The Best Australian Poems 2011 by John Tranter Page B

the humility of flight.’

Murder at the Poetry Conference
Melinda Smith
    The old pesticide factory
    casts a buzz-saw shadow
    on the wall of the council chambers.
    Inside, the poets sit like aldermen.
    They talk of war and genocide,
    harrowing themselves silly.
    At night they retire to soft floral sheets, flocked wallpaper. They dream
    infinite shelves of books with tilted spines –
    M and N shapes staggering away;
    leather the colour of blood.

Where’s my Rattan Overcoat?
Pete Spence
    where’s my rattan overcoat? i have
    things to say tonight at the basket
    weaver’s AGM! how find anything
    for that matter in this dish of haste!
    i never thought my collection of toothpicks
    could take up so much room! where’s
    my snail shell rimmed spectacles
    my echidna gloves! maybe i should
    resume my search at high tide!
    can i find my snakeskin snorkel!
    here’s my sunglasses made of smoke
    now that’s a find even though summer
    is over & glaring at someone else
    burning the edge of their rock pile

The Knowledge
Peter Steele
    That he who distributes charcoal during a snowstorm
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â is a fine fellow, and that to be
    like a tree which covers with blossom the hand that shakes it
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â warrants careful attention, and that
    ice will not lodge on a busy spinning wheel –
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â all this is common ground. Also,
    to strike at the stars with a bamboo pole is the same
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â as to dress in brocade and stroll in the dark,
    or to offer a twenty-one-gun salute when the general
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â has clapped spurs in his horse and departed.
    Â 
    And yes, pride is a flower from the devil’s garden,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â and a well-groomed heart is a good match
    for any well-groomed head. Repentance, they say,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â is the loveliest virtue, at least for a while:
    and is it not odd that marriage is an assembly
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â of strangers, and love an inscrutable monster?
    My cousin has bought a farm and I have heartburn:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â but still, with my couple of loaves, I remember
    to sell one and buy a lily and, nibbling
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â a bamboo shoot, to bless its grower.
    Â 
    One hair on a pretty woman’s head is enough
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â to tether an elephant, but it’s the creatures
    that swag the knowledge home, as that the sunstruck
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ox pants at the sight of the moon,
    that there’s one phoenix to every thousand chickens,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â that a wren trying to walk like a stork
    will break his crotch, that business is best done
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â slow and steady as the cow slobbers.
    No end of wisdom: but what does a frog
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â in a well know of the waiting ocean?

Bondi rock pool. 1963.
Amanda Stewart
    a line across a plane
    a city marked in water and eucalyptus
    an efficient takeover
    a funnel web enters a sock
    Â 
    and at the edge of sea bondi’s child
    all hands and tongue sand in mouth
    gathers the movement
    of starfish and snails anemone and cuttle
    Â 
    an observer, unable to utter, takes place
    a voice, silently present, observes
    this child etched in salt and breath,
    the child thrown up onto the shore,
    the nets thrashing with slow death and light.

Christmas Poem
Adrian Stirling
    Last Christmas
    Your father did his impression
    Of a Chinese person
    Your mother wore a see-through dress
    And served up