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 Im 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 todays 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 Lovers 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.