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Mal McKimmieBiography
ALL ODOURS ARE PARTICULATESmell is the sharpest of the senses and Memory’s servant.The flesh of the child that is now never-to-be-born decomposes in your corporeal future. This wind upon your face is necessary. WHILE THEY WERE ALIVEHe spoke of death, using the third person, as if he knew. He died. He spoke to death, using the second person, as if death heard. He died. Death spoke through him, using the first, second and third person. He died. But some people listened to him while he was alive. ON THE NON-EXISTENCE OF SAINTSShe dies. Her poor but secretly loved body Cracking open like a pod ready with seeds. But there are none: her afterlife has been Spent fully in this life — she is empty. Her light has been shed fully, deed by deed. Nothing happens because there is nothing Left to happen. Our prayers remain unanswered, So we believe. And we still, of course, believe. AND THEY SAY ELIOT WAS A PEDANTI shave my head to hide my bald spot, he said to test her, resting his arm on the bar, raising an eyebrow to underline the joke not really a joke. Only through time is time conquered, she replied. A pity, he thought, lifting his arm, with beer, from the bar. But for a slight syntactical error, she would have passed the test. WALKING IN THE PARK WITH LOWELLIt is winter. You counsel me to continue striving for the ordinary (though not in poetry), outwitting Rilke’s over-wintering, you call it. But poets wide-awake at dawn may still have moon-mania, or be coming down from it, unable to sleep or write and so walking in the park with you, watching the ducks (who, among birds, keep no rank nor station) waking in the blue. See how, secreted under the ordinary brown of a wing, flight’s true colour is not green, but emerald green. Copyright © Mal McKimmie 2009
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