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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                    #2/thyla2k-jh AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 2 The Poetry of Jennifer Harrison Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Jennifer Harrison by Bruce Day, 1997. I St George's Basin Cunjevoi I Sea Tulips I Three Structures I Dunes I The Shark I St George's Basin In sea-grey cells, memory stirs, flows back across a sandy ti-tree shore. The black-rimmed eye of the gull is orange round, but harder than the sun. A whiting school darts beneath oars like a sudden diversion of thought flashing silver. Midway to nowhere what business could be so urgent? I glide through shifting weeds my canoe ebbing to the sea. Rain spills a jar of purple beads. Cloud-scowl fills rock-pools with a lid. Somewhere in memory a woman swims in a boned hibiscus suit. An old man hums blue, colour opal, water-dipped. Published in Michelangelo's Prisoners (Black Pepper, 1995). Cunjevoi I want less frailty nature knows what I mean like people, the creatures of the sea have proper names and nicknames: ascidians, sea-squirts, chordates cunjevoi the backboneless primitives cluster along Cudmirrah's shoulders each has a rudimentary brain an eye-spot, a mouth and an anus each can breathe and feel the foot which presses the sea from their bellies their generic name, Tunicata, recalls the shapeless garment Aristotle described they are tough, these porridges they survive the battering of time they have filtered centuries of sediment through orifices of abbe-like calm attached as adults to rocks (as children for a few hours free) they drink the sea through a thousand gill-slits and wash up after storms as tulips. Published in Cabramatta/Cudmirah (Black Pepper, 1996). Sea Tulips Sea Tulips actually look like potatoes small unpeeled earthy potatoes under the wharf or clumped along the rocks at low-tide. Hermit crabs are not lonely nor fiddler crabs musical The snapping prawn won't hurt a fly and the elephant snail is tiny. Alzheimer's disease does not correctly name estuaries torn from visceral moss. We place so much in the hands of strangers so as not to be confused with razor shells or sentiments. Published in Cabramatta/Cudmirah (Black Pepper, 1996). Three Structures Formlessness I will divide. From decay will be growth. Climate will fit the design. I will not fall between the boats. Here is the text the oceanographer's map: behind are the mind's suspicious zones ahead the ocean's three-layered structure 1. the surface 2. the pycnocline and 3. the dark isolate mass below each poem where sun cannot scatter its spectrums and the Great White, austere as a ghost slips across a shadowless floor. The surface reflects an idea, a ceiling made of words and names and tidal countenances; the pycnocline is a doublefold of toughened skin which feels and repels sadness; and the deep ocean, scarcely moving is a tail which keeps its balance by all that is balanced upon it. Published in Cabramatta/Cudmirah (Black Pepper, 1996). Dunes Dunes reach inwards into powder rooms where voices muffled and trapped slowly seduce the earth. Dunes, pearl-pipes sound out the voices of men and women separated, their steps obliterated by drifts of longing. For faces unchanged beneath graves the wind digs. For faces reflected in night the moon polishes the dune's silver. Across the slipping face, rain weeps, sinks, but is not lost. In the dune's dryness there is a nomadic snow. In the dune's shape a dusty child settles to sleep, dreaming of breasts weaning the sea. Published in Cabramatta/Cudmirah (Black Pepper, 1996). The Shark Dawn unravels along the sky's spine illuminating the quiet killer whose stealth rivals the beauty of Latin. Pale, limned, green cartilage triangle ruffled like ribbon, softer more casual than you thought, the fin cruises the banks of Clarence. Shocked from your fishing perch you retreat to watch from the rock-wall surprised by the gull's echoes of distress. You are glad to be human beside the sky, the stones and the water. And the river is bold, loyal to its own timeless, now, as a swimmer's held breath. About the Poet Jennifer Harrison Jennifer Harrison has written three books of poetry. The first, Michelangelo's Prisoners published by Black Pepper in 1995, won the 1995 Anne Elder Award. Her second collection, Cabramatta /Cudmirrah, (Black Pepper, 1996) was highly commended by the Poetry Book Club, Australia and her third, Dear B, (Black Pepper, 1999) was short-listed for both the 1999 Age Book of the Year and the NSW Premier's Award. She is currently working on her fourth collection assisted by a literary grant from The Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. Her new work is inspired by Australian and European street-theatre traditions. She has lived in the United States and New Zealand and has travelled in the Himalayas. Jennifer Harrison lives with her family in Melbourne, Victoria where she practises as a psychiatrist.    [Above] Photo of Jennifer Harrison by Bruce Day, 1997. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.2 (September, 2000)