Sport 23: Spring 1999
Geoff Cochrane
Geoff Cochrane
Beyond the Pale
Your face is broad,
familiar as light.
You're altogether
blonde-maned and modern.
Defied, I dream
an African surrender
(envenomed arrows,
spears and penis-sheaths),
the anxious gut-to-gut
of darkest betrothal.
Milestones
1
Between the city and me
was only an ancient door
I'd painted orange.
Mounting treacherous steps,
Peter Olds brought sausages and plonk.
The wardrobe contained
a thousand and one empties.
In the fullness of time,
someone would smash the big mirror.
2
My father dies;
I'm diagnosed as having … never mind;
my longing for a leggy journalist
is slowly starved to death.
Yes, where I heal I'm bland.
A coffee bar provides
festivity enough, my daily fix.
I read the blackboard chalked in limes and pinks:
Obey you thirst—
Bacon and Eggs, $6.00—
Extract me the soldier from the sputnik.
My melting moment tastes of garlic.
Elected Silence
When his breakdown occurred,
he took to wearing industrial earmuffs.
‘If I ever come right, Geoff,
we'll get pissed together
and sing some songs.’
The city is a catchment area.
An oblong Tartar god
shelters a frieze of kine.
Lying awake last night,
I listened to the cries
of the woman being screwed
by the swarthy Turk upstairs—
heartbreaking sounds, let's face it.