Agora, Arcadia


Hardest of the places to begin the blueprint, chewed cuticles
To the gristle bone-white, stertorous the drafts that make up
Our permanence tethered and forever. Most of what
I’m anxious about is hoarseness and a wizened
Subgenre, which spurts like a geyser but stinks like all
Rudimentarily. The double standard of proclaiming reading
And disclaiming citation as you rarefy the fixed image.
My 1992 Camry twin-cam still rots in shop,
But Walliston’s last garage is now a bush kiosk.
Affiliations so splay they rustle like departing company
Through the privet, which is theirs, my ghost gums weeping.
Sullen roadside demeanour in the successful suburbs.
You are lucked fiendish, no Frigidaire.
High Wycombe’s new Coles is starchy, but tending its own
Mistral, not behind thee, but before me, formaldehydry.
‘[F]rom my crawl and from their crawl’, and was the
Snivelling limited to the thin one? I see a balled-up human,
Must be unhappy in some way. What have I been party to?
The bongs are not what they seem. Psychology is the mutant
Of fandom furphy. Newquay = Portsea. The coast I forget.
The Perth craze is easiest in me when kiting and the fishermen
At Fremantle get blowies. No sardines for us. You’re
Inedible in the dark, but stern. You’re often furniture in the
Ferns, you know. Betray my Ben Bulben, Camry,
Exhibition with surgery the phonetics are nursing we’ll be
Arcadia-scared again, I hope, though my village be captured.

Corey Wakeling

Corey Wakeling is a poet and critic living in Takarazuka, Japan. His second full-length collection of poems is The Alarming Conservatory (Giramondo, 2018).

More by Corey Wakeling ›

Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places.

If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate.


Related articles & Essays