Poem
Jane Gibian
Vessels for the lapse of time (2)
Vessels for the lapse of time (2)
Vessels for the lapse of time (2)
2. HelicoidFrom the cracked bowl of the morning
rises a roaring sea in your left ear, the helical
pulse unfurling into time passages made
convoluted by fingers tracing a slow
orbit around a breast. Taking an old stethoscope
from the table you heard the loud whispery
edges of your heartbeat; listened for
the murmurous parts of that country
absorbed awkwardly inside, down
to the intricate whorls of your knuckles,
like distorted incense spirals. In this vessel
rests a memory of eating rice picked
three days earlier, smoothed grains
in the coarse capsule of a sack, so recently
bound in curved terraces of wet rice
stretching in tiers towards the horizon;
the taste of earthiness and pith sparking
tender florescence in the reverent
chamber of the mouth. With a word balanced
on the tongue comes simultaneously
its echo in another language, coiled
beneath, entwined with an older image;
the round edges of a biscuit tin decorated
with english birds: pheasants, demure
water fowl, a robin; and the helix of the present
winds more tightly; three inseparable baskets.
© 2006, Jane Gibian
From: The Honey Fills the Cone: Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2006
Publisher: Hunter Writers Centre, Newcastle
From: The Honey Fills the Cone: Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2006
Publisher: Hunter Writers Centre, Newcastle
Poems
Poems of Jane Gibian
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Vessels for the lapse of time (2)
2. HelicoidFrom the cracked bowl of the morning
rises a roaring sea in your left ear, the helical
pulse unfurling into time passages made
convoluted by fingers tracing a slow
orbit around a breast. Taking an old stethoscope
from the table you heard the loud whispery
edges of your heartbeat; listened for
the murmurous parts of that country
absorbed awkwardly inside, down
to the intricate whorls of your knuckles,
like distorted incense spirals. In this vessel
rests a memory of eating rice picked
three days earlier, smoothed grains
in the coarse capsule of a sack, so recently
bound in curved terraces of wet rice
stretching in tiers towards the horizon;
the taste of earthiness and pith sparking
tender florescence in the reverent
chamber of the mouth. With a word balanced
on the tongue comes simultaneously
its echo in another language, coiled
beneath, entwined with an older image;
the round edges of a biscuit tin decorated
with english birds: pheasants, demure
water fowl, a robin; and the helix of the present
winds more tightly; three inseparable baskets.
From: The Honey Fills the Cone: Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2006
Vessels for the lapse of time (2)
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