LOVE CUTS

Once upon a time in 2012 or 2013, when the poplars still stood remembering along the reflection pool at the Hyde Park Cenotaph in Sydney, Richard Tipping and I photographed and wrote about the scarifications into their bark. Mostly it was hearts and initials, sometimes a remembrance of some other kind - the day someone went to court. An arrival or departure. A cock and balls.

Each of the poplars stood like soldiers there. Silent and impassive while the people left their messages, dreams, hopes, jokes, and disasters on their flesh. (The trees have since been taken away and not replaced. Was it because they had become a place of messages? I hope not.)

We made an artists’ book called LOVE CUTS which had pictures of the scars with fragmentary text, and a short essay and poem each at the end. (There are still a very few available)

Here is my concluding poem.

Love Cuts

the poplars stand like soldiers 

they once were their grey flesh 

embodied ghosts of fathers sons who left 

those handsome boys

those mothers' darling sons

those fathers' perfect images

they are quiet in the winter sun

their shadows fall 

                      across the pool

their brave reflections mighty

with their arms raised up

                                 in horror or orison 

                            it's hard to tell

they have laid their bodies

open to the lovers walking past

those apparitions of their dreams

those walking hopes full 

of grief and love       absurd desire 

the lovers stop and smooth their hands 

along the length of that grey flesh and  

being lovers   feel the warmth and beauty

take their knives and cut 

into the flesh   a heart   a name

the poplars take it in   the names of love

at the monument the dark sad

warriors look to the ground caught in

their one act remembering 

the lovers leave 

their mark

the soldiers stay

New from Flying Islands

FOXLINE, Chris Mansell (Flying Islands Press, 2020)

The new book of poems out from Flying Islands!

There are two characters in this collection: the fox, and the farmer. They are opposed but share an existential problem. The more charismatic figure is the fox (female, only once owning 'vixen') who is trying to understand her environment, the role of the farmer, the singing fences, the farmer. The farmer is a solitary figure walking with a gun, trying to get things right. Each have their own good intentions; neither of them entirely comfortable where they are.

Available from Flying Islands

or from me

Read Magdalena Ball's review at Compulsive Reader and listen to her interview

Jean Kent did a great launch speech at Anna Couani's The Shop Gallery in February. As always, Kent is insightful and generous. You can read her words at Rochford St Review here

 

 

 

 

What came before

Somewhere between Daylesford and Castlemaine in Victoria, Australia, they have a fox problem. Australia in general has a 'fox problem'. Foxes are not indigenous to the continent, and they are predators of the kind that small marsupials were unaccustomed to resisting. Foxes, along with feral cats, and various other creatures which took up ecological niches, took a great toll on the wildlife. 

It is also thought, believed strongly, that foxes attack livestock, often taking only the most delectable parts of an animal. They are not beloved by farmers. There are three ways of expressing their relationship to foxes: traps, guns, poison (1080). Savage traps are not legal, cage traps are ok - except now you have a fox in a trap; 1080 is often used but seen as unnecessarily cruel by some; sand then there is the direct honesty of a gun, though less efficient.

Nevertheless, they are beautiful, alien animals; independent, foxy. In the wild they live for about three years (in captivity, much more), and their social structure depends on the conditions encountered. In some conditions there is only one breeding pair, in others all the females breed. 

They are invaders, but have made the country their own. They know nothing else. The farmer of foreign heritage and the fox are not different in that respect.

Somewhere between Daylesford and Castlemaine there is the foxline: about 200 dead and scalped foxes hung from their heels on a fence by the roadway. So beautiful in the sun.

Looking down the foxline, about 200 foxes deep.

Part of the foxline. All but one still had their tails.

WHEN THE WAR ENDS

                                     when the war ends

Looking inside (10.5cm wide x 7.5 cm high)

came about because I was doing a reprint of quid pro quad. The smaller contrians seven poems from the bigger collection:
   
   when the war ends
   he so keen aches
   it is a bird
   unsinge the opal
   a chuckle bird
   he is worried
   overwrought iron

What is a quad? Go to the quad label (or straight to this link on this blog). Or for more background go to the quad page on my site at chrismansell.com

Each quarter of a quad on a single page.

The quid pro quad reprint with its daughter, when the war ends.