Barnaby Smith
“the sentiment of love can enter into any subject and live ardently in remote phrases”
- Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
i
beckoned over,
insects gather
& begin orgies
in the corner of his eye—
he is getting to know
blood & thought & skin
as something to grab a handful of
ii
& big evenings
dwindle
as figures pass through doors
as vanishing pixelations—
the smell of today's
experimental burning hair
is still in your nostrils
lets also exhale
the bogged memory
of the roadkill we saw at dusk
splayed & sublime
iii
avenues asleep &
always full of nests,
dimmed under sullen clouds
so quilted catastrophes
behind blinds
are our conversations
imagined in
the soft cladding of
night walks
(with streetlight animating
those scratched red mailboxes)
before turning back
to the house that talks itself
into being —
your shrimpish frame
unmoved
until who knows what
Barnaby Smith is a poet, critic, journalist and musician living on Darug and Gundungurra land in New South Wales, Australia. Recent work has appeared or will appear in journals such as Blackbox Manifold, Stand, 3AM, Erbacce, Orbis, Marble, Molly Bloom and Blaze Vox, as well as Cordite, Southerly, Australian Poetry Journal, Australian Poetry Anthology, Best Australian Poems, and more. He is an award-winning art and music critic, and records music under the name Brigadoon, having released the album, Itch Factor, in 2020: www.brigadoon.bandcamp.com
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