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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                               #11/thyla11k-mo
AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 11
The Poetry of Mark O'Flynn
Selected by Coral Hull

[Above] Photo of Mark O'Flynn by Kim Huynh, 2004.

I PIG AT POUND I THE STILLNESS OF COWS I THE BATS I FRANZ JOSEF GLACIER I THIN WALL
I DRAGONFLY I RAIN GAUGE I

PIG AT POUND

under arrest
rogue pig slippery with dust
uncurls and flaps his tail
fenced within his small municipality
snorts
in the heat numbing as old anaesthetic
tries to mount the trough, but it's too fat
someone's happy christmas abandonment grown vast
he lowers his nuggety head
into the water as if trying to drown himself
ears waggling like a hippo
instead he grips the sink's plug
with his teeth and pulls
a gush of water drains into the dirt
turns it swiftly mud
grovelling in the mire
pink nose flaring like a mushroom
cool remedy
camouflaged in lovely filth
more human than not

THE STILLNESS OF COWS

Thirteen early morning frost cows
standing in the sugary ice of their own shadows,
still as cairns.
All about them the paddock thaws
but for cow-shaped frost-maps to the west,
white as mould on the dawning green.
One side of them slowly steaming in the light,
while the dark sides of the cows tic and shudder
a collective dream of the herd.
Something in me envies their stillness
waiting for the simultaneous moment
when they will lower their heads
in the stillness of frost and kiss the ground.

THE BATS

(for K.R)

Prematurely woken
a dozen mousey bats are all that survive the felling
of the dead mountain ash for wood.
Cushioned but concussed beneath a fold of bark
they thaw and move feebly as milk
in the sun. Your companion
the dog snuffles wetly over them.
They shield their bugeyes
from the light with velvet wings.
Hung like washing upside down to dry
eventually their stunned blood warms
and they rise on a whisper
circling the ghost
that is the tree's sudden absence.
Their instinct is precise
until it tells them home
is nowhere to be found anymore,
fumbling off as one toward
the wide horizons of the afternoon
where you too
are looking for a home.

FRANZ JOSEF GLACIER

[ - so may my words
Give shade in a land that lacks a human heart.]
- James K. Baxter

From the terminal face, the melt cascades
across the boulders tumbled smooth as grief.
The soft neve smothers everything we feel except wonder.
Down the labyrinth of moulins her sobbing torrents pour.
Back in love's ice ages mourning took forever.
Seracs splinter and drip
beneath the mythical stillness of Hinehukatere's tears
which once reached beyond the sea
shouldering gravel aside in great bluffs.
Grief retreats with a glacier's rapidity
to a shrinking precipice
but never shrinks completely.
The rising rivers gush their howling
over stone, inexorably changing course,
clawed smooth by ice peppered with rock flour.
Our camp now miles inland
where once her yearning reached
leaving icebergs and kettle lakes to drown in.
Beyond the bulldozed levee
gnawed by the glacier's slow teeth
our bed lies with the avalanche girl
grinding below the surface of the river.

Published in JAAM (New Zealand).

THIN WALL

[for Michelle Hadley]

Listening through the wall I hear a man talk on the phone to his dying
mother. They speak of the weather and comfortable pillows and
hospital meals. He tells her he will be coming to see her soon, as
soon as his day release is organised and sponsers approved. Many
forms to fill. They will hold hands again and talk over good old times
and everything that is going to be all right. He will tell her of his plans.
Then there is silence. The silence of loss that has yet to arrive. He tells
her that his time is up. The sound of her voice saying goodbye is too
much for him. There is a moment. He hangs up and goes back to
his work of sweeping the path, a path which has been swept and swept
and swept a thousand times before.

DRAGONFLY

A dragonfly battering
itself against a skylight
presages rain, though
of itself is no great omen.
At the flyscreen's
dusk trap,
it seems to be afraid
of the loungeroom light.
Rattles brittle wings
against the glass,
the thwarted stars.
I turn off every bulb
hoping to lure it out,
but it does not escape.
I know tomorrow
I will find the stiff shell,
the cartography of its wings,
make its death educational -
but the next day there is nothing,
already the puddles
shrinking to a litter of coins.

Published in The Good Oil (Five Islands Press, 2000).

RAIN GAUGE

Black cockatoos circle
the house like Luftwaffe,
flapping heavily
before the coming storm's bruise.
Their voices scratch
the errant breeze
and they seem to know
which elastic branch
will take their weight.
Wind lifts
the tree crowns to a rustle.
The funeral cockatoos labour
themselves into the air,
drifting through mist
towards the valley
on heavy wings
wheezing their infallible prediction of rain.

About the Poet Mark O'Flynn

Mark O'Flynn began writing for the theatre after graduating from the VCA. He has had seven plays professionally produced, including Eleanor & Eve, and Paterson's Curse, published by Currency Press in 1988. As a playwright he has worked for numerous community theatre companies including The Mill Theatre Company, MRPG, Riverina Theatre Company, as well as the Victorian Arts Council T.I.E wing. He was writer-in-residence at Deakin University in 1985 and 1987. He has also published a novella, Captain Cook, and two books of poetry, The Too Bright Sun, and The Good Oil. He has had several short stories read on radio 5UV, and has read his own work on ABC regional radio, 2BL, and Radio National. In 2001 he was a founding member of Weatherboard Theatre Company which received funding to write Eleanor & Eve from the NSW Ministry for the Arts, a portion of which was published in Hecate, 2002. This play was also produced at Railway Street Theatre Company in November, 2003. A new novel Grassdogs will be published by Harper/Collins in June 2006.
   [Above] Photo of Mark O'Flynn by Kim Huynh, 2004.

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Thylazine No.11 (June, 2006)

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