Museworthy: Thank the Revolution for this Kiss

The pen pushed to your lips —

mute whore, silent gigolo...

It was after the rocks fell

and fire replaced the sky

that the sun slipped, invisible,

into the story around it:

War looks beautiful here.

Too violent for hospitals/

any cigarettes/

throat cut.

Shall we lay the bodies out

under a red sheet

or place them

over one that's white?

Over my dead, my words —

“I'll fight again.

Long live the new eyes,

the shout to come!”

Thank the revolution

for my literate heart, this kiss,

for these are mouths

and their instinct is to speak

as if passing food —

into other mouths.

The Law of Crimes

“Unsolved crimes tend to remain unsolved...”

Comment from a newspaper article.

of course I’m lying said the man who climbed

and picked the highest lemon from the tree

said the drummer who did not drum

said the woman eating shit from a spoon

chirped the bird guiding men to honey

clucked the pork chicken and the old lady

out of practice with the poor

lying said the saint in today’s labour market

said three burning stars trying to catch sight

of themselves in the mirror through

a barely opened window

also claimed the young girl ending love

and another bottling the spices of hell

and we too said the self-professed

who could be anything they chose

and as well the authors of their own reason

I was lying said the grandfather

pretending to be water issuing from rock

and so was I said the book

which was the sum of all books

all who spoke claimed to speak falsely

and the dignity around them

held no lies or contests and all in the end

were happy that unsolved crimes

tend to remain unsolved... until

it is alleged the dreamer asked:

what of the solved; were they, then,

ever unsolved?

BY MTC CRONIN

MTC Cronin has had six books of poetry published, the most recent being
Talking to Neruda's Questions and Bestseller (both Vagabond
Press, 2001). Another collection, My Lover’s Back, is forthcoming
in 2002 (UQP). After being employed for most of the decade of the ‘90s
in law, she has in recent years begun teaching literature and creative
writing at secondary schools and universities. She is currently working
on a PhD, Poetry and Law: Discourses of the Social Heart, and has
recently received an Established Writers New Work Grant from the Australia
Council for the Arts. Her books are available by contacting her at: <margie_cronin@hotmail.com>
or ph: (02) 9550 2918.