Andrew Galan

Clockwork

My tickets

            are a path to darkness

Porcelain tentacles, silver ladders

Willing to die for cause

Suspended scissors, cousin claws

These lights

            are not fixed

Manicured underskirt, wake bound

Waiting, grit in your collar

Suspended scissors, cousin claws

The hand

            is limp behind you

Churned brine, mirror nose

Jump to lance bright beam

Suspended scissors, cousin claws

The Camera

            points away

Dark cornice, lidded floor

Lengthening shadow, steady rumble

Suspended scissors, cousin claws

Clockwise a creased       metal       clank

The spring unwinds to a           tick

                                                              tock

                                                  march

Cells crystallise

Glide

            through a sunken amphitheatre

Grey, threadbare

Suspended scissors, cousin claws

Only stop

            is illuminated

Held aloft; watery playhouse

Rock and dirt fall away

Suspended scissors, cousin claws

Nagasaki Sunset

One. Remember a brown fur bear. Hind-legs on blue sky crumple roof; it stood looking down, over deep scrawled metal panel, past red number-plated caucasian letters water bent, to wave coiled limbs.

Two. Remember wet bitumen, an altar, paired stag antlers shaped to battle, their ossification grown to cement base tangled orange an’ purple tag; cordate flagged a breeze.

Three. Remember tarmac weighted white pointer aligned right of dual yellow lines, its shadow perpendicular to wobbling albino script.

Four. Remember at sea level the dorsal fin burned and Little Boy spewed black that ate salt glass distortion.

Five. Remember a deer started from tall-grass verge onto sidewalk just as the last minute was used up. The click is still with me.

Six. Remember a possum watched wash suck as it clawed to brown fur.

Seven. Remember blood gravel median versus another deer’s gallop, proud of travelled carbon funnel its hooves peppered swell surface.

Eight. Remember a curb shark set alight by deer’s fired antler, or had torch gill flared bone? Quartet others stood horned; shadows fixed by Fat Man.

Nine. Remember a lean soldier seated above them, back rigid against another’s chest. A bronze banner pole across his body, suppressed allied arms, totem suns fallen toward tidal stone.

Ten. Remember gloom wings caused the bear to look up; away from blue-ringed reach a Crow‑shrike flapped, misted bulb in its beak.

 

The upstairs food court writer in exile, Andrew Galan, lives in Australia. His poetry has been included in The Best Australian Poems 2011, and published in the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Chile. He has featured at events such as Canberra’s YouAreHere, and the Australian National Folk Festival, as well as at poetry venues, most recently SpeedPoets and Jam Jar Poetry Slam in Brisbane. He has performed poems for Australian Capital Territory politicians, co-founded BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! at The Phoenix Pub with Hadley, Joel, and Amanda, and also growls words with spoken word band The Tragic Troubadours.