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From: Vol.05 N.02 – Make It So

Atlas

by Giles Goodland

Therefore, we came to this shore,

labelled in blue, jagged and isolate,

on the table. A book which jaws away

while the dumptrucking moon troubles

the streets in first gear.

If I stare hard through the thin air I see my

vast and craggy knees. Being light

in the sawn eye in our hands

lost selves call from their seas.

Convener of dreams, tax exile of sureties,

my hands are wide,

walk through them.

We do not see how

it can be dreamed against,

voice echoing down palace walls,

 

the stone that sinks home is not strange

in any person we look

for the significant defining act;

their heads lean forwards and agree

 

that screw of tornado-wrath

descending, torqueing,

is wheel of Phaeton’s war car,

that there is no in in infinite, observe

the bubble-beaded glass

raise it from the table: here’s to

everything  that is not us.

Published: July 2018
Giles Goodland

has published several books of poetry including A Spy in the House of Years (2001), Capital (2006), What the Things Sang (2009), The Dumb Messengers (2012) and The Masses (2018). He works in Oxford as a lexicographer and lives in West London.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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