Kevin Cahill: ‘Time in Time’ and ‘Mud in your Eye’
Time in Time
This is the time in time
when the cloud of the big bed
absorbs everything. When hardly one
raindrop of a big toe
disgorges itself to morning.
Or flounders on the gangplank
a knapped-off divot
facing salt. But turns back
to incorporate itself
in the big mound.
To what an amazement then
this morning tumbling
waters (seas of each toe)
fumbling out of the thunderheads
into my monkeysuit … a text message …
first piece of concrete all Monday—
helping me into the solid sleeves
of day, saying she wants to share her life
in love with me (or at least look me over)
at half past seven tonight …
bunnybelle leaping sinuously
from water, with a fluffy scut,
or muntjac lovely words in water
among wattled jacanas.
Kevin Cahill
Mud in your Eye
I expect death is something in life
you experience much like a fall
from a bicycle, on a wet day:
feeling the hurt
before you hit the road.
In this way you appreciate why the woman
sinking spirits is physically extinguishing
her nervous system … sucking on a tall bottle.
Or why I am conscious of the sound
of the coffin-cart and death-knell
before I venture into the saloon,
to kick the bucket with Ms Bones …
ably basting my whole senses in rum swizzle,
boilermaker, U-boot, applejack,
Irish Car Bomb, pisco and swimming then
like a pisshead towards the awaiting tryst.
Here, we’re plastered enough … Whoot …
Are you …? Hi.
Hello. You’re? three sheets to the wind,
dead from the neck up,
You’re Kevin? I’m hardly descended into matter.
Oceanic sound of leaves’ lovely music
together in the oak trees outside—a boy blackbird
wondering upon the lovely lady blackbird
looking so illustrious with her billing shape
seen through the topiary toad-plant
on the table carafe.
Kevin Cahill
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
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6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
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A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
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2 mins