1 poem
by Ursula Robinson-Shaw
Ursula Robinson-Shaw is a writer from Wellington, New Zealand, living in Melbourne. She is an editor and co-conspirator of sick leave journal and reading series. Her work has appeared in Cordite, Overland, Minarets, The Suburban Review, The Spinoff, and elsewhere. Find her @ursulabrs.
This poem was shortlisted for the 2019 Peach Gold in Poetry with guest judge Dorothea Lasky.
POST OF HONOUR
after Rosa Luxemburg
moral turpitude it’s a migraine of a life
here i am spectacle protesting
playing bubbleshooter in bad faith baby
ends are nigh and im chilling in my office
catastrophes!! they’re like masturbation
but you never come, like how
you wouldn’t write a song about a novel
(kate bush doesn’t count that one’s about
love)
it’s like an airport toilet won’t stop flushing
i’m there at the sink hacking up
a tobacco-festooned hunk of phlegm
feeling pleasant like an outback saloon punter
knowing there was something i should have heeded
maybe the smell of egg sandwich (oppressive)
maybe that aborted romance
an ice rink melts in upper hutt
it’s funny. because it’s bad
i’m dressed like a trendy doll i’m dressed
like a vicar i’m dressed like a cabinet
i’m so dumb i can’t even
leave the house without getting kidnapped
there’s a knee on my chest, there’s the coming of the hour
next kidnap i’ll get gone girl for good
when people have no skills, you have to test them on something
how well do you respond to provocations:
wallow in the soup of life bitch
go to the sea and cry
real travellers don’t care for their surroundings
sport a cursed body on impermanent beaches
eat hotel canapés like ships on fire
knotting in your stomach and
ensconcing the development
sickly fire like the blaze
of that first union leader
falling hard from the firmament like a youtube gag reel
it’s a vine compilation of big earth failures
too big for discussion. it’s minor literature time
get out your phone and feel
vague distress no revenge
somewhere for the groping is the fight for deliverance….
my good bitches
hurry to the front and trench