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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                 #11/thyla11k-lh AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 11 The Poetry of Lucy Holt Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Lucy Holt by photographer unknown, 2005. I Self-Portrait with Red Bird I Muse Enough I Bird Ghazal I A Dream of Fire I Dying Bird I The Question Followed by One Answer I Self-Portrait with Red Bird An immaculate woman stands at the mirror of the cafe bathroom, holding her heart in place as if it were making its final escape. She drops her hands to reveal a thin wound of raspberry sauce down her white shirt. She stares at herself as if she is a Frida Kahlo: spine a crumbling pillar under the body's imperceptible quake, head three-quarter profiled in self-distrust. Her husband rings from their table and asks what's taking so long. She stares at herself as she answers must you know all: not a question. Must it always be so visible (the real question) her insides as art. She is reminded of their marriage bed the first morning, the same rude red like a shout. She should have shouted then in disbelief at the red seal on her life, still warm. She should shout now at the score down her chest concaved with age. And deeper still: a sternum scission, ribcage opening to let the red bird out. Published in Feminist Studies (USA). Muse Enough For O I am writing in bed and you are lying beside me your head and one shoulder (its blade skin-sheathed) rising from the commotion of sheet knots and quilt my spare hand resting on your open-book chest (a sternum to bind) you tilt your head into three-quarter profile lips slightly parted so I can see your front teeth you look at me with mock self-consciousness and ask Am I muse enough?' Bird Ghazal after Judith Wright I am learning: the devil is no bird The owl-front-eyed, feigning wise - is too human a bird. It swivels its head to omnipotent angles. Devil's spy-bird. Blue flash set in a bird's head The bowerbird-jewel-topped dandy - finds decadence in drought, hoarding baubles of smoky quartz, sap-drops, as he vies for she-bird. You burning Bird or God The kestrel-deadly cupid, arrow-eyed - deciphers the grand schema of mouse-dash and dives with no sound of light or bird. Rise and fall-we read each bird The tern-wings ink-tipped - is poised mid-thought before a thermal, formal arc: wind's calligraphy in the flight of bird. Whatever the bird is, is perfect in the bird The lyrebird-child of Echo and Narcissus - is a dying poet-bird, crafting song from counterfeit notes, unsought replies, stories of Bird. A Dream of Fire We animals retreat like defeated comrades (thinking of ourselves, of the collective horror, but not of each other) to the edge of heat, to the sea. Flames lick the sand from the west, waves from the east: maddening their elemental other. On the shoreline we balance in awe: the beauty of fire is enforced, it colours to kill. Despite the fire's horrible roar is its fugue of shape and light. Each towering flame- head is the final crescendo until the one that follows: dream-logic. Dying Bird I. I came upon a bird nearly through with dying, positioned like a parcel on the back door step. If it was a message it was not for me. Omens -unlike bad luck, the living - cannot arrive uninvited. Without incitement an omen is not omen, just a bird realizing its last task despite you. II. In death-roost a bird lets the wind maraud through feathers that once controlled the wind as a belonging. I glimpsed white down beneath its formal black torn open. (It is a woman's death to die unclothed - the pale shock of lace lying beside like a suckling). The bird's morsel of a heart wavered in the wind, the angles of neck and wing were acute. Its dark eye twirled, fluttered, enacted flight. Violence is hidden from death; death is a maidenhead (only a woman's body makes death unchaste). The soft thud of spade was shocking. Watching from the fence top was the messenger, a lithe, live gargoyle awaiting my reply. The Question Followed by One Answer I. To be misplaced in the earth or to be filed, catalogued, stacked upon each other like old books? II. Outside the resting church the man with a skin-tone suitcase propped in a pram. His right hand follows the motion of casting sprigs into a grave. It's a memory he always finds at his feet: at the park bench; at the depot gates where he watches the trams roll in. He comes from a place of graves far more complex than a single tragedy's shape. Thousands of pairs of shoes escaped the fire as if shoes could be god-blessed. Where he hid a Jew baby in his sock-drawer moments before he was taken. Published in Annetna Nepo (USA). About the Poet Lucy Holt Lucy Holt is a Melbourne-based writer and undergraduate student in History and Gender Studies. Her first poetry collection, Stories of Bird, will be published in late 2005 as part of a Poets Union (NSW) Emerging Writers' Fellowship. Her 'Self-Portrait with Red Bird' won the 2005 Woorilla Prize. Her poems can be found in international journals softblow (Singapore), nthposition (Canada & UK), Feminist Studies (USA), Annetna Nepo (USA) and Stylus (Australia), and national publications Meanjin, Verandah, Poetrix and My Perfect Diary.    [Above] Photo of Lucy Holt by photographer unknown, 2005. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.11 (June, 2006)