Shearsman 57

Laurie Duggan

Two Poems

A visit

      i.m. Ric Caddel

holes in my sandshoes
(my real shoes locked indoors)
and a single pair of underpants
Durham 1992

hospitality in a space
under the stairs
poetry and a walk (wet feet)
on the Roman Wall

 


Positive black

          after Dorothy Napangardi

It's the double negative,
the not not there that holds you:
tracks where there seem to be none,
contours of sand, salt lines
converging in a dip.

Wavering colours behind the nets
regroup when you alter focus.
Does the dark recede or advance?

A square of linen may measure space
when the space we know is destroyed.
On a white wall, somewhere else maps itself out
and the daylight streets are not the same.

Copyright © Laurie Duggan, 2003.

Laurie Duggan, who here makes his second appearance in Shearsman, lives in Brisbane. His many Australian collections include Mangroves (University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2003), Memorials (Little Esther Books, Adelaide, 1996); New and Selected Poems 1971-1993 (UQP, 1996); Blue Notes (Picador Australia, Sydney, 1990); The Ash Range (Picador Australia, 1987); and The Great Divide (Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1985).