New terms for timeless behaviours


Sea’s in a building

 

phase. City wakes

 

to the sun or crane

 

in the mirror of its

 

former employ-

 

ment. Here’s

 

some fresh stone

 

blocking

 

traffic from the park.

 

We limber. Motorise

 

resistance and ride

 

out on a cryptic

 

breeze.

 

Morning

 

TV’s:/p>

 

hair-raising

 

investiture.

 

8:04 weather

 

charts.

 

Office

 

library-

 

quiet.

 

Hmmm.

 

Emotional

 

preferences for

 

illegible feedback.

 

Leave the

 

mysteries the

 

rabbit holes

 

to Keats.

 

A bell: catharsis

 

yet! or can’t wait and

 

expedite an afternoon.

 

Thought along a trail.

 

Day that’s been/to come

 

though notes are

 

no promises.

 

So volatile. Shelve

 

plans/scripts

 

for a lounge

 

and novel

 

on politics—

 

the generally bifocal

 

exercise of reading.

 

Loads of new term-

 

inologies for time-

 

less behaviours.

 

Beneath the perfect

 

lawns of land-held

 

Parliament House

 

Wanted senators

 

decline invitation

 

for the optics

 

of their place

 

in a crowd.

 

The most familiar

 

rooms are often

 

called spaces

 

and housebound

 

fifteenpage poems

 

are formidable acts

 

of concentration.

 

I draw mid-day

 

blinds on two

 

duplicate moons

 

weeknights

 

‘rest my eyes’

 

(all attention)

 

economising

 

as any device.

 

Somewhere in

 

the soundtrack’s

 

anonymous love

 

brief revival then—

 

scanning

 

for detail in a

 

high-speed credits scroll

 

where episodic means

 

continuous.

 

Chris Brown

lives in Newcastle where he works as a teacher. bulky news press published his chapbook, slender Volume, in 2017.

More by Chris Brown ›

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