Tag Archives: Table Poems

Cars are still rushing by, though it is now 8:30pm. The chair to my right is laden with two of my jackets. A train siren. A car and another car. Four apples left to eat, three mandarins and two bananas. … Continue reading →

A wave passes across the table. More accurately, the various things on my table – the latest to have been deposited there – together adopt the pose of a crashing wave. The piles of books are partly obscured – swept … Continue reading →

I wandered through the markets searching for the very sweetest fruit. I had sampled the most extraordinary peaches and plums, cherries as red and as delightful as coffins, pears and apples as gorgeous as praise, but it was the pineapples … Continue reading →

I almost forgot my bike when I picked up my car this morning. The mechanic had to remind me that I had left it leaning against the wall. “People leave all manner of things here,” he told me. I drove … Continue reading →

I walked down to the beach to make some time disappear. Dark from the outset – and cold. The long, flat, scarcely visible footpath. The twinkling lights of distant freighters. I was held up at a level crossing on the … Continue reading →

Suddenly, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I find myself unable to fly. The morning is cold and grey. Rain looms. I should take some consolation in the poor weather, but only feel even more incapacitated. Even turning my … Continue reading →

‘I know better than to let her go.’ A lyric from Thurston Moore’s song ‘Bendiction’ on his 2011 album, Demolished Thoughts. A long, cold day when I should have shut-up. The dusk surf lifts smoothly and serenely in the face … Continue reading →

This morning the corridor is light. The mottled glass panels – white, yellow and red – cast blurry beams along the floor and draw glints of colour from the hall chandeliers. Further light pours in from the doorways of the … Continue reading →

The roar of the wind in the trees. The interior of my home remains quiet and listens. After months of nothingness, I went on a long trip, running through Singapore airport to catch a connecting flight, hanging about in Paris … Continue reading →

Three oranges intimately conferring – or so it would seem. Newly here and keeping their distance from everything else. But they have clearly lost contact with one another. Nothing genuinely links them together. Even as they seem to touch, they … Continue reading →

I imagine counting the blue lines on a blank page. That’s about all I can manage now as the night grows weary and taciturn. It spreads out in deceptively bright terms, like the vague onset of illness. I search all … Continue reading →

I imagine sliding open the glass door, walking up the grass and past the citrus trees to the rear shed. I imagine entering the open door and standing on the tiled floor. Around me are garden tools and ripped up … Continue reading →

Rushing flow of white envelopes – unopened letters from the NAB and NRMA. My keys spread across them – a doomed and glittering squid. The black plastic tops are closely aligned and the silver keys trail down as tentacles. The … Continue reading →

There are sets of things – four oranges, two candlesticks, a tree full of partially ripe lemons. There are also isolates – the single pear, the ageing apple, the plastic cover of a small container of picture hanging fixtures. Then … Continue reading →

In the woods behind the schoolhouse was a narrow track that wound off towards the near hills. I had followed it many times before until it became obscure. Unable to determine a viable route forward, I’d turn around, only to … Continue reading →

I loom over the table. I look down upon it. A blue gym towel gives birth to a yellow and black screwdriver. My keys point in all directions. A black cloth shopping bag resembles an incinerated giant clam. More books. … Continue reading →

The high pitched whine of my washer’s spin cycle. Descending, as though a plane coming in for landing – then taxiing quietly along the tarmac towards the terminals. In this gentle, rumbling lull, Mr Airplane Man’s album Moanin starts up. … Continue reading →

A remaining pear – perfect, with pink and red blushes on yellow, unblemished skin. Wide hips and buttocks, narrow curved shoulders, thin, elegant neck. Leaning like an odelisque against an unassuming mandarin. The pear is heedless of its various admirers … Continue reading →

I have gone through all my books and stacked them in two orderly piles towards the far end of the table. The most distant pile is roughly double the size of the other. I have also gone through all my … Continue reading →

In the confused depths of the evening, beyond any of my childhood thoughts, beyond any of my adult aspirations, beyond anything determinate, I once again find my way here. Only here. The night exhales until all air is gone, until … Continue reading →

I have looked forward to leaving this place for so long. In consequence, it has no loyalty to me. I may as well have left already. Still, some urgent red scribbling on a piece of paper catches my eye. I … Continue reading →

The sky is blue. I am definite about that. A strong morning blue. Huge orbs of soft, white water in the tree tops. The slow flight of a lone bird. I am trying to find my way through a forest, … Continue reading →

The nights are not innumerable. It is just that I cannot count them. Streams of molten tar pour down the road. I am stripped of all illusions. I would like to describe the table again. I would like to find … Continue reading →

Tonight, the fiftieth night, the night I had no need to write, the night beyond the limit of what was required, I cannot help but notice that I have not hung out my washing. It is there on the chair, … Continue reading →

I started with the following rules: Must be written at my kitchen table. Must begin with the specific things that lie before me. Must regard nothing as unworthy of consideration. Must take shape as a single prose paragraph. Must write … Continue reading →