Today’s poem is by Australian poet Michael Dransfield (1948-1973):<\/p>\n
Chaconne<\/em>
\nThe most significant fact about this room is that nothing else
\nexists. Beyond the walls, nothing. Outer space, perhaps, infinite
\nand invisible. The windows are mirrors. Why look out when one
\ncan look in?
\nThere is no furniture. It is more amusing to imagine new, different
\nfittings each day, than it would be to wake to the same shapes,
\ncolours, textures. Today, next year,
\nyesterday, it is one. On a wall – or is it the floor – is a clock
\nI built once, or shall build, or am building. Its hands are
\nidentical \/ their mute semaphore. Opposite, a pool of green,
\nblue, sometimes colourless liquid, sometimes reflects and
\nsometimes invents.
\nI think of this room as a filing-cabinet, a memory bank where the
\nhistory of fantasy is stored. The fantasy is history. Dreams are
\nsculptures, names are poems, nobody comes for there is no-one else,
\nand nowhere from which to come. Proust, de Vigny, Owen Aherne,
\nmy identities are interchangeable. The mind is an entertainment,
\na circus where philosophers perform. I inhabit the drawing room
\nRimbaud imagined at the
\nbottom of a lake, purple tincture of opium. And identical self
\nrepresents me on the previous planet, they will not
\nnotice I have gone. It is difficult sometimes
\nfor me to remember that I too am imaginary. The world has
\nneither ended nor begun \/ creativity and hallucination \/
\nperhaps a huge joke gone awry,
\na lysergic acid rave, Robinson Crusoe on the wrong island.
\nBut still an island, bounded by seas I shall never sail.
\nSolitudes. Pacing impatiently
\nthe cage of body, of self. An exit glitters brightly in my hand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nReference:<\/em>
\nThomas W. Shapcott (Editor) [1970]: Australian Poetry Now<\/em>. Melbourne, Australia: Sun Books, p. 206.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today’s poem is by Australian poet Michael Dransfield (1948-1973): Chaconne The most significant fact about this room is that nothing else exists. Beyond the walls, nothing. Outer space, perhaps, infinite and invisible. The windows are mirrors. Why look out when one can look in? There is no furniture. It is more amusing to imagine new, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","p1","y2009","m11","d18","h04"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}