Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Pam Brown

Ultradian rhythm

Ultradian rhythm

Ultradian rhythm

oppspinn,
       I think that’s
  Finnish for ‘made up’

places to go    like Sarcadia
  or Sfax
      or here,    just across the tram-track
from Bingo
       on the top floor next door
                             to Blockbuster
(a kind of
             pre-cognitive landmark)
under the antenna-nest
         of the dream bird
   that hatches the egg
                      of experience, boredom.
                    
also ‘made-up’
          & performed –
  optimism,                like
peacetime’s modern luxury –
     having a grave
                           all to yourself

down below
                     the traffic
    sounds like the sea,
like the Pacific          (perhaps)
   rising under
                   a pall of poison,
           islands sinking
as morning’s white moon
     still dangles
in the sickly blue
               behind the mobile phone tower.

sherbet-brained,
            fizzily beginning to feel
    like Nietzsche spake –
                    nothing is worth anything

insects frolic
            in my hairs,  
I open another dusty book
            in the weak Roman shade

seems like    Brisbane
             summer grey      
and I’ve come so very far
             to make this small comparison
Close

Ultradian rhythm

oppspinn,
       I think that’s
  Finnish for ‘made up’

places to go    like Sarcadia
  or Sfax
      or here,    just across the tram-track
from Bingo
       on the top floor next door
                             to Blockbuster
(a kind of
             pre-cognitive landmark)
under the antenna-nest
         of the dream bird
   that hatches the egg
                      of experience, boredom.
                    
also ‘made-up’
          & performed –
  optimism,                like
peacetime’s modern luxury –
     having a grave
                           all to yourself

down below
                     the traffic
    sounds like the sea,
like the Pacific          (perhaps)
   rising under
                   a pall of poison,
           islands sinking
as morning’s white moon
     still dangles
in the sickly blue
               behind the mobile phone tower.

sherbet-brained,
            fizzily beginning to feel
    like Nietzsche spake –
                    nothing is worth anything

insects frolic
            in my hairs,  
I open another dusty book
            in the weak Roman shade

seems like    Brisbane
             summer grey      
and I’ve come so very far
             to make this small comparison

Ultradian rhythm

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