Peter Austin
Peter Austin lives with his wife and three daughters in Toronto, Canada, where he teaches English Literature at Seneca college. Over 90 of his poems have been published, in magazines/anthologies in Canada, the USA, the UK, Israel and several other countries. He also writes plays, and his musical adaptation of The Wind in the Willows has received 4 productions, most recently in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The following works are copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. No distribution or reprinting in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Stick and Stone
It came without a title or
The name of a creator,
But, when its crate was opened, it
Delighted the curator.
He didn’t see a slab of slate
Surmounted by a baton
(As, doubtless, you or I would), but
The fallout from Manhattan:
An atomized Hiroshima –
A torrefied Chernobyl –
A planet purged of gaudery
By conflagration global.
He typed a title, ‘Stick and Stone:
The Progeny of Fission’
And put the finished product in
His summer exhibition.
The head, arriving separately,
He scantily inspected,
Adjudged to be the doing of
A dabbler, and rejected.
[At London’s Royal Academy, during the summer of 2006, a slab
and a stick were mistaken for an artwork and exhibited. The sculpture
they were intended to support, and from which they had become
separated, was rejected. During World War 2, the Manhattan Project
led to the development of the world’s first nuclear bomb]
In the Sixties
South from Liverpool they traveled,
An anemic, silent crew
In their winter woolies raveled,
On the way to Katmandu.
Yes, but somewhere – Greece or Turkey –
Under sapphire-coloured skies
Alchemized from grey and murky
They emerged like butterflies
From their stifling woolen cumber,
And their pallid, northern skin
Metamorphosed to the umber
Of an agèd violin.
Eastward, inhibitions slipping
(Who would see, for heaven’s sake,
Jed and Gina, skinny-dipping
In some unfrequented lake,
Meg and Michael, high on poppy
Purple hearts or instant Zen*,
Margot, on Jerome’s serape
Trading spots with Adrienne?),
Till, beflowered, sandaled, beaded,
Every breast without its bra,
Pits and chins for weeks unweeded,
They beheld their Shangri-la….
Tina’s hash pipe, Howie’s turban
Are as likely as a tide
In the crescent (safe, suburban)
Where their owners now reside.
*[Instant Zen is slang for LSD]
Océane Tempête
Océane Tempête wrote extravagant fiction,
Fuelled by her fancy’s celestial flights,
Florid of plot and archaic of diction,
Peopled by emperors, margraves and knights.
Crying, “unhand me, you coistrel, you blackguard!”
Maidens were cornered (of course, they were ‘fair’);
Dashing Sir Someone, heart-stoppingly laggard,
Saved them with less than a second to spare;
Or, should he fail to (stupendously handsome,
Still, he was human and – sometimes – was foiled),
They would be ransomed for – well, a king’s ransom,
Minus their … or, as she put it, ‘despoiled’.
Critics attacked her, with cutthroat abhorrence,
Scoffed at her characters, settings and plots,
Flogged her with Kafka, and Conrad, and Lawrence,
Mocked her ‘gramercies’, her ‘grippes’ and her ‘grots’.
She, though, aloft on a crest of supporters,
Wrote off the critics as auteurs manqués,
Thought up the plot-lines for two more ripsnorters,
Tossed back her Cognac and called it a day.
A Weekend at the Cottage
Home from the office, by quarter to four;
Load up the Olds, and we’re off, with a roar;
No way but this, to assuage our besottage:
Jump in the lake that awaits at the cottage.
Up the main highway, the wind in our hair;
Friday, and freedom, and flight, and fresh air!
“Honey, slow down! Are you planning on crashing?
Honey, slow down! Up ahead, something’s flashing!”
Dammit, she’s right; so we lurch to a halt.
“Daddy!” “Now, Kirsty, it’s nobody’s fault!”
Turn on the radio, find the right station:
Sports ... weather ... adverts ... At last, information!
Twenty-six wheeler, lost hold of its load:
Fragments of glassware, all over the road!
“Mama?” “Not now; mom and dad are both busy.”
“No, mama - diff’rent: I gotta go wizzy!”...
Minus our tempers, and much of my hair,
Well after sunrise, we’re finally there,
Two of us tuckered as Tom, in Seattle,
One fully rested, her head full of prattle:
“Daddy: I wanna go play in the sand!
Mama! - a dragonfly, big as my hand!
Can we go swimming? I wanna - ” “No, Kirsty:
Don’t take your dress off till - ” “Daddy, I’m thirsty!”...
Well now, by Sunday we’re thoroughly whacked,
Drained of good humour, compassion and tact.
No way but this, to assuage our self-pity:
Jump in the car, and head back to the city.
Down the main highway.... “What’s that, up ahead?”
Turn on the radio, braking with dread.
Sports ... weather ... ads ... “Mama?” “Later, please, popsy.”
“No, mama - diff’rent: I gotta go plopsy!”
Two Rupees
Bhim, the bus conductor, was
As poisonous as pus,
So opined his passengers.
He’d chuck you off the bus
If you were a penny short.
“You pay me or you walk!”
Even were it life or death
The beggar wouldn’t balk.
Take the case of Sanjay and
The daughter on his knees,
Headed for the doctor, but
He’s shy by two rupees;
Out they fly, the pair of them
And underneath a wheel,
Flattened, like a mealy bug
Beneath a farmer’s heel.
This, the other passengers
So overloads with ire
That they string the culprit up
And set the bus afire….
Three deceased and six in jail
And ninety on their knees
Howling for their pound of flesh,
And all for two rupees.
[Based on an incident that occurred
in Orissa, India, in May 2008]
