New Poetry by David Ades

Pivot

Say that you are a pivot

and to one side there is desire

and to the other side a different desire,

conflicting, incompatible.

You inhabit the space between desires

and try not to make it a cage,

a confinement,

try to find some room to turn

and swing, to exert your own interests,

which might be not one or the other.

Clinging on to notions of civility,

how do you avoid becoming a cornered

animal, teeth bared, hair bristling,

on that cusp of fight or flight?

- David Ades 2015

David Adès is an Australian poet living in Pittsburgh since 2011.  He has been a member of Friendly Street Poets since 1979.  His collection Mapping the World was commended for the Anne Elder Award 2008. He was a volunteer editor of the Australian Poetry Members Anthology Metabolism. His poems have appeared widely in Australia and the U.S. in publications including over 20 of the Friendly Street Readers, and numerous literary magazines. Poems have also been anthologized in both Australia and the U.S. in anthologies such as Australian Love Poems, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, Australian Poetry Members’ Anthology Volumes 2 (2013) and 3 (2014) and Moonstone Poetry Series 2014 Anthology of Featured Poets.  In 2014 David was awarded the inaugural University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize and was also shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize.