The we called but you were out card failed to distinguish itself
from the keys and the coins in the bowl in the kitchen.
Instead I spy my fluorescent green lighter and wish I could still smoke,
forgetting three times to remember the package has arrived.
Eventually, I mime the gestures of Christmas outside the post office,
puncturing the efficiency of cardboard and paper with a house key.
The box unfolds, revealing the book in its plastic wrapping:
a dry condom of literature. I consider swallowing
to mule the words across some border.
Printed, my name reads foreign. Opening another
page, I read another’s finer story and choke a little – moved by the words and
sensation of interloping. Jealousy. That twin of shame.
Stretching to feel more than this –
sadness to have ever felt such sadness
the eyes sliced open, the heart unwinding
the squashed grape, a comma I wish I’d inserted.
I’m honoured, weirded out, and excited to let you know that I’ve three short poems from my weirdo went no where manuscript, “We dreamed too long”, in the latest offering from Bareknuckle Books, which features a special celebration of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. I can only concur with Robert Adamson’s appraisal of Dollarbirds, by Melissa Ashley, and recommend you buy this.
“Bareknuckle Poet, an anthology edited by Brentley Frazer and AG Pettet is beautifully produced and packed with punchy reading, worth the price alone for two prose pieces, Currawongs by Martin Edmond and Dollarbirds by Melissa Ashley.” ~ Robert Adamson The Australian Weekend Review Best Books of 2015 THE AUSTRALIAN DECEMBER 19, 2015
eleanor j jackson 