Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Five November-December 2024
Waiting for the Verdict, poems by Angela Costi.
Waiting for the Verdict
by Abraham Solomon,1857, oil on canvas, Getty Museum
This morning
As soon as you are led to the room you are painted darker your hand
tries to hold up your head while the other slumps there is a window but
its light is judicious your family of women and babies dare not look at you
though their faces show they have no life without you your dog is there
submerged in your almost black attire staring up at you waiting waiting
waiting you may never unshield your eyes never but your dog hopes
This afternoon
A tail of a beast is said to be the origin of ‘queue’ your throbbing head cannot
be protected there is a tiny spot of red on a tile in that waiting room it
could be a poppy it could be a drop of blood yours or the others before
you cast out of the court room with its higher steps and partly opened
grand door inside cloudy swirls of white wigged men digesting what you
had done or not done or should have done this room is painted higher
than yours it has a guard to one side of the door permitting it to be partly
opened for the barrister about to enter who is wigged and gowned holding
your brief showing you his back
Artwork Waiting for the Verdict 1857 by Abraham Solomon, accessed at Tate Images https://www.tate-images.com/t03614-Waiting-for-the-Verdict.html
A Ship in Distress
by J.M.W. Turner c. 1805
study (a)
I wish it was a ship I saw instead of my mana
on her side with her massive naked thigh afloat
the rest of her in trouble gurgling up the storm
of a day filleting then frying then serving fish
she rolled the bucket brimming and splashing
slapped the mop onto the laminate’s grit
the floor was greasy from deep-fried oil
slipped her into the swell of grime
worked her arms like a captain’s command
when the mast breaks and the sails tear
study (b)
when she fell
it was slow
as if pulled down by a long sweeping line across a page
she lay there
willing herself to rest
with clenched teeth
knowing her daughter’s scream
would save her from drowning
study (c)
scratches and stretchmarks on vinyl deck
the vessel continues to carry a childhood
my young mouth opens to receive her fear
inner waves lurch from stomach to galley
falling fills my ears, makes my eyes water
Mana built her body to survive this wreck
study (d)
after all the years of seeing her clean the horrors of your ship
you freeze as she falls
distance yourself
as if she is made to continue broken
oh well, you chuckle, refusing to see her older than eighteen
the day you married her
Artwork no. 37 folio 20 of Shipwreck (1) Sketchbook c.1803-10 by J.M.W. Turner, accessed https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-ship-in-distress-r1139189
mana is phonetic for Greek: μάνα meaning mother
Refuge
after the detailed drawing of botanist Erwin Lichtenegger
above, the sap is a tentative blossom, a singular study
below, the cartography is a sprawling interconnected
metropolis of main arterials with byways and lanes
found in every country inhabited by a needy populace
each root is a route for planned and spontaneous cities
creating industries of carbon, nourishing seas of soil,
feasting fungi viruses bacteria, hidden without fear
of getting caught in tunnels, they marry, they party
it appears the botanist has poured into the ink
an artist’s wish for a better behaved world,
each and every line curled, enough for a seed to
dream, leaving the skyscrapers to scrape at clouds
© Angela Costi
Angela Costi is a poet and writer with a background in social justice and community arts. Since 1994, her creative gatherings, including plays, short fiction and essays, have been published, performed, broadcasted and translated. Her recent book is An Embroidery of Old Maps and New (Spinifex, 2021, winner of Poetry Prize in English, Greek Australian Cultural League 2022), and her recent chapbook is, Adversarial Practice, published in Cordite Poetry Review, May 2024. This year, her poetry has been longlisted in the international Fish Poetry Prize, the Grieve Project and the University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize, and published in a number of journals including Meanjin, The Ekphrastic Review, Ergon Journal, The Journal of Working-Class Studies, Meniscus, Australian Poetry Anthology, Australian Poetry Journal, The Suburban Review, Jacaranda, Rochford Street Review and Marrow. She lives on unceded Wurundjeri land, and is known as Αγγελικη Κωστη among the Cypriot diaspora, which is her heritage and ancestry.