Tuesday Poem: The Balcony, by Iain Britton

 


Painted lines

criss-cross this universal playboy
of the Polynesian world.


A strange masochism is at work
threading hot wires through veins

connecting me to him
                           to this epiphany in progress.



He compartmentalizes the morning

inhabits a caption          written for him

for a picture

of his maidservant       her dog       her cat.


He explores by touch
strips of sunlight              draped over a balcony.


He’s neither soldier

                        sailor                   butcher

but carries a helmet for his journey.



From the balcony

blunted-blue agapanthus
choke in numbers.

Credit note: "The Balcony" is the opening poem in Iain Britton's new collection Punctured Experimental, published by Kilmog Press and available from Parsons Bookshop in Auckland.

Tim says: I interviewed Iain Britton in 2009, shortly before his collection Liquefaction was published by IP. Iain subsequently got in touch to let me know about Punctured Experimental and to let me know that his work was moving in a more experimental direction - as reflected in the title of his new book, which continues the impressive publication schedule of Dunedin's Kilmog Press.