Cl(if)f sonnets
if i were a cliff cut
by wind a whale
breaching water
or octaves in sand
crunching aeons to feet
to weave a page
into coastal entangle
-ment could you then
hear how fraught
this space or how easy
rocks break what minds
make distant in their
proclivities for days
\
if i were to trace a second-
hand shoe spelling
Vietnam from trade
routes that constant
sensation of movement
in the commercial
nature of each
continuous moment
in which lies the point
of some kind
of poetry or a line
at least from which
it extends honey-sweet
thought a tea tree sense
\
if i were a southerly or sand-
stone patch exposed
like bone eroding
sonnets into the permo-
triassic kneecap
of a dipro- todon
where broken glass
is as green as grass
is water clear and
booming beneath
SING- APORE
sky’s steel orca sustained
by the nutrients of a
krill-like capital
\
if i were a vista word-
wrapped cliffs seasoned
by salt each angle
each shape a relation
of wind minute
ridge lines of rock
repeating dissecting
expressions in eye-
socket shadows
great chunks of cheek
jagged grey nose
frothing at lines
of repetition in waves
\
if i were water a spray
of white twisting
yellow flowers into
questions i.e. how
avoid a taxonomic
acumen those categorical
urges like trying
to quit smoking
having been born
with a Winfield
in your mouth
as out on open water
no other way to come here
the outer limit of ego
From: Vol.08 N.01 – Embodied Belonging: Towards an Ecopoetic Lyric
Excerpt from ‘At Kamay’
by
Jake Goetz