Five Poems by S.C. Flynn

 

NINTH VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS

Amerigo Vespucci's Ship in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1501 AD

 

This cross that hangs in godless doubt slid

out of Europe's reach a thousand years ago down

ever deeper into this pagan blackness.

But now it watches as we bring a greater cross

and knows there's nowhere left to hide;

nothing and no one escapes us in the end.

 

SLEEPLESS, FEARING COMMITMENT

Distracted, I moulded the darkness

into the shape of your hips while you slept.

Through the pillow I felt the splitting edge

of the mental knife I’d stashed there overnight.

Thinking I’d said too much already,

I stopped my betraying mouth

and started to think

that this was just my body lying there,

while my real self was far away and free.

By dawn, the knife was blunt, I was fully myself

and I reached out once more, moulding

the light into the shape of your hips.




THE COCONUT


There had never been a coconut in our town

until my sister ordered one from the shop.

We waited months for it to arrive

and almost drove Mr Baldini crazy

asking for news of this round messenger

from the outside world we’d never seen.

When the coconut finally arrived,

it was like a taste of the exotic,

a cure for our isolation.

We didn’t know what to do with the thing,

so we threw it around for a while

then got a hammer from Dad’s toolbox,

sat on the back step and cracked the nut open.

I remember being disappointed,

although I don’t know what I expected.

We drank the juice and then each took a spoon,

levered out the flaky white stuff and ate it.

We never talked about the coconut

after we had thrown away the shell;

it had failed to do the impossible.

 

GHOST TOWN

 

Gold rush memory in the desert

half-buried in the scorching sand,

mummified by the dry heat

as if it were alive last year.

Mounds of earth sprawl to the horizon,

traces of thousands of digging dreams.

Looking through the door,

you can see the ruins of civilisation;

filtered through a sieve, the earth leaves tiny shells,

remnants of an inland sea.

 

PALEONTOLOGY

 

A flock of small dinosaurs:

chooks hunting backyard snails,

spearing crunchy shells on sharp beaks

directed by bright orange eyes.

When the heat was too intense

and the whole world sat motionless

waiting for the blissful cool of evening

like the first breath after nearly drowning,

they dug deep holes with scaly feet -

dirt flying up like clouds of flies -

and rested in the cool earth under the surface.

Those that died were buried in the same soil,

bones waiting rediscovery.

S.C. Flynn was born in Australia of Irish origin and now lives in Dublin. His poetry has recently been published in Ink Sweat & Tears, The Waxed Lemon, Abridged, The Galway Review and Neuro Logical.