Pam Brown
New Poems

© 1998 by Pam Brown and gangan books australia

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This & That
(I cite myself)

Resting like a relic
in a field of meaning --
push the rocks around
for transformation --
gravel rash, scab, scar,
all
factors that
fall squarely.
(like that)

those well-known codes --
public-private continuum --
a surveyor's tripod clacks --
the laneway, reduced
& framed,
is picturesque --
even the rubbish
appears artificial.

casual citations
accumulate,
ballooning
empirical tactics --
o no it's
an index of anecdote

the hypermarket
surveillance camera
attempts its capture --
my nearly-beautiful
every dream,
my artificial memory
daily.



disease, elusive entity,
slithers.
pale gloved hands,
yet HIV negative.
the milky
ampule's contents
swallowed --
waste management, the nightclub.

sleepless in a townhouse,
hours of
zonelessness.
(like this)

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Evening

stranded on
the roundabout
a dazed pedestrian
hopes to cross
to the noodle bar

the october evening
heady with hops --
my small mica-blue car
passes by
the Bandido shootout
S&M club,
then the brewery

in traffic
I do a lot
of thinking

the lead kids
in Bay Street,
backs to a sunset
they never notice,
shouting at
the concrete mixers --
Turn off your engines !
the sky goes rococo
Residential Area !
No Standing Zone !

in a hurry ?
if you like,
you can skip
the last sections
of the poem



after work,
fearless in an office suit,
a cyclist
runs the red lights
on the way downtown

a cardboard
fruit box
collected by
a station wagon
hurled up
to land unflattened

the sky,
as if backlit,
turning glamorous
& final

waiting for dark
in Cleveland Street
a carjacker fidgets,
flicks & twirls
his cigarette.

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E-mail P.Brown@library.usyd.edu.au