Melbourne writer Alec Patric is the first of Overland’s Overload reviewers to be introduced on this blog. Alec has published in many publications, including Going Down Swinging, Etchings and the Blue Dog Poetry Anthology, and was recently part of Overland’s Progressive Writers Masterclass. Here, Alec muses about the kind of poets you’re likely to  meet at overland.org.au during Overload.

Anonymous Poets

The kind of Poet
with angry skin and blistered rhymes
using words like tattoos, needles for all his i’s
who slithers onto stages with ink, spits and sprays out a violence
the snakes writhing over his forearms — swell and sway and sing

The kind of Poet
who is looking for a lion
to put her head into, for the mouth to be spacious, clean
for running lion dreams of antelope, for lion hunger and jaws
but all she ever finds is thoughts like fleas sucking out her words

The kind of Poet
that wants to change the world
one page at a time, one pill at a time
one brick at a time, one revolution at a time
changing his mind like changing a tire — while driving

The kind of Poet
who makes everyone laugh
who loses herself in that sound, who loses her mind in that silence
crashing over her bones after, because the blood is the lie of passion
and love alone just gets tired in the shove and pull of her abandoned joke

The kind of Poet
who learned the Islamic prayers for morning and evening
sung the Salah like a Sufi, singing for Mecca in country Victoria
living out of his battered van now, a self printed collection of poetry
mostly just giving them away to people who believe the Word is Great

The kind of Poet
who writes herself
notes in pen, on the backs
of her hands, and her palms
are for private messages

The kind of Poet
with a cultivated air
an elegant lion tamer, of precise attention
of command and direction, within the cage
but beyond bars a whipped and bewildered lion

The kind of Poet
who sees evil portents and is undone
like flying shoelaces, and stumbling blackbirds
who drains half empty glasses, and then witnesses
in the empty glass an unbearable symbol of optimism

Visit Alec’s blog here