Andrew Slattery

Everything you will ever see is in this room.
The mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing.
For this to work, we need more of anything we have.

Where's my Harriet Shaw Weaver, with all her stupendous gratuity?
Everywhere the signs that a poet has been here before me.
Everything you will ever see is in this room.

All the cleaning up after a poem; all the mopping up of blood.
The courage to say as a poet that which I feel as a man.
For this to work, we need more of anything we have.

Rock my bastard baby. Fifty years on, with my pills and white hair.
The long journey out of the self. Nothing makes poetry happen.
Everything you will ever see is in this room.

A dollar for every time a stupid bird flew into my window.
Weighed down by the day's etcetera. There is love and there are suns.
For this to work, we need more of anything we have.

Everything you will ever see is in this room.
For this to work, we need more of anything we have.
Since I will not die right away. Read on: I do promise the sublime.
Words dipped in silence awhile. Men go fishing all of their lives.

Andrew Slattery's poems have been published throughout Europe, North America, New Zealand and Australia. His awards include the Roland Robinson and Henry Kendall poetry awards, and the Val Vallis poetry prize in 2007 and again in 2009. His first collection Canyon, was published by The Australian Poetry Centre in 2009. His first full-length collection will be published in 2010.