Paul Hardacre: Two Poems

Paul Hardacre

Paul Hardacre was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1974. He is the Managing Editor of papertiger media, publishers of the papertiger: new world poetry CDROM, hutt poetry ezine, anything i like art ezine, and the soi 3 modern poets imprint. Paul has previously edited selections for the South Australian poetry journal, Sidewalk, the US ezines Big Bridge and Fuse Box, and is a former editorial correspondent for Cordite. His first collection of poetry, The Year Nothing, was published by HeadworX (Wellington, New Zealand) in 2003. His second collection, Love in the place of rats, was Highly Commended for the Thomas Shapcott Award in 2003, 2004 and 2005, and has recently been published by Transit Lounge (Melbourne, March 2007). In 2003/04 Paul completed a third (and currently unpublished) collection, The river is far behind us, with the assistance of a Major Grant from Arts Queensland. This major extended poem sequence was also Highly Commended for the Thomas Shapcott Award in 2005

flowers his weapons

“My faith is that
we must wish to become the total universe with
its thousands of millions of worlds, — and more
than the universe, or a myriad universes, — and
more even than Space and Time.”
—Lafcadio Hearn, Of Moon-Desire

“From the union of semen (the Moon) and breath
(the Sun) I shall obtain many sons.”
—Prasna Upanisad 1.4

birds he bites in hunting bush-house
dirt & punctured eye / endures as will
unclean & follows armies ghosts of ponds
& fields the trees he haunts the hand collects
a scarlet bird in flames uh-huh & kafka
cracked in bed or basin shoots & sounds
like shriekback / dead or just put down or
open-mouthed & crazed she peels the dark
all amber fire & rain or equals light (a city! /
smoke & iron healed by anger walls he licked
the linga made a cow & parked his bike in FIRE
oh shut up don’t / (a throne & jasper sardine
beasts) abandoned houses face of ox or king of
death & northern clouds / in flames) her scarlet bird
an endless maze of lanes & choked with captains
horses men her rusted yuga / sun & moon her fruit
a wheel or perched on stone she (‘killer’) churns the
heart the hand / collects the son of morning heads
& horns & underneath his wounded mouth: a river

as black, as dark

“An eternal dream, full of the sweetest surfeit of life — restless —
with fearful pains inside, in the soul.”
—Egon Schiele

“Out of fear of her fire burns; out of fear the sun shines.”
—Katha Upanisad 2.3.3

under world or walls her giving hand &
clad in space she flowers woods & wound
with ‘curling growths’ the skulls that carried
life or left behind in tree or drain / collected
teeth or nails the town its tawny bronze-dark
music (dead) outside the hills & sea beyond
the heart / to dance or lose the way to laugh
in tunnels fog or eyes or veiled by pain & free
like marigolds or tea her dusty train imagined
snow & skin all white as age or hell / her milk
a complex fashion from the north & born of fire
(or pictures of fire / the five-wicked pop of ants &
sound of bells) the uncooked food & fruits she lifts
marmotic futures higher than people grass or star —
a desolation skin of curves her diadem of bones to
have or draw some kind of silver horn or minaret in
red a devil (maybe french it’s monday made from heads
a plate of doves & sugar / water ghosts the river wears a
tongue & round the hips her peeling ichor birds & bloom