LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS

2023 Longlist Announcement

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/ke4yv6?page=1&pageSize=10

The Garden at Dusk

He noticed the garden through the back door railings;

The gardener, on a ladder, was gathering fruit;

further away a girl with a basket had her eyes closed

and a book on her knees. At the far end the houses

looked rosy in the dusk. Only the kitchen window was

lighted. Someone from there called the girl. She got up.

The gardener felt so alone again, guilty, furtively happy,

since he had passed the whole garden under his arm

like a basket, hanging onto that internal voice that

deepened the whole evening; a basket full of leaves

and fruit  and the small golden knife among them.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/q9mkmy?page=1&pageSize=10

ON STAGE

3

What were you looking for? You look like a stammer.

You had just gotten up

leaving the bed sheets to freeze

and the avenging baths.

Drops of water flowed on your shoulders

on your belly

your feet bare on the soil

on the cut grass.

Those, other three

the faces of the daring Hecate.

They tried to take you with them.

Your eyes, two tragic conches

and you had on the nipples of your breasts

two small purple pebbles—

things of the stage,

I don’t know.

Those three bellowed

you stood nailed to the ground,

their gesturing pierced the air.

Servants brought them knives;

you stood nailed to the ground,

a cypress.

They pulled the knives from the sheaths

and aimed for a place to stab you.

Then and only then you cried:

‘Let whoever wants to come and sleep with me,

am I not the sea?’

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/ezvgyr?page=1&pageSize=10