Crayfish, pilchards,
ocean jackets and sharks
Octopus, sea urchins,
sea snails and scallops
Sand crabs, abalone,
garfish and whiting
Shush,
the oysters are sleeping.
after Michael Farrell
this is the fish that plays dead on the neon gravel
falter feeder land grab to the under gravel filter
then this: Whiskers, java fern, Anubia sp.
If rhizome, then eternity. And sex is left on land
But, if roots and flowers, pollen swims. No doubt
our positivist overlords have prepared
some scientific explanation for the persistence
of aquaria. A problem of pure finger ( )
Paradigm A is sitting in a tree watching fish
Pardigm D is one of the fish only. Don’t forget
Paradigm Before and Paradigm Christ.
There! The bottomfeeder wakes and mosies on
past plastic plants and plecostomus. Will
( ) help when the filter either fails or never stops?
Choral Adithinngithigh Adnyamathanha Aghu Tharrnggala Alawa Alngith Alyawarre
forest at Amarag Ami Andajin Andegerebinha Anguthimri Anindilyakwa Anmatyerre
dusk and Arrernte Atampaya Awabakal Ayabadhu Ayapathu Badimaya Bandjigali Banjima
gusts of rainbow Bardi Barngarla Barrow Point Bayungu Bidyara Bundjalung Bunuba
lorikeets, tides and Bunurong Djabwurung Djangun Djawi Djinang Djiringanj Djiwarli
settlements of lorikeets Doolboong Dungidjau Dyaabugay Djabirr-Djabirr Dyangadi
fill the aural branches with Dyirbal Eora Erre Flinders Island Gaagudju Gajerrong
wars, avalanches of orchestras Gambera Gamilaraay Guguyimidjir Gumbaynggirr
and song, clashing into sound. The Gundungurra Gungabula Gunin Gunya Gurindji
Jingulu Jurruru Kabi Kabi Kala Kayardild Kija Kokata Kok-Nar Kukatja Kuku Thaypan
corpus and philology of his loved, lived Kuku Yalanji Kuku-Mangk Kuku-Mu’inh
language was a flock once of words different Muminh Kuku-Ugbanh Kuku-Uwanh
to any other, but when he is gone, this dictionary Kuluwarrang Kunbarlang Kunggara
will close, so they send him children to teach. He is Kunggari Kunja Kunjen Malgana
Malyangaba Manda Mandandanyi Mangarla Mangarrayi Mangerr Mara Maranunggu
a keeper of a whole world’s swallowed syntax, heavy heavy Marti Ke Martuwangka
expectation for a Shakespeare to own a whole vocabulary, but Martuyhunira Maung
for this one man, almost too much and the strange birds peck at Mayaguduna
the roof of his mouth searching for all his forgotten irreplaceable words. Okunjan
Paakantyi Pakanha Paredarerme Peerapper Peramangk Pitta Pitta Pinigura Pintupi Pini
There are other birds coming down to the branches: Eastern Rosellas, King Thaua
Parrots roosting, not threatened but not so plentiful as this brash, eager army,
calling out. How could anyone know if one of these birds stopped singing?
Wadjigu Wagaya Wagiman Wajarri Wakawaka Walangama Walbanga Walmajarri Wambaya
Wamin What difference would it make to the song? Warlpiri Warluwara Warnman
Warrgamay Warrungu Warrwa Warumungu Wandandian Wangaaybuwan Wangai
Wunambal Wurla Yandruwandha Yankunytjatjara Yan-nhangu Yanyuwa Yawarawarga
Yawijibaya Yinggarda Yir Yoront Yir-Thangedl Yorta Yorta Yukulta Yulparija Yuwaaliyaa
Before we were trees, we were humans, and before that dogs, slobbering, swallowing,
readying our mouths for poetry. Tell me. Paws calloused thick as wood; fur grass-coarse;
pleasure here, and here, and here, in the rootless running ground-parallel spine. This same
almost-wordlessness, a forward leaning hunger. And then. We stood up and put on shoes,
took them off, put on clothes, took them off. We talked and talked and made open-handed
gestures, like this. Put down pens, picked them up. The dog-joy, sometimes, but only
when ground-parallel, only when can’t speak, put your words in my mouth. Yes. Tongues
sap-thickened, webbed woolen by spider’s work. Lichen, fern, blackberry bramble. Pith,
teeth, ankle bone. Tail-wag, woof woof woof, won’t you dance with me tonight. Urging
forward into silence. And now we are trees, upright in resonance with lightning strikes,
tall buildings, each other, the things we built when we were human. Now other bodies
gesture on us. Wagtail, robin, the jackdaw haw haw haw! laughing, straying from your
hair; the wind hshhh shk shk shk our leaves like wings. Again bramble, breastbone, beak.
My words in your mouth. Two trees readying ourselves for flight.
og is feathers, guga* down,
white clamour dampened,
distance folded shut.
rock-dark children
lose thought of land,
wash themselves white
to black wingtip:
sharp bodies
cutting trails of air
rise
to paddle dawn-slick sea,
heads yellow-blushed
and dripping.
around them we
slip shelf and
plummet, through
sky and salt,
to break
beak, skull,
on grey water.
(after Edwin Morgan)
Rrrrooww ggrrr? Schna schna
Hhhhoooooooooooouuuuuwwwww!
Naabuluwrre … naaaawrrrrruuu rup,
Karrr krraaff Cugh cugh ccrrrrruUGH
Yup yap YAWP! Yiiip yup riiiilclclclck:
hclhclhchclhcl—YIPE!
