This month I am very pleased to present the poetry of Deb Matthews-Zott.

Deb first read at Friendly Street in 1989. She was treasurer of Friendly Street Poets from 1997-1999, and co-edited the anthology # 23, Beating Time in a Gothic Space. Her collection Shadow Selves was published by Ginninderra Press in 2003. She is currently working on a new collection of poems ~ Learning Meditation.

Copies of Shadow Selves can be purchased directly from Ginninderra Press.

Guitar

I have the body of a guitar.
When I lie down to meditate
my neck is straight
I clear my mind
of things I’ve fretted about
let go my strings of attachment.

My soul is a sound box
it draws in the songs of birds,
the pulsation of insects,
the gentle movement of breezes,
transforms the vibrations of nature
into meditation music.

I breath in
breath out
repeat the cycle
creating chords of calm
to lift me above the physical
resonating with riffs of bliss
tuned to perfection.

Red

The day her boyfriend came home from gaol
She spilled out onto the quiet street
In a sheer red dress which showed
Her flattened breasts, her bones.
And the mad edge of her laughter
Held itself to the neighbour’s throats.

٭

They all wished she would go back inside
And lie on her bed with a bottle of gin,
Or sit in a haze on the lounge-room floor
Flicking her lighter at a pack of burning cards.

٭

The street could not contain
The riot of her voice;
Her stumbling red shape;
Her bare white feet on their bitumen road.

They preferred the hysteric of her scream
Bouncing off inner walls
Of crushed and shattered plasterboard.
There a fist or two,
There the crater of a skull.
A whole panel gone
Where he pushed her body through.

٭

Her ecstasy lasted a day or two.
Then, in the middle of a night,
They screeched in the yard
Like a pair of ill-matched cats
Tearing at cloth; at hair and skin,
Drawing each other’s animal blood.

previously published in Cordite, Friendly St. and Shadow Selves

Lava and Rain

the lava sun burns and runs
concrete is volcanic ash

there’s a fire
and the sprinklers
are on heat

in the shade house, out back,
green corrugations distil light
to feeble shadow

a honey-eater drips
from the shade cloth sky
to steal a drink

I lie naked on a sofa
that’s drawn its own heat
and compete with silent monstera leaves

to catch the drift of liquid mist
the fragile cool
of fine green rain.

previously published in Shadow Selves

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