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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                    #1/thyla1k-kh AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 1 The Poetry of Kevin Hart Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Kevin Hart by Jenni Mitchell, 1991. I PRAYER I from AMO TE SOLO I THE STONE'S PRAYER I PRAYER O come, in any way you want, In morning sunlight fooling in the leaves Or in thick bouts of rain that soak my head              Because of what the darkness said Or come, though far too slowly for my eye to see, Like a dark hair that fades to gray Come with the wind that wraps my house Or winter light that slants upon a page              Because the beast is stirring in its cage Or come in raw and ragged smells Of gumleaves dangling down at noon Or in the undertow of love When she's away              Because a night creeps through the day Come as you used to, years ago, When I first fell for you In the deep calm of an autumn morning Beginning with the cooing of a dove              Because of love, the lightest love Or if that's not your way these days Because of me, because Of something dead in me, Come like a jagged knife into my gut              Because your touch will surely cut Come any way you want But come from     AMO TE SOLO Sometimes a life goes wrong Without an evil deed: So here I am in Berne Awake in the white hours Waiting for time to pass Until I can call home             For when I am away             Each hour leaves its bruise Late home, my cab drives down Small streets whose names I love; The evening is ripe With sparrows and a breeze; An outside light shines round And tightly holds the house             There is no life on earth             I would not spend with you Love is a standing to attention. Yes, No man can argue long against a truth That smashes hard into his deepest life It's Spring: the maple tree speaks of her lips, The curve around her bottom that I love. But no one sane will ever quote a tree So I must tell her how this little world Is bigger now only because of her, And how this massive universe makes sense Only because of her (it does, it does), And how this ordinary room is love And truth because she walks through it all day It is a dark green ivy afternoon In Princes Hill as rain falls through vast trees Into the little garden where we live             On summer days. It's late December and the clocks have stopped While people watch their windows come alive And old tin roofs out back get hopping mad             And gutters booze. Last week we burned our flesh, but now we baste While smoky jazz just cruises down the lane And makes out with our cat beneath a car             While we're in bed, The sheets all trampled underneath our feet, Those lyrics touching us as night comes on: Something about a day spent drinking wine             And getting laid. So we run out of world, not time: Life hangs around like last night's gin, And even if we peel away The morning light from dappled things There is no chance that we will see This fountain pen left on a chair For what it is. The world is love No matter what we make of it, No matter how we cut it up: The pen must know a hand on it. The great truths live just out of sight, Past what I know of you, or you Of me: so let's be calm and kind Until the great truths come to us In that gold light we've heard about And pens fly quickly to our hands. THE STONE'S PRAYER Father, I praise you For the wideness of this your earth, and for the sky Arched forever over me, For the sharp rain and the scraping wind That have carved me from the mountain And made me smooth as a child's face. Accept my praise For my colour, a starless night, That my width is that between the first two stars of evening Reflected in the water, That my quartz flashes like lightning And reflects the glory of your creation, That you have seen fit To place me near a stream and thus to contemplate The passing of time; For all that is around me I sing your praise, For the fierce concentration of ants, their laws, For all that they tell me about you. Keep me, I pray, whole, Unlike the terrible dust and pieces of bone Cast about in the wind's great breath, unlike men Who must suffer change, Their endless footprints deep as graves; Keep me in truth, in solitude, Until the day when you will burst into my heavy soul And I will shout your name. Published in New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins, 1995). About the Poet Kevin Hart Kevin Hart was born in London in 1954 and was brought to Australia as a child in 1966. He grew up in Brisbane, and studied at the Australian National University, Stanford University, and the University of Melbourne. He is currently Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Monash University in Melbourne in Victoria. Volumes of his poetry have won Australia's most prestigious awards, including the Christopher Brennan Award, the Grace Leven Award, the Harri Jones Prize, the NSW Premier's Award, the Mattara Award, the Victorian Premier's Award, and the Wesley Michel Wright Award. Kevin Hart is the author of three volumes of criticism: The Trespass of the Sign (Cambridge University Press, 1989; expanded edition, Fordham University Press, 2000), A. D. Hope (Oxford University Press, 1992) and Samuel Johnson and the Culture of Property (Cambridge University Press, 1999). He is the editor of The Oxford Book of Australian Religious Verse (1994) and the translator of Guiseppe Ungaretti's selected poems, The Buried Harbour (Leros Press, 1990). He is now writing two further books of criticism: The Dark Gaze: Maurice Blanchot and Friends, and The Experience of God.    [Above] Photo of Kevin Hart by Jenni Mitchell, 1991. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.1 (March, 2000)