From Nonets
Kindness and the mask of kindness are the same:
a kindly man, with blue
irony and kindness. Ashbery days
with the wrong kinds of changes
a kind of translucence
a kind of moon
The city is a kind of hospice.
The people are hard-eyed, kindly, with nothing inside them,
Each message is a kind of poem,
Thought is all sadness; but night is all kindness: the stars are on high.
What kind of father are you
Why do I turn from the honey of life to the blood-kindling wine?
What kind of creature
What kind of weather is risk?
‘from Nonets’ is a cento from MTC Cronin’s ‘LXIV [Your faded clothes flutter like a flag]’, David Malouf’s ‘Epitaph for a Monster of Our Times’, Robert Adamson’s ‘The Flow-Through’, Lee Cataldi’s ‘the simple past’, Jill Jones’ ‘Edge/Past’, joanne burns’ ‘[at 8 a.m.]’, Geoff Page’s ‘The Hospice’, James McAuley’s ‘Envoi’, Geoff Page’s ‘The Lonely Phone’, J Brunton Stephens’ ‘Convict Once’, John Kinsella’s ‘Circus’, Dorothy Porter’s ‘Cold (1)’, Philip Salom’s ‘Two Kinds of Weather’
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