Thursday 27 December 2007

les murray

i met les murray a few years ago and found him a fine fellow. as far as i know he' s still alive and i hope he's going strong. i haven't posted anything by him for ages so here's this..

To Fly in Just Your Suit

1.30 p.m. On the poet's farm, Bunyah, New South Wales

Humans are flown, or fall;
humans can't fly.
We're down with the gravity-stemmers,
rare, thick-boned, often basso.

Most animals above the tides are airborne.
Typically tuned keen, they
throw the earth away with wire feet
and swoop rings round it.

Australian magpies, listening askance
for their food in and under lawn,
strut so hairtrigger they almost
dangle on earth, out of the air.

Nearly anything can make their tailcoats
break into wings.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i just read that poem for the first time earlier today. Les Murray is incredible.

swiss said...

cool, glad you liked it.must post some more some time soon as, like i said, i've beglected him a bit recently

Shaista said...

I studied Les Murray at university and found him amazing! No one has ever heard of Murray when I mention him now, so it was nice to read something by him on a blog. I have his Selected Poems, which I would really recommend.

swiss said...

he's one of those people who i see in various anthologies i have but don't actually have a selected poems for. if there were actual bookshops where i am that stocked poetry its the sort of thing i'd automatically pick up. as it is he's still on my to buy list