Bent as an Arrow
Straight lines may look perfect on paper but
All finally fail, veer or peter out.
Find a line infinite in rectitude?
Pope-to-God, priests quickly offer, but doubt
This vertical too, words so fallible
Reverse-charge calls tending to cramp one’s clout.
Going straight, straight-up, straight-talking, being
-faced, -laced, sexually inclined or bent …
See? All lines curve covertly off the page.
Nature vetoed lineals, each try rent
By reach or time, relieved to deviance
Of the richest random kind, heaven-sent.
My true love has no straight lines upon her
She’s callipygous, breasted, calved and lipped
Skin singing homage to arc, ripple, round.
Not with a ruler was Eden’s Eve hipped
Nor her triangle made isosceles;
Never was geometry so well skipped.
A woman eschewing fixed and formal shapes
Moulding me to her and herself to life
Heart and mind, navel, nipples, mouth or spine
Unaligned with any math that would knife
Hard rules, correct answers, repetition.
She surrounds me, nicely crooked, my wife.
Rod Usher
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.
Aug 29 2024
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
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
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
Aug 16 2024
2 mins