Lilting – Kelly Rae Olander

 

Prior to an exploration of the subconscious

 

The apprehension

of ghoulish things

transpiring, burgeoning like dandelions

perennial like bamboo.

 

Kindred

 

Allow me to unravel

upon you – words eluding

the eel-sweeping snarl

the lily-reeds knot lined, not alone

the fine entanglements inside

the cadence of my heart’s disclosure, falter

My finger-tips oscillating like nine dancers in a field

attempting intricacy, intimacy

unfurling whirling, wispy distances, dancing

like thin gypsy thieves[i] under the stars

Allow me to unravel

you who may decipher

tussling lingual cryptography

you scavenger

tumbling through water

my words fragment, fracture

letters unite to capture!

Allow me to unravel amid the unconscious tides

wading through the drifters

inquiring after you

quick flickers flash

grant them gather,

long-limbed insect, agile escapee

you, jet-black

it’s you in that faint shadow? surely

Allow me

black peppercorns waltzing through the lines

ideal to tantalise a blooming self

but no longer desired

the milk-crate days retired

the vine-flowers dried

you who will decode me

a soul-mate

a counterpart

quixotic

narcotic

finite vacuities

no peppercorn trees, please

appeal the lily-reeds

unravelling between

you and me.

 

Petals and blades

 

There are qualities

I’ve discovered, in the creeping weeds

coiling like smoke, winding

through natives monumentally beautiful

peeling as I move to reveal

a quiet wilderness

are fickle stringencies

that the glades reach relentlessly

that this is a convoluted terrain

where a weed is not a wicked thing

Moving from signpost to fleck

no ambit or sketch

through a web of antithesis, luminous

and blackened at once;

there are no designs

Still there are intrinsic divisions

in chaos

the absence of paltry analysis

the moral core

eyeballs

in glassy tear-drops of rain

gawking lucent;

monstrous oysters splaying silvery skies

life rearranging, paralysed

fangs flaying the backdrop

suspended in gum-string

hanging from vine-swinging yesterdays

where I have already been

Discovery though, lies in the fine points

countless eye-lids flutter

lashing the mire, but only some

in aqua pura, most recoiling

amaurotic or with some kind of malady

of the mind

Scattering seeds as I step

I notice them flourishing behind, tie-ing

my yesterdays, ribboning

along wiry trees

and gathering together that which is dark

and light

(a tear leaves a wound)

Removing battered combat-boots

I tread the wilderness bare-soled

one must realise the delicacy of weeds

to survive in this landscape.

 


[i]
L. Cohen. Famous Blue Raincoat

 

Download a pdf of ‘Lilting’

Kelly Olander

Kelly Rae Olander is an Australian poet and fiction writer. She uses poetry as a platform to express her neurosis, obsessions and epiphanies.

Author: Kelly Olander

Kelly Rae Olander is an Australian poet and fiction writer. She uses poetry as a platform to express her neurosis, obsessions and epiphanies.

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