Supermarket in Ohio - Poem for the Day

Supermarket in Ohio

What are you thinking tonight, Mr. Ashbery, because I can see you walking the aisles away from pressing thoughts of words and kin? Are you by chance on holidays back in Dreamland where you felt comfortable in? Positioned near the oranges, zucchinis, avocados for colour & flair. There's more to see when you shop for images. Walt Whitman left the streets of New York to be near the melons, wives & babies with cheeks ripe as cherries & tomatoes. Ginsberg found time to follow Walt around, imagining himself the store detective in the corridors of cans. The refrigerator ladened with pork chops sparked more warmth for Ginsberg's poem, than any other I've ever known. Supermarkets can be boring for women, except when they see poets having a love affair with grocery boys. The cashiers, friendly in green, love to chew over them too. They'll tell you about their town; bamboo glade, rope at the creek. Some days the fog smoking the river upstream, sounds of bumble-bees, men pulling oars, the woodland smelling of pine; daddy out fishing. Not like you fishing for rhyme. It's not that I'm having fun, but the pastries and cream are ready to poke holes in.

I first found you in Dreamland, Mr. Ashbery, imagining your world. You didn't worry about the finish line, you let words drift like the wind does. It was definitely a hothouse, all glass and steam. A veritable market garden of green. Culinary herbs, hybrid forms later prepped for peasant dishes like paella, gumbo & pizza. All the colour and flavours mixed together so that we could cook up some prose.

You didn't stay there, did you in the supermarket? You left town, two wheels turning round. I followed your bicycle to Dreamland, felt the draft of hummingbirds coming on, the sun a bright mineral round. Dragonflies formed a dome in the air, and all the rotted docks that were rained on while Whitman was there, you slid on, and you not wanting to leave those distant hills, except for the cold sun going down. What a trip you had with every adjective and noun. The exercise left like a bicycle, the wheels tick, tick, ticking.

Read More

Poem for the Day - Concert

Concert
for Emmylou Harris

The stars are on the stage tonight. I'm spun out by her sound, the melody entrusting you with its strength; clear, crystal. I love how she tattoos the air with her presence. Her blonde hair getting whiter with years. It floats exquisitely like her voice. Her guitar held as a woman might hold a newborn. The child in me - dancing, humming a song within a nearby "hush!" Her sad story of a soldier dad, telling me its poignant song. Why did I think she meant Jesus? The listen deeper than before. Emmylou, you are better live on stage; someone worth waiting for. Now you pass through our town and I don't want this night to end. It's iron hot in the stadium, and something makes me look up. All your songs drifting into each other. We're walking down a powdery road, the blue line of sky unfolding ahead. I stumble into the first tune. You change my version of Red Dirt Girl to Sweet Old World. I ask for favourites, Boulder to Birmingham, and Heartbreak Hill. She beats out a deluge of rhythm and soul. I'm lost in the breath of her lyrics, the soft rise and fall of her range. This Tennessee girl and I, travelling, walking down a road into graceful tunes of steel. Clouds darken and rise, and we disappear into the valley where city lights quiver as different stars; rain falling, reflecting yellow lines ahead. Just the two of us forming 'o's' on our shimmering lips.

Read More

Evangelyne & Other Poems by Helen Hagemann

New Collection by Helen Hagemann
My new collection is now available. You can purchase from the Australian Poetry Centre or visit my website on the left.

Read More

Poem for the Day - Evangelyne

Evangelyne

In the days coming to your door
from school, you practising Mozart & Liszt,
I wanted to climb inside your songbook.
Your fingers searched a Viennese waltz
− a melody I longed to play.
Evangelyne, you made lullabies of flight, lifting me
as a heron stretched from a lake.
In the practice of scales, I flew with blue wrens
atwitter in the shadows of leaves.

Where are you now, Evangelyne,
so many winters gone from home?
Are you still selling apples in your store,
playing Schubert, Brahms?
I have a daughter who plays,
her voice, mellow between breaths.
The steely notes of her guitar bringing lonesome sounds
of highways & a red suitcase to my door.

Like you, she left home to find meadows of stillness.
At the airport, my voice silent as prayer;
her small belongings clumping along
on a carousel to Carlton.

Evangelyne, I wish you good tidings, fields of clouds,
blessings from an old churchyard. Remember
how we rocked in the bosom of Abraham?
Remember the Minister's whistling teeth,
the mischief of our throats?
− all that's silenced now.

When my daughter returns, she opens a window
through a fretwork of strings.
When I listen to Mozart, to Liszt,
you open that old songbook,
& the youth we stumbled in.


(Inspired by Emmylou Harris)

Read More