Tuesday Poem: Chrome Yellow Hypothesis, by Iain Britton

the house isn’t what it was

the voice of a radio predicts a storm /

it mimics a politician

commentates on cricket

the radio possesses the eye

of an orchestra

anthems on walls / flags and

coronation stuff / a platoon

route marches to Hill 44 /      

the family has taken furniture

its god particles and disguised itself in bundles

the house isn’t what it seems ...

a square brick object at the mercy of orthodoxies

dousing gentiles in holy water / they

chant / play / sing / love thine enemies

                                                                                                                                   

Te Hahi o te Whakapono

the church (sermon-bloated)

hunches its white skull

beside the lake

passers-by are pulled in to drool

on historical grounds

where prisoners in wood

hug others in wood

where the lake laps music against stained-

glass windows / a flute’s voice

breathes on naked skin

a woman smiles

undoes her soul

for the cost of a camera’s sharp bite

life i observe is a sulphuric cloud

raw and exposed

a matter of confessions

this woman this mother

approaches

                                                                                                                                   

the miracle makers

who each year split atoms

by walking on air

she’s fascinated by silica

its crystals / this geothermal fragility

which  domes the town

she opens herself to parkland

fantasies

any stuntman would exploit

            

beside the lake

birds scrap

over chrome-plated godsends

plucked from moonstones

this mother this woman

goes into the house of

 one room

 one kitchen

 one radio

a solitary figure clothing

                                                                                                                                   

legends in bright garments

                                                                                                                                   

 what if

i place my lips on her lips / would forests

buckle up / would ghosts

return to their shelves to rest

she speaks to each gnome in her garden / paints

their hats gold

handles them carefully

each night they rough and tumble

squabble like her children

where invisibility is an asset

where in her house

love battles

love charges up a hill / e hoa

she calls

and the radio responds

with the news / the weather

a boy scoops up a ball

and runs with it

through a yellow cloud


Credit note: "Chrome Yellow Hypothesis" is from Iain Britton's collection photosynthesis, now available from Kilmog Press. This version is published, and reformatted to work better on a blog, with the permission of the author.

Tim says: After my hiatus, I'm back in the world of the Tuesday Poem, where I will try to get back in the routine of posting a Tuesday Poem every fortnight. It's a pleasure to (re)start with this fine poem by Iain Britton.

The Stars Like Sand - Canberra Launch: Orbital Separation Achieved

Well, I'm back - back in Wellington from my trip to Melbourne and Canberra, where my co-editor P.S. Cottier and myself launched the anthology we've been working on for almost two years, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry.

Each of us (Penelope | Tim) has already blogged about the Melbourne launch. The Canberra launch last Thursday, held at historic Manning Clark House, was also a success, with 40-50 people in attendance. The photos below show poets Lizz Murphy and John Jenkins reading their poems from the book, although most of the crowd is out of shot in these photos.

UPDATE: Penelope has now posted another eloquent post about the launches and how she feels at the end of them.

I enjoyed my trip to Australia a lot, thanks in very large part to the hospitality of my co-editor and her lovely family. Now I have a couple of solid weeks ahead of me as the judge of the Open Section of the 2014 New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, and then I have some writing to do!

Finally, watch out for some more publicity for Lost in the Museum this coming week - that's the new fantasy anthology with a touch of horror, set in Te Papa, that includes my story "The Big Baby".

The Stars Like Sand: Awaiting Second Stage Ignition

The first launch of The Stars Like Sand has happened - and very good it was too! As my co-editor reports on her blog, we had a good group of poets from the anthology reading at the Melbourne launch - a double launch with poet Gemma White' first collection Furniture is Disappearing.

About 70 people attended the launch at Melbourne's Collected Works bookshop - you can see part of the crowd below, including one of the poets from the anthology, Sean Wright (with hat); publisher's representative Breanne Rodda (seated on floor) and Collected Works owner Kris Hemensley (at right) (image courtesy Satya Helen Patrice).

Now we're gearing up for the Canberra launch tomorrow night, and expecting another good crowd and another set of anthology poets to read!

If you'd like a copy of the book, it's making its way into bookshops such as Melbourne's Collected Works, and you can also buy it from the publisher and from Amazon.com.

"Lost In the Museum" Now Available As Ebook and In Bookshops

I mentioned in my previous post that I have a story, "The Big Baby", in the recently published anthology Lost in the Museum, which has just received an excellent review by Lee Murray in the widely-read Beattie's Book Blog.

Lost in the Museum is now starting to become available in bookshops, including The Children’s Bookstore in Kilbirnie, Unity Books, and Marsden Books in Karori (Wellington) and Retrospace (Auckland). The ISBN is 978-0-473-28320-9, which will help you to order it from other bookshops.

Lost in the Museum is also available from Amazon as a Kindle ebook: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KTV5K0U