from Issue #6: Poetry by Stuart Barnes

Photo (CC) Tim Parkinson @ Flickr

 *

i^[’^]m[ ]perfect

The hair an eyrie that threatens to top
…………-ple the skinny neck that labours to brace
…….the face inconspicuous in spite of
………the flushed Greek nose, the left eye crazier
…than Alastor Moody’s, the mouth as red
………….as a paper cut’s blood (ouch!), the ears blue
……zombie war trophies, the comical Ken
……..doll moustache that floats over the gruesome
trunk’s straggly black hair, spindly limbs (the right
…………arm annunciating scars like Billy
……….Corgan’s), the curved average junk deprived
……..of turtleneck, the mole on the inner
…..right thigh (a lump of shit: taunt of so-and-
………so), the ingrown nail on the big left toe.

–

*

 

…Sal 

…The holding of golden hands, or the pit
…..stop at what was probably a beat? No,
..no. The jungle gym kiss, the cuddle? No,
no. Freedom? No.
…………………………Something more innocent

….triggered her bark at the bone transmitter,
..annoying paranoiac, Guardian—
….self-appointed—of The Lake and The Park.
..The station issued a cagey car.
…………………………………………….Your

skin—darkest, purest—the element, they
………..confessed, obsequious porky
…………………………………………………..police
who laughed while needlessly taking details,
…asked pardon for that woman’s most fatal

….call.
…………Fury, ghormeh sabzi, in my gut.
Allahu Akbar! Blindfolded, we fucked.

.

*

ABOUT THE POET

Stuart Barnes’s poetry has appeared widely in publications such as Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, Cordite Poetry Review, Going Down Swinging, Mascara Literary Review, Otoliths, Poetry Ireland Review, Seizure, Southerly, Verity La, The Warwick Review and The Weekend Australian Review, and is represented in the anthologies The Night Road (Newcastle Poetry Prize 2009), Short & Twisted 2010, Time with the Sky (Newcastle Poetry Prize 2010), fourW twenty-three and fourW twenty-four. In 2014 he was Runner-Up for the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript. He is poetry editor of Tincture Journal, co-poetry reader for Verity La, and slush reader (poetry, flash) for One Throne Magazine. Twitter @StuartABarnes, Tumblr spines, jackets, sleeves (stuartabarnes.tumblr.com)