John Mateer Poems

On the pillow John Mateer's sleepy head
is a goldfish bowl aswirl with Venetian water,
and on that galleon, that luminous toy,
he is at the helm, telescope to his eye,
...

Even in an explosion
if you have the right shutter-speed: the shards of rock

- projectiles - will become fluttering leaves decorating an icy wind.
Autumn is everywhere. Autumn is your skin flaking,
...

She has full, soft lips and is beautiful.
How he knows she is beautiful who can say?
She may be the image of the Malay bride on the travel-guide's cover.
But she is faceless, not frightening,
...

The volcanic rock on my desk performs solidly.
I identify its presence.
It returns me to this room, this desk, this body.
I observe the rock. It is an eye heavy with silence.
...

Being foreign is the democracy that allows the Nigerian,
in all the accoutrements of a gangsta, to address me as brother

and offer a special discount to a nice place where the girls are all foreign
- Russian, Brazilian, Australian - and all speak english.
...

Praça do Comércio's green equestrian statue and ochre-yellow walls bob
behind us as we, in the ferry, are crossing the shaken light,
having ahead of us the bus ride, up past the limestone cliffs
of the high-rise estates and the blockhouses of the Cape Verdeans
...

You spoke my name in King João Library,
the hall closing in around us, the gilt-lined tomb
of a sinking carrack. According to my translator
in the preamble to reading your poems you envied me:
...

Valley of a thousand hills, green as the afterimage of blood!
did you not hear the poet's izithakazelo or the professor's ululating
responsive as the earth under our feet, as the rocky hills under an echo?
...

Near Lake Joondalup's untouchable burning whiteness,
midst the outer suburban industrial parks and contemporary pioneer homes,
on the dry grassy verge of Frederick Road, Wanneroo,
the old but still living tree that wasn't torn down in the early days
...

Behind the white gables of Perth Mosque,
around the corner from the block of flats where she used to live,

she who held my heart in her hands like an injured bird,
whose laugh tinkled like a meditation bell waking me,
...