Chris Mansell [introduced by Thomas Moody]

I'm on vacation this week, but I thought I'd leave you with this classic by Chris Mansell. Just a few notes: Penrith is a city to the west of Sydney (technically it is a part of Sydney) and heats up in the summer as only inland Australia can; while the Blue Mountains are a nearby mountain range, which get their name from their greyish-blue tinge. As for the rest, as my friend Bob Hershon used to say, you can thank me later.

 

 

Darwin discusses Tierra del Fuego

you pace out an Australian hot summer
devoid of air at Penrith
with some lime light artificial member
of the new aristocracy
the dry skin of grass cracking under boots
grass grey stalks like thin glass vials
hold some therapeutic acid break like needles
in a nightmare before the operation

you, you garrulous old metronome
peeling off the layers of our secret wishes
like the skin of the face of an aging actress
to insist on evolution
we liked the geology of our mountains
we wanted only to pat the earth with our flat hans
and feel its body shifting        mumbling dialogue
from dreams under its old clotted-cream breath

we resent your careful notebooks
on stratification of our blue mountains
the knife between the layers
the prising out collectable pimples
want you to go back to the discussions of the geology 
of Tierra del Fuego        surely exotic enough
to satisfy an Englishman

Comments

[David Lehman]

Let me thank you now.