TEXT poetry

BN Oakman

Secret heart

I cannot truly claim
to be blocked: there are endings,
titles, beginnings, mostly false,
but also cul-de-sacs
and always there’s ordure
seeping through every line
and break
until the whole is infected.

The muse surrenders
sometimes, and only, to patience,
so I wait, pencil sharpened,
pad at hand, Hemingway’s
detector on stand-by, attending
moving pictures
of dreams, heeding
secret soundtracks of the heart.

BN Oakman’s poetry has been published in literary journals, magazines and newspapers in Australia, the UK and the USA and recorded for ABC Classics on Peter Cundall Reads War Poetry. He was awarded a grant by the Literature Board of The Australia Council for 2009 and a chapbook, Chalk Dust: Poems from the Social Domain (Mark Time Books), appeared the same year. A full-length collection of his poems, In Defence of Hawaiian Shirts, was published by Interactive Press in 2010. He lives in Central Victoria and has taught economics at universities in Australia and in England. www.bnoakman.com