B N Oakman
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B N Oakman writes poetry that has been widely published in magazines, journals and newspapers in Australia, the UK and the USA. An academic economist, he lives in Central Victoria and has taught at universities in Australia and England.
Universal Pictures
Creature From The Black Lagoon hangs
on a wall of the room where I work,
and on the other side of this wall
an analyst swims in unfamiliar waters,
encouraging diffident charges to paddle
in shallows before executing cautious dives
in quest of Auden’s ‘delectable creatures’,1
seeking acquaintance, perhaps tentative union
in depths unplumbed, then cautiously,
when these disavowed beings seem less alien,
stroking closer and closer to the surface.
But my poster displays a misbegotten thing,
a slime-green hybrid of fish and man
grasping a young woman in webbed claws,
oddly careful not to scratch her as he drags her
down to a subterranean lair, deeper, darker,
her soundless screams just little bubbles from red,
wide-open lips while the creature stares into her face
with great limpid eyes, tender almost, watching
her writhe in its scaly embrace, sleek
in a tight white swimsuit, but not doomed,
for in the movie her male friends spear the fish-man
and she surges up to the light in her lover’s arms,
never again to plunge into the black lagoon.
Also in my room is The Invisible Man
who imbibes chemicals to make himself vanish,
becoming discernable only by his garments,
for if he goes naked he seems not to exist,
though he may be present in every other sense,
perhaps even in a room like this, crammed
with paraphernalia, my books, furniture, papers,
posters, pictures – and should the analyst,
glistening from her immersions, decide
to walk through here, she, of all people,
ought not be fooled by such disguises: transparent,
murky or opaque – for these are Universal Pictures;
it even says so on the posters.
1W H Auden, In Memory of Sigmund Freud, stanza 26
Delusional Moments before my Cell Phone
One occurred in Rome, in a small pensione close by
the Campo dei Fiori, when the slumberous morning
was torn by shouts, shrieks of motor scooters, swearing –
a brawl in the laneway two floors down. Alongside me
a woman was asleep, black hair swept across a pillow,
bronzed flesh stark against the white sheet;
and I lay quiet, content to watch the Roman light
infiltrate the wooden shutters and stroke the sparsely
furnished room with bars of black and gold, to listen
to the row subside and wait for Italian commerce
to stir and climb slowly, irresistibly, towards
its daily crescendo. My passport was in order,
I had money, sufficient to last a few days,
and trunk calls were expensive. And I imagined,
I cannot say for how long, that I knew how to live.
The other, years later, was in Naples, by the docks,
waiting for a bus after a choppy crossing from Capri,
most of the passengers sick. I was standing in the tepid
rain with my arm around a woman, both of us soaked,
drops of rain forming on her face and glistening
in the streetlights like diamonds splashed wantonly
upon her beauty. Nearby a newsstand screamed
of murders and around us cars snarled everywhere,
anywhere, no place safe. My passport was in order,
I had money, sufficient to last a few weeks,
and trunk calls were expensive. And I imagined,
I cannot say for how long, that I knew how to live.
Since then I have never again imagined, even
for a moment, that I knew how to live, although
my passport is still in order, I have money, sufficient
to last several years, and these days I have a cell phone.
Eulogy for a Matriarch
the notices proclaim
you taught us how to live
laud you irrepressible
lament you irreplaceable
but the falling years
have struck you
silent
as when children cried
for you to speak
blind
as when children cried
for you to see
deaf
as when children cried
for you to hear
polished is your casket
a fine veneer
brilliant are your fittings
plastic disguised as silver
consider your lilies
purest of whites
cultivated for show
not perfume
you detested scent
from crushed flowers