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Best Famous Chris Mansell Poems

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Written by Chris Mansell | Create an image from this poem

The unquiet city

 we are succulents
our cool jade arms open
over clean tables our fine bone
china minds pull the strings
of our tongues together we plait
our thoughts with the television
back through the aerials and
transmission towers prodding
through the literal fog
the mechanics of which distance
does not startle us or the ears
pretend to hear the telephone
the page also wearies
us we have taken the meaning
out of things by laying them face to
face in our dictionary of emotions
we are so entirely alone that we
are unaware of it
and we enjoy the religion of solitude
because religions are at base
meaningless and we can turn
from them to a new hobby
to clean ashtrays or emptier
whiskey glasses we the women
of our building Margaret Gladys
Cecily Ida Eileen and I have
the cleanest washing on our block
we are proud and air our sheets
although it's a long time since
any serious stain or passionate figment
seeped through that censorious cloth
we have plants one of us has a budgie
and I have three fish the details
are unimportant God does not come here often
we would be suspicious if he
did without an identity card
we collect each others' mail
remind each other of garbage
days and are frightened
of the louts from the skating rink
but in the night I leave
my curtains open and air
my pendant tremulous breasts


Written by Chris Mansell | Create an image from this poem

the beekeeper

 the population controller
slips into disguise
his charming suit
his veil of words
conceals his gaze
he has laid out the fields
and filled them with blossoms
and counted the money jars

in his SimCity slim city
androgyn sharp
bodies are worry perfect
slicked back souped up
cool as drones
the neutered ones
will dance for one another
in the pages of glib
they make their ideal
hexagonal cubicles
gleam with honey
they gel their wings
catch their reflections
in passing pools
hope they’ll win
somehow against
the odds

they won’t
the beekeeper has
a boxed and ready fear
of bees
he won’t
let them forget
he tells them
duty honour
the sacredness of home
and holds a smoking gun
for dissident and obedient alike

those who gather in the courtyards
of fame he’ll teach his rules
those who gather in the squares
he’ll fight with guns and scorn
those who write destinations in the air
he’ll silence
his fields and his alone
are edible he’ll say
and all the rest are poison
and all those who disagree
are fools or mad
and must be fought
for sanity and for country
and the bees obey
Written by Chris Mansell | Create an image from this poem

the good soldier

 on someone else's place
it seems to him the land
slings distance way out
the dirt is dead and
the sky seems twisted
the beat of the stones is wrong
he doesn't know how to say it
there are no words no opportunity
and anyway
what would you say
that you're a stranger
and this doesn't say it at all

he walks with his weapon through the town
and from time to time he sees the luscious curl
of intimacy the uncommon common life
it's dressed differently he can't understand
the language rasping and gargling 
another time he'd be an interested tourist
now he's a hunter and the hunted

soon they say 
he'll be freed to retreat home
where the earth is vein deep
and when he puts his hand on the ground
he'll feel it beating but now
he can't remember home
though he knows the words well enough
back paddock Steve's paddock the yard
it's just words but now the imam calls
and winds a veil around his senses
and sometimes he thinks he'll never 
get back to where he belonged
Written by Chris Mansell | Create an image from this poem

Where edges are

 She is effulgent in the dark halls of town.
She is listening but they are hearing.
Her skin is blistering and sharp with sparks.
She is listening for the crick of grass underfoot.
They are hearing her heavy paces.
She is straining to feel the hum of the air.
They are hearing her voice wailing like a warrigal.
She is being quiet to count the breathing.
They are hearing the stertorous cracks of her fine pure voice.
She sings knife prising the clenched hills shrieked and sharp with danger.
They are being calm and combing their hair.
She is brittling the unseen strings connecting.
They are wishing softly in the afternoons.
She is testing with her naked feet where the oyster edges are.
Written by Chris Mansell | Create an image from this poem

dust

 there are times 
when you should listen
to the world
  I think
like
 for instance
the time a meteorite came
through the roof and 
through the ceiling and
landed on my desk
  in the middle of 
the papers and things
undone
 to say it
smouldered would be
to become poetic
but it did
 smoulder
and I was sitting there
at the time
about to pick up my pen
then I was
covered in dust
fragments of roof
deaf with surprise
and there it was
not too big
not peculiar
except for it not being
where it should be
or perhaps exactly
where it should be
as I say
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