Ivy Ireland is currently studying an M. Phil in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle. Ivy has a penchant for mysticism, cosmology and cabaret performance. In 2006, Ivy worked as a co-cordinator for “The National Young Writer’s Festival”, and has performed her poetry at various events including ” This Is Not Art” and “The Peats Ridge Festival” . Currently, Ivy is a co-director of the performance troupe, “The Lovelorn Living Party”. She is one of the Australian Young Poets Fellows 2007.

Wheel

‘For you yourself have created the karma that binds you.  You are helpless in its power.
And you will do the very thing which your ignorance seeks to avoid.’ − Bhagavad Gita

1. MULADHARA

Off working for peanuts,
off the books,
off in some country where I was not allowed,
I fell down two flights of stairs
on my base chakra.

I did not see a doctor,
I knew better.

Six months later,
back on a slab in my rightful place,
dissection discovered
I had fractured my coccyx.

That type of thing never heals.

The root:
The grinding bone:
The tail that was:

I began the enquiry:
Injuries to the base chakra,
emotional or physical,
create uncertainty,
birth a wanderlust.

Back in that cold country,
lying prone on my solar plexus,
embalmed in numbing spray Laura’s ma stole
from the Falls Rd hospital,
I planned my escape–

Root cracked and numb,
no personal loophole in spacetime,

no tail to curl around the branches
of my family tree,

no train to wind around my lover as he twitched,
uneasy,
beside my blocked Kundalini.

Him: you’ll be alright,
you don’t need it,
we haven’t had tails for thousands off years,
at least.

Me: we nurse ghosts of all that has come before;
My tail will keep you awake at night
when I am gone.

2. SVADHISTHANA

One red blood rush.

It is correct to say the
sex
chakra contains the obvious pulleys and levers,
our basic understanding of the cycles:

Low heat rising.
The demand.
Whatever comes next.

It is also correct to say it contains all the dead:

The threads are sung back into our bodies,
we fuse them through only to gush them out again.

3. MANIPURA

Sol and Luna got married in my guts.
First flurry was fear,
then undying love,
then temperate flow like the guru said.

For followers of Kali,
union of irreconcilable opposites is All −
wine and illicit sex at night,
yoga and fasting in the morning.

I’m afraid of things that dissipate categories,
that are The Ultimate Aim.

Still, when you caused it,
something snapped in there, like the
corners of my mouth spanning outwards
in cuts.

4. ANAHUNTA

“gone, gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, oh what an awakening”
– Heart Sutra

don’t for a second think this one’s going to be about St Valentine or this or that fat goblin with a bow or even you
and me or this and that kissing some such under the waterfall or any other veiled reality the Buddhists tell me I
don’t understand or really participate in nor do I wish to

when I felt the invitation unfold from yours I wanted to hide but instead I wrote back

there is debate over the true colour of the heart chakra some say green of all colours it is compassionate green they
say others say rose pink which makes more sense to me though what would I know and anyway I hate rose pink
does that mean I hate hearts my own heart

that’s melodramatic and ridiculous how could I hate my own heart

in yoga meditation she tells me to pluck the twelve-petalled flower she says it’s gold residing there at the pump site
and send it to some significant one but I get scared that if I do that I won’t have any core to go home to when
it gets too rough out here on the sea of televisions so

I keep it for myself then feel selfish then decide to give it out to everyman

there are actually seven heart centres according to this or that holy text my friend Reuben says he’s got heart
centres in his heels they all represent a different love isn’t there a first principle in all this excess I want the right
doctrine to represent everything I want to feel it feel it for all and sundry no differentiation I want it to be atomic
that which can not be broken down

why does it always end up here at integers

5. VISHUDDA

I had a Inanna icon once,
believed in it,
for she is the oldest and the first.

Once, I held her up to my ear,
so she might say ancient things
my bleating throat could not.

She, too, refused to speak.

I got ill,
laryngitis in all this quiet,
moved house or country.
Somewhere in between,
Inanna fell out of the box.

I had thought she was impervious.

They say if you ask and mean it,
she will appear in the sky, the Great Goddess,
bless you with a boon.  Perhaps say something.

There is sky blue where all I can’t say                                                           I wish for
There is the non-verbal                                                                      stored elsewhere
There is the silence held dear                                                      haunting blood later

When they adjust a throat chakra,
they whirl the 16 petals to the left to let the emotions out.
The patient might start muttering things uncontrollably.

the first thing I mutter is Science                                        where my bones are kept
the second thing I mutter is God                                          where the disguise is kept
the third thing hints at Unity                                           since I am now impervious

6. ANJA

there is a superstring
replacing the unbreakable
electron with something that
could be snapped
if we desire it

little threads of sea
connecting the
Oh Svaha
topography of my body
to its instigator and
back
through the firegate to
O Agni             You

7. SAHASRARA

honey around the outside
inside white

white

like staring at fractals until your brain bursts
sahasrara is the channel vessel

inner lotus of 12 petals
outside honey flower has 960

what’s the meaning of this angel ladder?
why 960?

reclining in a quiet grey bubble
the pineal gland remembers.

