The Australian National University
Poem by Jane Virgo

2006

Theme: 

Sedition

Sedition?—not

I’m doing fine
Not screaming now
Gotta prescription to drink
first thing in the mourning:
Fine white wood ash drowned in
Fine white wine. It’s all really
Fine: I’m pleasant, alright! and surely ok
It’s so small-grained
Fine, rubbed through your fingers like
Fine white powder on a fine baby’s bum.

I’m doing wine
Fine quality wine, distilled into spirits,
good for drinking and stilling the haunted
shrieks — open-mouthed, smooth
Fine fire, knocked-back to your tonsils, like
Fine white powder up your fine white nose.

I’m doing fine
It’s an art, quite degraded, not fit for the masses
Fine tuned,
Fine distinctions, the making and crossing
Deliberate confusions
It’s all smoke and mirrors
To makes you feel
Fine.
Fine as your love was
Small-boned, precise,
As patterns in water
Turned steamy and mean

Fine as pure metal
21, golden
Fine as the mercury
Gone down the river for
Fine shining beauty, beloved and worn
by a
Fine classy girl who gets it all
in her
Fine-boned way
on her
Rice-powdered day.

Mighty fine-lookin’, sassy and hot,
Too sexy cute, and a real bad ass.

Fine as inked boundaries
Defining the edges
The excellent edges
And necessary edges
Sharp and precise
Good for walking and falling and
Cutting it
Fine.

But
Fine weather we’re having, no rain today,
Just a
Thick pollen breeze, an uncertain Spring day
Like cold honey smearing
subliminal warnings
That whip up fine hairs on your
Finely toned arms
You wrap your cold arms,
In a bright lace wrapper
Effective and warm
As smeared coloured powder
...on a butterfly’s wings.

I’m drinking fine white wine
And mourning lost days
White to mourn in the Oriental way
It seemed clean and free — was that only illusion?
It was so damned fine
before

Cremated white ashes slip through my fingers
Ashes to ashes,
Makes a fine cleanser
Wine for a wake!
Let’s wake up the dead
And the neighbours will knock
And terrestrial powers
Prescribe
Fine white noise and
Proscribe
Noisy grief
For the world fire that hasn’t yet begun to burn

And it’ll all be fine.
For your pure/ neglect and despair
Fine for the penalty/ we’ll all have to pay,
Fine musical dissonance/ and an end to it all
Fine excellence/ elegance,
Let’s not disrespect
The dead.

And that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into...

I’m doing fine.

Jane Virgo

 

9/10