New Poetry by Anne M Carson

This amplitude

Calder Freeway, past Melton, Victoria

Mesmeric miles on bitumen the same steely grey

as the sky. Wispy elongated white-line clouds

flash by. I take the sky highway, steering towards

cumulus, cirrus, getting my bearings from a flock

of galahs happy to lend their gen to a passing

motorist. My vehicle cruises into the stratosphere,

wheels eating air. Landscape shrinks to a painter's

smear on the horizon. The rump of hills is all that's

needed for definition, clefts in their flank – texture. 

Everything else is sky – as far and as high as ...

Panoramas of light-streaked vapour appear,

avenues of cloud-puff billow. I’ve joined the 

commerce of wind and precipitation, the traffic

of weather.  No buildings or street signs break

the day's open invitation. Where have they

been hiding this amplitude? When everything is

pressing in, where have they harboured this haven?

- Anne M Carson 2015

 Anne M Carson is an awarded and widely published writer who is looking for a publisher for Massaging Himmler: A poetic biography of Dr Felix Kersten.