Twenty-four Catherines
I wonder if I could belong on a small island
with a wild side 40°S this chaos of spume
bullying its way into natural-born fissures
between needles of basalt cumulus making
its dark mischief the ideal backdrop
for a tryst with a dangerous man, a gun, a killing
I would spend my remaining years gazing out
trying to spot the hull of a wrecked barque
blood-stained calico billowing into the inferno
thankful for dry land, a warm scarf and imagination
that place reserved in my cloudy memory where once
I did belong 55°N before I got restless and wandery
The Neva, carrying 200 women and children from Cork was shipwrecked off King Island, Tasmania, 1835
From my latest chapbook, Spirit.
White witch hitching
Had I owned a primrose 2CV
/two steam horses four wheels/ in ‘73
I would not have climbed into a truck
with that ugly farmhand /pas Anglais/
who took country lanes peut-être
to pluck the courage to attack
swerving back on the freeway to the ferry
I missed by fifteen minuits
Picked up by a suit instead
in a slick sedan dinner en famille
in a room out of a Maupassant story
/autocorrecting to motor song, milk thistle, Newcastle/
Sailing the bay next day Le Havre
in a couta boat out of van Gogh’s Saint Marie
How could I forget the canvas-ripping
speed of jeune men I was Jeanne d’arc
Maid of Lorraine /autocorrecting to
Dark Zen/ virgin soul intact
Back then fearless full of it
missing the flames by an eyelash
First appeared in Shearsman, 2021.
LINKS TO POEMS ONLINE
https://not-very-quiet.com/2018/09/16/absolute-zero-on-the-6-oclock-news/
https://not-very-quiet.com/2019/09/21/sirenia-at-the-lido/
https://www.stiltsjournal.com/single-post/2019/09/22/O-let-them-be-left-wildness-and-wet%E2%80%94
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/250060
http://cordite.org.au/tags/julie-maclean/
http://verityla.com/earth-apples-of-modern-love-and-mushrooms-julie-maclean/
http://antiphon.org.uk/index.php/act-three-13/442-woman-at-window-julie-maclean
http://redroomcompany.org/poet/julie-maclean/
http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=4799
Julie Maclean 