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Gig Ryan

Three Poems

 

 
Research
 
      1
 
It was always dinner then a film
I thought to top it in his public conversation
where it wheeled
Breakfast was a lark, jammed and coincided from the dreams
to fortress like a couple
I couldn't get the hook or when it was
Penultimately I had to blank
Another day to quail, a vice to con for him
Freedom was a drink
as if it killed me
When can I return to where I lived?
 
      2
 
She polishes her imprimatur
They keel and part as if I were a saint
Coins clack down the ledges. Ships nostalgically turn
I stare into the dribbling rainbow oil spill
conjuring my future
Flames splash the casino. Gentle machines water the streets
Slaves sew my clothes outside the law
I enjoy the government art, visionary and affirming,
and undiagnosed life
 

When I consider
 
When I consider what my life has been
the tightening streets that stuck me to their side
the turning penitential globe inscribed
with gold and thorn, I picket what I've seen
as if the will were new, the heart were keen
before despair became where you abide
alone with cold ideals and clinging pride
acts and dreams spread out across the screen
I pause at the silky prolonged sunset
that death or god should taper off and shrink
as all the city's woe and all the skies
say not to remember but to forget
and chafing through the cars I fall to think
how sorrows lift and pleasures cauterize
 

Who Praise You
 
When I see his face it's as if it were always there
and my eyes stop tunnelling past people and rooms
and stop at him like a mirror
But I pass, speechless
Those around him talk closely
My head bows down its pang of glory and torn eyes
when the room empties
Where should I go to hear your voices
to see your skin like bright paper,
me, unable to speak? The streets torment
and people bunch,
windows and hope slip by
More alive than myself
which night closes
 

Gig Ryan Gig Ryan's latest book is Pure and Applied, published by Paper Bark Press, PO Box 59, Brooklyn, NSW 2083, Australia
http://www.geko.net.au/~pbp/
"Research" and "When I consider" first appeared in Heat magazine.
 
Gig Ryan, photo copyright © Margie Medlin, 1998


You can read Gig Ryan's eulogy for John Forbes in Jacket # 3.
This material is copyright © Gig Elizabeth Ryan and Jacket magazine 1998
The URL address of this page is
http://jacketmagazine.com/04/ryan-gig-3poems.html

 
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