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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                #11/thyla11k-gh AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 11 The Poetry of Gershon Holtz Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Gershon Holtz by Cameron Outridge, 2006. I Dissected Ram: Goya 1808-12 I The Bull's Skull: Picasso 1942 I Hare and Copper Cauldron: Chardin 1741 I Unlikely Arrangement: Stephen Nothling 1993 I Bacchus: Caravaggio 1597 I Boy Bitten By A Lizard: Caravaggio 1594 I Dissected Ram Goya 1808 Parted from us by a strand of helix you graze on pastures in a parallel but private country, and even if you uttered common nouns, like grass or stream, your tongue would ruminate their meaning into cud. Almost companion you're more easily corralled by syntax of husbandry than house-pet, although orphaned lambs extract sighs as well as our sucklings can from latex teat. Our lexicon names the cycle of your seasons from teg to shorn. Masters of our tongues your predicates flow from our lips as lucid as your syllables fall on saw-dust floor. With rhetoric we ritualise your virtues as embodiment of Meek, an irony not completely lost, for as your shepherds who also follow anything that moves, with you we inherit the slaughtered Earth. The Bull's Skull Picasso 1942 Vanitas for Julio Gonzales Yesterday to Acrueil you went by train to bury Julio, the smith who showed you all the fixing points of iron and fire, and while you journeyed, Parisians wearing yellow stars were herded into Boulevard de Grenelle's winter velodrome. Recalling the bull's head you forged long ago from laughter and a cycle's saddle and bones you imagine other sculptures, a rib cage: hoops of cooper-smith's steel, a child's hand: smooth as bronze. Waiting like a skeleton at a banquet the skull pictured in your Vanitas for Julio is deaf as bone, eloquent as a freshly open grave. Hare and Copper Cauldron Chardin 1741 Escaping this life the hare leaps into the silence only cauldrons and walls know. No longer a creature with a past and still as the wall on which it's hung, the hare keeps company with the cauldron. The hare, the cauldron, and wall are all the same to the light which binds them into its surface. You try to see them behind that surface of light, but that is the surface of your eye, and beyond that a leap into silence only cauldrons and walls know. Unlikely Arrangement Stephen Nothling 1993 Are the roses in your Still Life flowers that blind, a perfect tea-rose of the darkest hue which blooms its stain in your eye? As you shaped them with each brush-stroke dipped in the colours of your baby-blues, did they flower like your iris as it blooms to catch the light? Ablaze in their corsage above a chartreuse sea, in our eyes burn your rosettes of azure fire. Bacchus Caravaggio 1597 Fingering a satin bow tied loosely at your waist and adorned by grapes and leaves you wilt among apricot, and peach, plump apples, and bruised fig. Nibbling the rose' again, in his image you're made the God of youthful decay. Beneath arched brows lithographers will later touch with and ochre and zinc, reincarnating you as a Geisha pin-up boy for gallery posters, your cheeks are flushed, your eyes, dark, wine-soaked plums. Bathed in moonlight's sallow hues in the varnish of his eye your torso glows. Boy Bitten By A Lizard Caravaggio 1594 Flicking its silver tail the reptile bites, and as you wince among cherries and quince and fling your wrists awry, you wonder as your robe slips if in this sketch of love's protest you over-play your part. Pursed around an invisible plum your lips are ripe. Stealing a glance towards easel, you recall the blush of persimmon and the scent of linseed on his skin. Wounded by the promise of a small death you sigh as its white flower whispers in your ear. About the Poet Gershon Holtz Gershon Holtz is the nom de plume of Gary Maller playing the role of historical muse. In 2004 Gary was awarded a major grant from Arts Queensland to write a collection of poems exploring narratives and themes in Renaissance Italian art. His previous collections Nights in the Gardens of Spain (Post Pressed, 2002) and Night Breathing (Metro Arts Press, 1993) continue to receive excellent reviews in Australia and abroad. A founding member of the Queensland Poetry Association, Gary was an active participant in Amnesty Poetry readings at Metro Arts Brisbane during the early 1990s. In addition to poetry, Gary writes for publications and corporations in Australia and the USA. He holds a first class honours degree in the philosophy of language. His recent work Death in Full Bloom was performed to a packed house at Maleny Manor as an initiative of Maleny Arts Council during 2006. DIFB will also be performed at the Brisbane Writers Festival, as a joint Initiative of Maleny Arts Council (Queensland Arts Council Eastern Region) and Brisbane Writers Festival. In 2003 Gary Maller founded Literati (www.literati.com.au) with the aim of fostering closer ties between commerce, society, the environment, information technology and the creative arts.    [Above] Photo of Gershon Holtz by Cameron Outridge, 2006. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.11 (June, 2006)