mum! Just get him

To let me alone!”

So Sylvia’s mother -

Oh, that long-suffering mother -

Picks up the phone again and says

“Look, Sylv’s preoccupied! In fact, she’s

Moving away. Out of the country. To Vancouver,

If you must know, she’s got cousins over there

And she’ll walk in the snow and take up hiking,

So please, PLEASE stop ringing us.”

But the calls keep coming, and

Sylvia’s father starts getting involved.

“Look, Sylvie, this has to stop. The man’s

Half-mad with phoning the house - I don’t know

Where he’s getting all the pennies from.”

Sylvia smirks, a little, over the dining table,

But her father keeps going: “If you would only

Talk to him, we’re sure - your mother and I,

Quite sure, he’d stop. It’s doing our heads in.”

And Sylvia stays silent,

Brooding on her cornflakes,

While across the room her mother says

“Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this,

But Sylvia died. Quite suddenly. Last

Tuesday, as it happens. We’re

Distraught, of course. Of

Course. No flowers,

Thank you. Yes.”

There’s silence -

A blissful, fumbling silence on the line -

Then one last blurt of speech

As Sylvia’s mother says…

“Yes.

Yes, thank you.

Yes.

Good day.”

[isawhitney]

My mother is lying in a pool on the floor. it used to be tile once (i think) or some kind of linoleum, you know, but we got it remodelled in 2007. so now it’s wood - good wood, mahogany or some other brown buffed sort of stuff - but the linoleum (or possibly tile) underlies it and you can see it poking up in places. interrogating this patchy floor, i could write up a post-structuralist poem but

My mother is lying in a pool on the floor. pool is a funny sort of word for a person. it’s tidier to sprawl or possibly to slump. only cats and water have the potential to pool properly, and to my mind that comes from the pure inertia of it. all cats (including mine) seem propelled by indolence, idleness instead of a spine. such a curious contradiction, and something i could surely write about but

My mother is lying in a pool on the floor. i’ve always been a bit of a one for lying (in both of its varieties). lying on a sickbed, lying up to God. lying on my renter’s forms while lying on a cream divan. and all lies, they say, work better when you’re on your back - too crude? language collaborates with me to make everything filthy, that dirty bitch. a racy personification that i could write reams on but

My mother is lying in a pool on the floor. And I expect that’s enough.

[isawhitney]

You weigh on me

Like a heavy denim jacket in the rain.

[isawhitney]

Vincent

They keep him drugged. Saltpetre clogs his mouth

up, and the laudanum he’s taking for the dreams has turned his urine

Brown - weak coffee-coloured. His brother sent him sunflowers

Once, but that was months ago. Those sunflowers

Must be rotting now; he can feel the stench of them in his mouth.

They cloy. Wet decay mingles with day-old urine,

Lover-like: a bedpan’s worth of dried and drugged-up coffee urine

Harnessed to the death of summer sun. Flowers,

Drugged survival and the pit, holistic in his mouth.

Underneath that universal mouth, the urine smiles like sunflowers.