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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                              #12/thyla12k-mh AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 12 The Poetry of Matt Hetherington Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Matt Hetherington by Angela Cook, year unknown. I Triads I All I Think I Three Wishes I Here I Redemption Poem I Gone to the Desert Again to Die Again I Triads (After Vincent Buckley) 3 things to be expected     quiet old men     friendly dogs     drinkable rain 3 fragile things     silhouettes in winter     the patience of a gambler     empty holes 3 things to be remembered     a mother's scent     salt from the sea     weeds on graves 3 unacceptable things     lonely babies     blue bread     the uncountable dead 3 possible things     humble leaders     the wisdom of spiders     dreams without fear Published in The Best Australian Poems 2004 (Black Inc, 2005). All I Think all i think i don't have                        you reveal to me is here                      then my bowl is full                                    of luscious air                steam of tea                                         wafts slowly                              sunlight flows calmly                                 through glass                                         the evening summer sky                                                             is as blue as a flame & i believe the shapes i know      & i love is all i feel Three Wishes as a cloud drifts in a white breeze let me drift like a pebble sits in the pond's depth let me sit as the sun dies in the sea's womb let me die Published in New England Review (Australia). Here where was i born? the place i was found. where do the children hide? where they become blind. where are these words heard? in the open heart. where to escape this hurt? in the centre of the pain. Redemption Poem (For Ted Lord) i preach to you now as yet another antichrist. i know how it gets sometimes: you're broke; your heart is broken, too; you're frozen in apathy; it's midnight all day every day; you can't see a single star for your fear, and the moon leers at you sideways; your friends all hate you; your teacher has forsaken you; you're lying prone in some alley in the darkest part of the deepest valley, or maybe you're dying of thirst, and drowning alone all the same, so wherever you search, there's still no one else left to blame. it's then that you want to take all the money you've made, and use it to buy back your soul. but if in your moments of doubt and pain you look above to relieve your frenetic brain of the dread of death, or loss of love, that's just the poetic belief that you're cursed, and can't be redeemed whenever you choose it - or, as some dead and rotting wise old devil once said in a long forgotten verse, "he who would save his soul shall lose it". Gone to the Desert Again to Die Again                 a huge grey moon rises low     above the horizon's blurry line it seems to hang immeasurably long                  in the blinding azure to wholly survey the luminous hush      & to drink the dry water of this place last night will be the last for what he was                     beyond the face of the dark                 the divine emission of the stars & a lone alien voice                  gave merciful annulment to all known laws of living forms now soon the immaculate flame of noon        lulls to amnesia those who remain only the sands survive a while                     & unbroken waves of impassive love                                the human shall pass & the air breathe over the earth About the Poet Matt Hetherington I'm a writer and musician based in Melbourne. I've had over 150 poems and haiku published in journals and anthologies throughout Australia, the UK, and America. 'Spoken Word' pieces appear on the CD's Going Down Swinging 2000, spoken in one strange word, and Poetry for Peace, and have been broadcast on TV (Channel 31), and on radio 'Aural Text' (3RRR), 'The Sunday Show' (ABC 774 AM) and 'Artery' (JJJ). I've translated works from Persian (with Ali Alizadeh, in Eyes in Times of War, Salt Modern Poets, 2006), Spanish, French, and Turkish (the poetry of Hidayet Ceylan in bulayt bulayt: poetry in four languages, World Poetry anthology, 2006). My poems have been translated into Arabic, Russian, German (DAS GEWICHT DES GLUCKS, Kronach, Germany, 2004), and Dutch. I have written reviews and criticism for Cordite. A selection of aphorisms from my notebooks appeared in the Impassio Press collection In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing. I'm a Committee Member of Clan Analogue Recordings and The Australian Haiku Society.    [Above] Photo of Matt Hetherington by Angela Cook, 2005. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.12 (June, 2007)