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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Two Nov-Dec 2026.
The ear in the heart, poem by Dominique Hecq.
The ear in the heart
When I close my eyes & stumble
around my thoughts I see
everything I love is outside
language
A dog’s beating heart underneath sleek fur
the swift dispersal of lorikeets
a child’s crackling laughter
Ravel’s music & devastating silence
Khalo & Basquiat’s loudness
Each night I return
to pilfered forests parched billabongs hounded
brumbies furrowing clouds light’s utterances
fireballs & storms forking paths autumn
catching fire & the stench of soaked pelt
In each belated dawn rhythm is
unforced
I love the smell of ink washing over me the feel of paper
I crave the dark for its stillness peripheral
phantoms
Even though I know them words do not know me
Words and I no longer share the same lexicons
Letters wild vowels discordant consonants harsh
The alphabet is shapeless scratching litter
Through the riddles of words death shimmies sometimes smirks
but its grimace may not be short lived
I once found myself in another tongue
Now I uncover myself out of language
for words know neither body nor the ear in the heart
I find myself in the pulsing arteries of existence
Language is a pyre
my lungs thirst for air
sucked out from them
I hanker for breath feel for the shape asleep by my side
stroke the coat coming alive in breaking light
Magpies erupt into trills
The dog stirs swivels his head surveys my face
I inhale offer a caress & together we rush into the roaring wind
Dominique Hecq is a widely anthologised and award-winning poet, fiction writer, essayist and translator. She lives and works on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. Hecq writes in English and French. Her creative works comprise a novel, six collections of short stories and nineteen books of poetry. Errances (Recent Work Press) has travelled the world in 2026. She is currently writing a lyrical essay titled ‘Unleashed: My Life as a Dog’, a love poem to Artaud, a Kelpie, and a kind of farewell to Lacan. Among other honours Dominique Hecq is a recipient of the International Best Poets Prize administered by the International Poetry Translation and Research Centre in conjunction with the International Academy of Arts and Letters, and the James Tate for poetry.
