Michael Ondaatje Poems

Hit Title Date Added
1.
The Cinnamon Peeler

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.
...

2.
To A Sad Daughter

All night long the hockey pictures
gaze down at you
sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.
...

3.
Bearhug

Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight
I yell ok. Finish something I'm doing,
then something else, walk slowly round
the corner to my son's room.
...

4.
Application For A Driving License

Two birds loved
in a flurry of red feathers
like a burst cottonball,
continuing while I drove over them.
...

5.
Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom)

Speaking to you
this hour
these days when
I have lost the feather of poetry
...

6.
(inner Tube)

On the warm July river
head back

upside down river
...

7.
Notes For The Legend Of Salad Woman

Since my wife was born
she must have eaten
the equivalent of two-thirds
of the original garden of Eden.
...

8.
Elizabeth

Catch, my Uncle Jack said
and oh I caught this huge apple
red as Mrs Kelly's bum.
It's red as Mrs Kelly's bum, I said
...

9.
[Kissing the stomach]

Kissing the stomach
kissing your scarred
skin boat. History
is what you've travelled on
...

10.
The Great Tree

'Zou Fulei died like a dragon breaking down a wall...

this line composed and ribboned
in cursive script
by his friend the poet Yang Weizhen
...

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