Orh-ooohr robrobro r r r r r r r hobhub brhub
Iiiiiinng eng ung ung ung gnaaah—
erMMMmmm, errrmmmm
Mrryeahr-mrryehr-mrerer.
Croh! nro, uvruv ruv—ljo ljo?
Crugh, brup … hhhhhhhhhhhha, norrr—
Nnnnrroooooooooooooooooooooo
Uuggh schnuff ugh.
deep-red from rose-dirt my orchid
left the back porch with an awkward gait
headed down the swamp which it entered
head first open-mouthed before i could speak
it was kicking its roots like legs luring comets
to criss-cross above when two finally collided
the sky switched channels to static cutting
the night with a knife i gaped back down
orchid was gone in the deep-red swamp
were rhythmic gelatinous ripples as tho
invisible pebbles were being dropped at
perfectly repeated intervals been staring
into space ever since ecstatically deep
the branches stoop & the leaf-eyes dilate
searching my garden for the remote
I
Derrida’s cat
What we men call animal, animaux no,
l’animot, should bring us back to the name, the thing – as such
to speak across … the abyss
as always on my lips, on the tip of my tongue
as if, in the instant I had said (or was going to say), the
forbidden something
the something that shouldn’t be said – this something (un)said between us —
our naked{ness} the shame this naked man (sous rature) gazed at by this
{irreplaceable} living being
derrida’s { cat
Contains text from Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow).
II
Lévinas’s dog
Fallingsbotel Concentration Camp:
a wandering dog
endured in a desolate region of the Camp
greeted a rabble of prisoners, daily:
Bobby’s bark, wagging tail!
irrepressible,
and this, his saying, across
the [infinitely] unspeakable space,
said
— there was no doubt
we were men . . .
Contains some text from Emmanuel Lévinas, The Name of the Dog or Natural Rights.
III
Heidegger’s bee
I tricked her from murmuring her munificent
Being
as in the suck of honey,
she had to prove she could not cope with all the honey
present
in the little bowl.
As I carefully cut away her abdomen while she sucked, yet, even still, she silently sucked —
as the honey poured out from behind:
which I say,
speaks of
…
Contains some text from Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude.
… the Ground / Of Speech fails underfoot …
– The Parliament of the Birds, Farid ud-Din Attar (trans E. Fitzgerald)
There is a lake, you see your reflection, if you can endure
the journey or the things that are, maybe, your own fault,
always failing the tests: longing, love, gnosis, dispassion, a whole god,
bewilderment, selflessness and oblivion.
Or no more than leaves always falling, mortal, … illiterate of nature.
In a yard a feather’s dropped, birds fill with flight, mating, nests.
They fly into pools, they rise, they cry. What might I know of birds,
wings of a bird, language of birds, material of song and flight, sounds
of the world? The birds are the birds. All of us are reality.
No-one need apply to a higher order, if we’re all whatever’s the world.
And despite what may be said within ‘here’ or ‘somewhere’,
bird calls are real, whoever divines or translates, forms
into semblances, into myths, as even at night they sing,
though it keeps you awake, at twelve o’clock, at one o’clock,
the wake-up of the koel, after four o’clock.
Something always sings in the world: maybe deliriums, maybe
homecoming beyond nostalgia, a pantheistic dither, pretend clouds.
So stand and listen, flight is swift, noisy, carnal demand,
to keep things going, eggs, yolk, branches where nests fall through
small odysseys, other legends.
Weather’s no help, it does what it does, growth you live with
in normal, changeable skies. The severed traveller can still recognise
how green hills may be, or if they’ve lost that plenty,
or some other thing.
You don’t want to be of the dark, yet in that, birds still converse.
Melancholy may simply be yours, though things fall apart all the same,
though night isn’t just ghostly, but real as it sounds,
real as landing or falling.
No-one’s perfect, how you’re crazy is not perfect either.
It may land you far from hope, or close to
real sea and salt, or the time it takes to travel a city block.
Everything is an atmosphere, a bus shelter, where the trams pull in.
Doors open and close, we arrive, we go. Crowds sort themselves
furiously or softly. Everyone seems to take care of the children.
The children: as if, definitively, there must be a way to save them,
though they know they are human, and you can’t.
We hear more or less echoes, or chirps. Maybe it’s a conference,
in a distance, underfoot, as things flutter on rails, through stations,
out onto routes, highways, out into a sky. And there’s a bend
before you come onto the island. There seems to be another light,
it must be all this water.
All the while, rising over a hill or horizon, the birds find a lake.
The lake is the lake: perhaps Eyre, Frome, perhaps Torneträsk, or Baikal.
Lakes don’t talk, but sounds sound. The story finds a doppelgänger.
There it is! Full of reflections, or salt. So, what do you see?
Who cares about timing, distance, bridges, choruses? Futurisms
are always about the past. Your sounds are what you sing,
of instruments … in accord … a ravishing sweetness.
Khlebnikov hears a swallow: “Tsivit! Tsizit!” and hears his ‘trans sense’.
Where does that go but here?
Songwise, it’s recurrence, night swings, into memorials, into desperation.
It moves as a day moves, even at these ends of ideas, when little’s left.
What you want to see disappears. Clouds wash over
this view of the universe. You know it’s real in the present of that sound.
It goes beyond now, but now it is.
Blackbirds do sing into the late of night … a ravishing sweetness.
Yes, into this extraordinary shadow. Nothing sounds like isolation.
And, traveller, it’s not looking at you.
