New and Selected Poems

Chris Wallace-Crabbe

• Publisher: Oxford Poets
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781906188078
• eBook ISBN: 9781847777041
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Ranging across various forms and tones, this poetry compilation expounds upon the Australian landscape, and its natural objects and inhabitants. Combining humor and gravity, it ponders the destruction of our planet and the detrimental effects of progress.

SELECTED POEMS

from The Music of Division

Practical Politics

Suppose this edict were proclaimed today –

Let poets and philosophers be kings.

Let poets and philosophers be kings

Four days a week while under careful guard

By senior public servants and the press;

Suppose this edict were proclaimed today,

Four days a week while under careful guard

Sages could walk the parliamentary round

And make some tiny changes in the state

Until they had been sobered by such things.

Suppose this edict were proclaimed today

By senior public servants and the press –

Let poets and philosophers be kings

Four days a week while under careful guard –

Sages could walk the parliamentary round

Until they had been sobered by such things.

Citizen

The roofs of cars were crusted thick with frost

And ice was notable on every pool;

Blue children stalked in overcoats and gloves

Past the Immaculate Heart of Mary School.

And where he walked the traffic rolled one way

Toward the solemn ritual of work –

While hasty breakfasts rumbled in those cars

Whose flying mud had stopped him with a jerk.

On villa, cottage, sweet-shop, bungalow,

Schoolroom and Gentlemen’s, the morning grinned

Facetiously. He numbly picked his way

Among the houses where the world had sinned.

Now schizoid barbers packed their shaving gear,

Uncomfortable lovers caught the train

And everyone rushed. It was at times like this

That decent violence beset his brain.

‘Complacent city with your churchy bells

And morning song…’ He called for words to cease,

For citizens to know their proper hells

And anger to bloom green upon the trees.

The Wife’s Story

What with his taking small bets on the footy,

While keeping out a sharp eye for the Bulls,

And what with laying off among other bookies

Who masqueraded as both knaves and fools;

What with his ringing up those drunken mates –

The one who sang ‘Jack Doolan’ in the bar,

The fat one and the one with smelly feet –

And talking to the bloke who tuned his car;

What with his ringing up the spirit merchant

And with those calls he made too low to hear

But which, she long suspected, were his urgent

Demands on girls with easy yellow hair;

And what with the inv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• NEW POEMS
• SELECTED POEMS
• Index of First Lines
• Index of Titles
• About the Author
• Also by Chris Wallace-Crabbe from Carcanet Press
• Copyright