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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                     #8/thyla8k-at AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 8 The Poetry of Andrew Taylor Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Andrew Taylor by Sarah Josephi-Taylor, 2003. I Trapdoor spiders I Old farm houses I from SWAMP POEMS - I I from SWAMP POEMS - IV I from SWAMP POEMS - VI I from SWAMP POEMS - X I The Answer I Trapdoor Spiders Invisible architects whose silk-lined mineshafts close with an oyster lid indiscernible in dust I know too little of their thinking their underground horizons their sinking aspirations their lonely and sunless longevity and design their skill and their immaculate deception they are another world entirely yet kin to mine Old farm houses Footsteps of children on bare boards a clatter of dripping plates on a dusty bench whistling spring cleaning among dense cobwebs a lawnmower in the parched yard. Old farm houses wear their bones on the outside, the weathered grain of their boards pops at the knots, roof-iron angles waiting for a storm, they grow an orchard of rusty equipment - springs spoked wheels, parts of a combine harvester and a seed drill founder below grass. A chain hangs from a tree, the wood healed round its rasp. There might be a well. The sheds are still useful and the gates shut. The gates shut on children who have gone to the cemetery or the city, the sheds house their shadows, dry rot has burned through warped floors spiders weave their analogies in a waterless kitchen but the dams are full wheat ripens and somebody's children sweat in a high sun longing for shadows. from SWAMP POEMS - I Thought moves over the surface of a windless reach like the birth of a breath here where water thickens with intention and the inattention of tides I glide within a mirror of attendant trees egrets placing fastidious feet and sitting-down ducks comfortable as pets yet out of reach in a secret stretch of this river stranger than the neat suburb outlandishly near but out of sight tiny fish scurry water dimples thoughts under stillness Published in Creative Arts Review, Journal of Australian Studies (Australia). from SWAMP POEMS - IV Water thickens under these trees clots of whatever breeds here unite and each stroke of my paddle meets their resistance I am being welcomed into the swamp by this resistance I am being told to be quiet to be still as the egret in the grass breathless as the wind is now in these trees which watch with the faint scent of having watched it all before my pause as I balance my paddle as I sit without a movement with hardly a heartbeat or breath as the swamp glides forward to embrace me Published in Creative Arts Review, Journal of Australian Studies (Australia). from SWAMP POEMS - VI Early rain Swamp is in love with rain but the rain this swamp remembers fell in a rolling world of granite and parched uplands nine months ago Here brackish tides bring jellyfish that bob like bumpy parachutes higher and higher upriver and if I'm lucky the submarine purposive reconnaissance of a dolphin inspects and respects me It will rain again in the hills next month the swamp will cool and freshen its water clear and darken its salt flush back to the sea But rain like today's decorating the melaleucas swamp grass and eucalypts with its glitter of sunlight is merely pretty Published in Creative Arts Review, Journal of Australian Studies (Australia). from SWAMP POEMS - X The river bears its unsurprising mementos of summer - milk cartons, condoms, shopping bags a cushion from some fisherman's chair plastic bottles and several months-old magazines - washed now that rain has come from its banks. Late autumn does the spring cleaning here. Jellyfish have gone, the water is dark and clear. But the swamp is reluctant to change. It will see this out as it saw out summer - vague, turned in on itself, resisting wind, brash sunlight, even rain. It will perch with hooded eyes on a dead branch or sail unruffled into evening or stand vigilant as punctuation marking the indecipherable sentence of swamp grass and silence. Summer, autumn have ended our dolphin is returning to the sea but the swamp is endlessly beginning its ageless smoulder of decay. Published in Creative Arts Review, Journal of Australian Studies (Australia). The Answer I've come back to the swamp for answers - after three years of drought the drenching rain that fell on the hills has flooded its reticence, flushing green clots of algae that had bred almost like cloth among the groping roots and silvered watergrass as tidal highs month after month lapped lower and lower. Its water now will be cold and brown with silt, the mussels flushed, the grey summer-stricken swampgum leaves uncurl while spoonbills, herons, ibis and wild teal forage anew. After six months of pain, uncertainty, my healing scars strong enough at last to heft my boat, I'll float my chemical craft across the slow silence of the swamp, watched by the motionless egret and falcon. I know I should have my questions ready, should ask something about those messages of hope the poison in my blood is offering, something about the future that was snatched and now, it seems, is drifting back into view renewed, unclear. But the trees in the swamp are far more patient than I, they will not acknowledge my need or echo my urgency. So I've come to the swamp with silence on my tongue and in my heart - in its own good time it will help me understand why I am here. About the Poet Andrew Taylor Andrew Taylor was born in Warnambool, Victoria, and is a graduate of Melbourne University, from which he holds a Doctor of Letters. He is the author of twelve books of poetry, a critical study of Australian poetry, the libretti of two operas (with the composer Ralph Middenway), and co-translator with Beate Josephi of an anthology of poetry by four German and Austrian women poets. He has also compiled several anthologies, and written numerous academic articles. He was regional winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1986, and of the Western Australian Premier's Prize for poetry in 1995, and is a Member of the Order of Australia. He has lived and taught at universities in Melbourne, Adelaide (where he chaired Writers' Week at the Adelaide Festival, and was one of the founders of the Friendly Street Poetry Readings and Australia's first Writers' Centre), Germany and Perth, where he is currently Professor of English at Edith Cowan University. He has also spent extended periods in the USA, Italy and the UK. Andrew Taylor's Collected Poems will appear late 2003 (Salt Publications, UK, USA and Australia).    [Above] Photo of Andrew Taylor by Sarah Josephi-Taylor, 2003. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.8 (September, 2003)