Whatever Becomes Itself

Whatever Becomes Itself

‘Cada nivel tiene su propia irrigacion sanguinea’
Gloria Gervitz

‘Every level has its own irrigation of blood’, every level possesses a shudder, sway, sweet from the tips of the shadow, scug, cell passing, every emotion finds its own level, whatever becomes itself has that passion, whatever becomes itself has that passion, every thing finds its level, eyes, seeing life is seeing it going, eyes are sand, life, life is blood that moves, blood is sand, stars, stars are sand, every passion finds its level, cry warming itself in the blindness of blood, blood only flows in darkness, shudder, sway, sweetness of shadow, whatever becomes itself finds its own level, eyes, blood, stars and sand, and sand, sand becomes sand with the passion of eternity.

MTC Cronin

Trio:  The Law of the Minimum, The Corporation and the Parrot, The Question of Obi Obi Creek

The Law of the Minimum

  for Les Hall

After climbing a thirty metre high cone
Of bat-crap covered with cockroaches, his
Eyes misty with ammonia and his nose
Fat with the stink, my favourite scientist
Turned to the camera and said: Enough!

But there were bats above and beyond
The cone (which disappeared up into the
Cave and out of view) who knew how
Much was enough and this wasn’t it…

They opened wide their little bat anuses
And into enoug… poured just enough poo
To silence science which doesn’t know
Anything really or at least not an amount
That can save its selves from talking shit!

 

The Corporation and the Parrot  

for Peter Thomas (General Manager Property, Woolworths Australia) and the Coxen’s Fig Parrot, Maleny

Which tree is it
Which is the only food
For which bird?

The corporation
Would not ask
Nor answer this question

Though it was peopled
By tongues
Which slept at night

In their own mouths.
Perhaps they dreamed
Of the sacrifice

Of small pieces of reality
And love
To the corporation

For to leave the world
Of that bird
For a position on its board

First there had to be
A mass resignation
Of their hearts.

This was for ‘convenience’
As it is hard
For the rapist to find

A comfortable position
During rape
If one has a heart.

And in its sleep
The corporation cannot hear
Bird cries

Or trees whispering
Their age
To the wind

And when it finally wakes
It is to a world
Of range and variety

Within its walls.
Five brands
Of the product.

Outside?
One more bird cry
Is never again cried.

In this silence
Religiously
We shop.

 

The Question of Obi Obi Creek

And so we should be struck dumb
by the river, by the bunya pine,
by the age of what has flown
towards us and past,

the instant of splash from a child’s
hands sunk in it, the splash
after splash of birds born
and died along its banks.

Platypus, platypus, platypi!? Obi Obi,
Obi Obi, Obii?

It is possible to divide a page
and make lists of pros and cons.
As well to imagine a future
you don’t want to live in.

People have chosen over countless days
to follow the paths of suffering,
to treat love and caution
as if they were uncourageous.

Platypus, platypus, platypi!? Obi Obi,
Obi Obi, Obii?

The moss-covered rock doesn’t know
what an excuse is, the spider gallery
doesn’t know what an excuse is.
Nor the pointy-toed waders.

Shall we be quiet here, then, we
who know too much yet eternally
deny it, as if the knowledge was too
heavy for our shoulders.

Platypus, platypus, platypi!? Obi Obi,
Obi Obi, Obii?

The trees stand and speak their hearts
only to a passing wind.

Can we ever hear what we must once
have heard –

the electricity of fur through the water,
the magnificent eloquence of silence.

 

MTC Cronin

MTC Cronin has published fourteen poetry collections, several in translation, both in Australia and internationally and has three books forthcoming.