[Peter Coghill]

A poem from a while ago finally is finally published in Meanjin. I received quite a bit of help from Richard Wakefield and Janet Kenny on these boards with this poem. I thought that as this is probably my personal favourite I'd try something different. People might like to append a personal favourite poem that
1. has been published
2. was workshopped here
3. with a sentence on why they like it.
4. no comments on this thread on other poems

I know this might lead to gigantism in the thread but I for one would be interested to see the poems, and maybe the names of some old or seldom visitors. Prototype post below

[Peter Coghill]

I like the way the poem creates passion by fighting with the form and the envelope rhyme. In this case the imagery works well in what is an unusual subject area for me.

Aubade

In the half-light, before the workday stir,
three strips contour her body, cross the bed
and this dull morning seems a watershed
with me indifferent to the sight of her

as, with her sleeping eyes, she is to me.
Once I had rockclimber’s hands: worn thin,
one layer more naked, they’d sense her skin
aware an inch away, like witchery,

yet over years hands callous with the wear
of touching her, and fierceness seems absurd
as does delusion when the fever’s cured,
and the strong arch our marriage made won’t bear

a tower to our passion, or a child’s home.
Instead there’s empty stairs and controlled climate,
too many books, too much reason for quiet
where something squalling with life might have grown.

I stand in the door, neither there nor gone;
through blinds the sun insinuates its way,
casting a chart of the approaching day
where I should lie, and where her arm is thrown.

[Maryann Corbett]

Peter, that's a terrific poem and a difficult one to follow. I for one am a bit intimidated! But like you I hope that others will contribute. It would be wonderful to see folks who haven't been around in a while.

In the spirit of contribution: one of the early things I workshopped on Deep End. I like it because it was a gift, coming pretty much all at once. It was published in First Things.

Prophesying to the Breath

I'm tired of it, this labored breathing. Tired
of phlegm and coughing and the fight for air,
bent double on the landing of a stair,
in wheezing gasps where nothing is inspired.
Tired of the silence next to me in bed
when measured snoring suddenly goes still;
of counting a nervous one, two, three until
it starts itself again. Tired of my dread.
I want it back: the confidence in air--
ruah, pneuma, spiritus--the breath
that stirs the vocal folds of nuns in choir.
The breath that Is. The sound of something there
guiding this gusty round of birth and death.
The rush of driving wind. The tongues of fire.

[Julie Steiner]

I'm proud of this one because it captures one of the many frantic experiences of motherhood, and in such a literal way that the narrator only finds time to get philosophical in the last two syllables. (Another level on which, at this point in my life, the poem is "So true.") It was workshopped on the Deep End and published in David Landrum's Lucid Rhythms.

Quick Change
(backstage at the Southern California Youth Ballet's Nutcracker)

The oboe sighs its last insinuation.
Applause. I tense. I ought to hear her bare
feet in the hallway. Flutes start shrilling. There!
My harem-girl trots up for transformation.
I fight the hooks-and-eyes and perspiration
that hold her clothes on. Something rips. I swear.
Applause. No time. I hurriedly prepare
her tights. The music’s much too fast. Damnation!
Applause. Just one more song to go, and I’m
still fumbling with the buckle of her shoe!
We hoist the massive, domelike skirt in place.
I fasten it. Applause. I paint her face
with Mother Ginger’s clown-lips, just in time.

From gorgeous to grotesque, so fast. So true.

[Tim Murphy]

I weep even to post this, but I just checked proof for First Things. This is the second section of The Second Step, the other three sections of which were published by New Criterion a couple months ago. October marks the sixth anniversary of my dear friend's death.

Two Poets

Mikey’s idea of going on the wagon
was sorrowfully to pour that final flagon
of single malt whiskey down the drain,
then switch to marijuana and cocaine.

He simply couldn’t comprehend the danger
of drying out. Although he was no stranger
to white knuckling the vomit and the shakes,
he didn’t know he gamed for mortal stakes.

Three times I have been felled by lightning pain
as seizures short-circuited my brain.
Three times, waking in hospital at dawn
all memory of my poetry was gone,

and once I’d nearly bitten through my tongue.
Let me leave self-destruction to the young
who need not fear, not yet, the fatal stroke
that lifted from my friend addiction’s yoke.