eleanor j jackson
  • Eleanor Jackson is a Filipino Australian poet,
    performer, arts producer, cyclist, writer, gal
    about town, feminist, freewheeler, and
    friend. One day, she is going to be an
    ideas curator. Which basically
    means, she will tell you
    exactly what she thinks.
    Until then, you’ll have
    to read between
    the lines.

  • BIO
  • Publications
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Performances
  • Press
  • Projects
    • Collaborations
      • Artology Remix
      • Chosen Family
      • DJ Thought Fox vs MC Lady Lazarus
      • Just Before You Died
      • Shave and a Haircut
      • She Stole My Every Rock and Roll
      • We Bury Not Burn
    • Performance Installations
      • A timely act of intimacy
      • Now You See Me
      • Side A/Side B
      • Social Climbing
    • Production
      • Melbourne Poetry Map
      • Peril Magazine
  • Contact

sometimes she listens

  • January 20, 2013
  • by Eleanor Jackson
  • · musing

with a glass
to the adjoining wall
between her home and the neighbours,

For often in the early morn
next door’s two year old, oblivious
to the drum reverberation of renovated floor boards

will run laps of the hallway:
thump thump thump thump thump.
And listening through the dome of a water glass

acutely tuned to the cliché of tiny feet,
she notes with neutrality that  –
having forgone children,

the vast acreage of her womb, the unburst seed of her ovaries
do not glow, or ache, or vibrate with deficit
she is replete.

And still – that sound!
the thump thump thump thump thump
is so generous: it gives and gives and gives.

Despite the years, she listens and remembers
when each wall was a canvass,
each meal a riot of taste, each day the virgin experience.

She wonders if in place of salty lithium pills,
depressives should be given instead tiny devices,
cued to play the fibrillation of small feet

running long hallways.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...
  • « Prev
  • Next »
Leave A Comment   ↓

Comments

  1. Simon Kindt January 20, 2013 · Reply

    If ever there was cause for a ‘fuck yeah’ button next to the like… this would be it!

  2. gnunn January 27, 2013 · Reply

    This really hit me Eleanor! So good.

  3. some lady January 30, 2013 · Reply

    Reblogged this on She Stole My Every Rock and Roll and commented:

    Words/worlds are colliding. Betsy Turcot, I feel a little gunmetal grey in the sky, stirring up ashes and embers, heating the kettle for tea. Can’t wait for the Anywhere Theatre Festival…

  4. Ali January 31, 2013 · Reply

    I really love this poem Eleanor, tiny feet are a powerful metaphor :) Ali.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

No incoming links found yet.


Blog at WordPress.com.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: