Crayfish
We stripped, exposed, wet white flesh.
The primitive sea littered full plates
dribbled tasty through my beard
salt & pepper, glistening
Neptune randy eyeing the ripe moon’s
glitter on water, its allure
like your succulence.
Later, wave-riders of satiation
we lolled abed, spilt, drained
listening to the ocean’s pull & suck.
I thought of fathoms-deep creatures
their primaeval urges, like those crayfish
before we shucked, violated them
pleasured our tongues, licked them raw.
Echidna
Burn-off fires smoulder, a war zone scene
where he parks above the hazy harbour.
The door blows open when he releases it
like a terrified creature escaping.
He climbs out stiffly with the album
reviewing his daughter’s visit, things said.
A song from the C.D. echoes in his mind
..lying down on a cold black table..
An echidna waddles away from him
burrows urgently, spines quivering.
He sits with his thoughts in smoky sea air.
She had tapped her fingers, watching him.
You turn away from the living.
Emotion and memory drain him
the faded pages he begins to turn, clues.
We were a family, once. You were our hero.
His daughter twice said, guilt trip
and, she adored you, three times
masking her accusations with smiles.
He peers closely, sniffing the past
the scents of youth filled with light
a time as unreachable as the horizon.
The echidna has almost buried itself
but its spines are still exposed.
Robert Rauschenberg is dead
Consumer glut glints in possibility
economy in his blood, fabric scraps
sewn to make his boyhood shirts.
Sculpture’s massive make-over
a stuffed eagle, goat, stop signs
red paint-soaked bed sheets, rocks, rope.
He feels sorry for those who can’t see.
Beauty glows right there in a Coke bottle
trash skips double as art suppliers.
John Cage and Jasper Johns admire him.
These artists link Pollock, de Kooning
with the rush of imagination in their wake.
This complex part-Cherokee Texan Steptoe
drinks heavily, thinks before he speaks
wary of his own subversive wit.
Audaciously combining mediums
he also gives away millions of dollars
recalling his first ready-made shirt.
The 1/4 mile or 2 Furlong Piece grows
even longer than its title, another chapter
in art’s what’s next? narrative.
A prolific renegade chevalier
succumbs to his old heart.
That former junk’s value appreciates.
Extant abstract-expressionists
their gallery dominance now past
feebly toss paint-stained berets aloft.
Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in Best Australian Poetry, Descant, Heat, Magma, The Malahat Review, &, Meanjin. His latest book is Memory Like Hunger (Ginninderra). He lives with his wife and their four sons in Victoria, Australia.
