Éventualité


it took you ten years to climb mt sorrow took
captain cook a little while to pass by but he was in
a bad mood – you return for a better one with gwendolyn,
merlyn’s wife. she is running thru the forest sliding
under fan palms as leeches grow between her toes.
to reach the top of sorrow why so long she asks?
some impression of the need to face escape. frenetic
bravery of breath held fast. could you bury yrself in the sand
waiting for a change of mind? tide chance to outrun escape itself

there is a viewing platform white open cage gwen’s delicate
french head rests upon. like a waxen dove. sees cast silver reef
light estuarine creek. you implore forgiveness … thick
shrouded range heaving body down to southern swell. as
mist splays in windscreen waves. she thinks the mountain is crying.
thinks you think that silly. do not instead feel her pinpoint stance
propelling world motion. like when you become the universe (later
gwen says this later). we get it by the way reception zaps down

when left for here from radiohead night still high on
morph flight. now bound magnetic. tribulation dissolving
like plaster ship. michael is partial deaf adventurer with arrived
smile of evangelical gratitude. his arms flail digital
translucence screen tips gesturing his phone to show
it works. here and nowhere else

ten years from sorrow’s first summoning. vision
buried deep. wrangling tropics of relations paradise.
veiled pressings of earthly delights. numb contemplation,
tangible standards scraping by, nimble witness turns, the
portents undoing. that fleeting dance of self importance
heart swept impotence

leading descent.
could have been then or now
Sisyphus. doesn’t matter. obtaining
desire cancels objective. start again not
even know what you are carrying. you hand certain
filaments to her. a brocade of dry seed pods froth
causality. ask her to throw them back to forest
not to you.

everything affects – another partner of matter, or
not, parameters get lost here. base of spine electric
bronze sheaf leaves collected from fallen epiphyte
indentations like a belt of bullets. to take with you
ammo spores into the new zone
the queen of yr inner world
she will sail

Dusk Dundler

Dusk Dundler studied under Martin Harrison at UTS. He has published in the Prague Revue and Griffith REVIEW, produced for Radio National and reported for the Koori Mail. He was shortlisted for the 2012 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize.

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