Published in Overland Issue 223 Winter 2016 · Uncategorized Quads 17–19 Chris Mansell 17 anchor sweet st ay here this sp ot this stop st ay stonestill r esting here thi s place the pla ce placid as da rk this herenes s without shift or single no ju dge shift going or coming shift ing numbers hal t reference sli ng the anchor t o the base snag it and stay her e the rock dang er known and bl isses beat like waves of sudden kisses on the s till stones day after dawn stay still anchor be stopped and her eon be a long b eat the path be aten be battene d here still st one solid balan ced balmed stay 18 or fly not to s top not a hover over tremble wi nged hesitation but move moving on over shift s and unstable sl ide unstop with out stay shambl e on out over a way somewhere n ot here gone ad rift moving not an inch but a k ilometre vastly quick not faste ned to a bolt b ut as lightning lighter than fa aster more smel t than melted l ight sliding of f the face of a once beloved no longer loved mo ve on shove ove r other lover l ight moves on s pills its overn ess wherever no care but not ti l ever over fly 19 square squantum a bit chunked o ff equal and cr isp and even co ol as angle tha t sharp interst itial cornerdom of block standb y cube the coun t one and two m ore exactly one than a circle s aying naught sq uare sits so ev en before its l eft or right th ere is no to te ll this up is o ther this other not perhaps who knows blithe on e this squat no taller than sho rt than wider n o thought all c orners taken in clipped to thei r other poked t o the brim squa re satisfy stou t angle right b ox settle state Read the rest of Overland 223 – If you liked this article, please subscribe or donate. Chris Mansell Chris Mansell is a poet. More about her work can be found at chrismansell.com. More by Chris Mansell › 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 20 December 202420 December 2024 · Reviews Slippery totalities: appendices on oil and politics in Australia and beyond Scott Robinson Kurmelovs writes at this level of confusion and contradiction for an audience whose unspoken but vaguely progressive politics he takes for granted and yet whose assumed knowledge resembles that of an outraged teenager. There should be a young adult genre of political journalism to accommodate books like this. 19 December 202419 December 2024 · Reviews Reading JH Prynne aloud: Poems 2016-2024 John Kinsella Poems 2016-2024 is a massive, vibrant and immersive collation of JH Prynne’s small press publication across this period. Some would call it a late life creative flourish, a glorious coda, but I don’t see it this way. Rather, this is an accumulation of concerns across a lifetime that have both relied on earlier form work and newly "discovered" expressions of genre that require recasting, resaying, and varying.
