Maria Zajkowski


every tiny arrow

every tiny arrow
every arrow word

nowhere is there any thing
to be what we come after

prepare the boats for high ground
the animal of you

the first third of the end
is simple

it comes in a shower
of precise downfalls



all that is written is blank

all that is blank
is written at dawn

a palm to a path
a scattering of bones

your selves lost in the tracks
of one gone animal

a mist of explanations
calls this new dark home

where a stupid mind
got stuck on your tongue

you and the thought you could
better the affliction with

the sound (what is) the sound
of something the heart would have done



So much for the hunter

We drank summer’s high heel heat,
crashed into that field unaware, the buried souls
were a thousand years old. We trampled on their heads,

we rampaged with our voodoo,
sick of our bodies, sick of good health, flying balmy
over the dead, crowing like poisonous witches.

I was so drunk I forgot the war,
I hit my wife, she hit me back, she drank herself to sleep.
I didn’t wake her up.

To good health. To freedom.
To the bottom of another glass. To the sleep that is not sleep
but an ivy of voices we climb in the dark —

               Do not be greedy for that little house with the bottle on the table,
do not drink more than your stripes will allow you to hide,

               you may become the prey when you felt so much the hunter,
so don’t throw all your spears in one night until all your nights are gone.



Maria Zajkowski was born in New Zealand and lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has published her poems over the last fifteen years in various journals around the globe. More at www.mariazajkowski.com.
 
 
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