Cath Vidler edits Snorkel (http://www.snorkel.org.au) a literary magazine specialising in creative writing by Australians and New Zealanders. Her poems have most recently appeared in Turbine, Trout, Otoliths and Nthposition. Her first chapbook, Cloud Theory, is forthcoming from Puncher and Wattmann (http://www.puncherandwattmann.com).

Five Collaborations with the Google Poetry Robot

1. It’s late

It’s late. I buy DIY bonsai potato home shrines. I wish to see The World on the Internet. I might Cheat if the original painting is not framed by titles like Falcon 4 etc. My favorite food is still more secure than Windows! I hope to spend 2 nights at the Apple Store online or at any site based on Xoops 1. I dream that one day all volcanoes on Earth are shrunk to epigrams that inspire wonder and provoke a buildup of Alternatives.

2. The first person.

The first person is a relative of mine. I think this is FUNNY. My mom Calls me Brenna but my friend Leonard has recently quit using names because he thinks they are flimsy firewalls.

3. Lists.

Lists. I work at Burger King Corporation. Bill Gates was Once Arrested for switching Policies on the Use of Knowledge. I love my Mac because when I’m hungry it says Here you Are and gives me a Link to a story about a Different Kind of Blue. Menus. You never get tired of reading Commercialized Lists. I like to eat ‘Cultured’ items but Vows to stop rubbish-dumping at Multistorey buildings are exempt from nutrition.

4. See you later Alligator

See you later Alligator. It’s still too early to commit. My cat is going into Opposition because many districts base their curriculum on areas of Special Expertise. I hope you have time to Think ahead. My favorite Word often changes depending on current errors. Adios. I enjoy Flying low over farmland in South Georgia and its associated Enterprises in India including Sinde. I learn Greek phrases and indications of Geographical origin. Thank you again for having me in your Language.

5. Winter in my Garden

Winter in my Garden is asleep and twitching softly. I saw deserted trenches and the difficult Path. I want One Of Those Days when the blank page fills up with Boeing and applicable privacy Laws are better defined. Why do I Have to make my avatar look like the second most Popular recipe from kelloggs? I never Promised to fix the roof while there’s a galaxy to grow. I might See the Boom shadow falling on the Cedars.

Libby Hart was a recipient of a D J O’Hearn Memorial Fellowship at The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne in 2003. Her suite of poems, ‘Fresh News from the Arctic’ won the Somerset National Poetry Prize in 2005. Her first collection of poetry, also titled Fresh News from the Arctic, was published in 2006 by Interactive Press and has just won The Ann Elder Award for poetry.

Light

I see you there, standing in only your legs
and a cloak as dark as winter night;
your one eye gleaming, as if a glass eye.

And true, it is glass. Yes, it be.
For my doctor, with hands dipped by chemical
performs a magic before me.

In focus, I gather its light
and dare not move.
I feel the weight of feathers.

It’s the fallen bird that keeps me grounded
to this chair and to this room.
To the very stillness of things.

Note: This poem was written in response to Hugh Welch Diamond’s
photograph, ‘Seated woman with bird’ (c.1855). Diamond was one of the
earliest photographers. A doctor by profession, he decided to specialise
in the treatment of the mentally ill and was appointed to the Surrey
County Lunatic Asylum where he produced numerous photographs of his
patients. Diamond believed that photography could assist in the
treatment of mental disorders.

Your Body Bare

‘According to Inuit culture in Greenland, a person possesses six or
seven souls. The souls [are] scattered throughout the body.’
− Annie Dillard

Hold your many souls like a juggler, this is Inuit land.
The chest and arms, all Inuit-souled.
Even the eyes have two souled-suns that burn a gleam
through a viewer’s head.

This is the breadth of your many engines:
a hand, a moon-shaped sigh
a cheekbone, rare
a glimpse of finger.
The turning of the body
in graceful-gracelessness.

You are like a horizon
bending and shaping itself at will −
a balloon of escape,
a lung of tree.
The form of things to come.

Flux

Nightfall comes hesitating with light.
It reaches out in short, sharp Morse Code.
Indecipherably lingering, and then it leaves.
All I have are three letters: I.O.U.
Then it’s gone like the wind that’s forgotten its anchor.

Sleepless Dreaming

Curled and weighted like an anchor
you’re as heavy as sympathy
and as warm as December.

Waves roll in from the half-opened door.