Reserve


From where we stood, careening quiet.

The knives of shepherds slit the lambs.

Later, the huge apparatus. When.

 

When but before us, another

district militarised in boredom,

another hotplate oiled for serfdom;

handles on everything near.

 

City, your embrace is untold,

and you are no Westminster Bridge.

 

After all, it is still a twenty-first century.

Still paper and violence.

One poppy in the sidewalk mud

adoring everybody.

 

The lunar scar makes him reluctant to smile,

especially during glacial melt.

Wow – put a barrier between me and flare.

 

Port Island, destination and warm home,

discloses the ghosts of ferry dead in dither.

The snow spangles with each touch.

Sanctimony of the Reserve Bank

announces its amazed press conference.

 

Bank’s warning repeats last quarter’s:

‘the insistent voice cuts the long grass’.

 

Can radiation help.

Can Canberra.

 

Image: Christopher A Dominic / flickr

 

 

 

Corey Wakeling

Corey Wakeling is a writer, scholar, and translator living in Tokyo. In 2013, he was granted a PhD in English and theatre studies at the University of Melbourne. Corey has lived in Japan since 2015, currently working as an associate professor of English literature at Aoyama Gakuin University. His most recent poetry collection, Uncle of Cats, appears with Cordite in 2024.

More by Corey Wakeling ›

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