Underworlds, poems by Susan Hawthorne
Susan Hawthorne is the author of two novels, a verse novel, six collections of poetry, two chapbooks and three non-fiction titles. Her poetry collection, Cow (2011) was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Award in the 2012 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards as well as being a finalist in the 2012 Audre Lorde Lesbian Poetry Award (USA). Earth’s Breath was shortlisted for the 2010 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. She has been the recipient of two international residencies: in 2013 from the Australia Council for the Arts for six months to write Lupa and Lamb, the BR Whiting Library in Rome; and in 2009 a four month residency for Arts Queensland and the Australia Council to Chennai, India to write Cow. Her fiction works include Dark Matters (2017), a verse novel, Limen (2013) and The Falling Woman (1992). Susan is the winner of the Penguin Random House Best Achievement in Writing, 2017 Inspire Award for her work as an outstanding lifetime contributor to increasing people’s awareness of disability. She is also a publisher and Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University, Townsville.
Cow: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=215/
Earth’s Breath: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=197/
Lupa and Lamb: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=268/
Dark Matters: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=297/
Limen: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=243/
The Falling Woman: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=64/
harrow
on our farm my father had a harrow
used during the planting season
from Old Dutch and Norse languages
harrowing the ground is a kind of wounding
Indian goddess Sita was born in a furrow
it too had been harrowed
her experience was harrowing
abducted held hostage by Ravana
when Rama finally arrives to bring her home
he accuses her of unfaithfulness
she enters a fire only to emerge whole
her purity proven
so when I see an image
of the harrowing of hell a giant animal maw
sharp teeth like the tines on a harrow
naked people walking out of the maw
of hell I think of Sita found in a furrow
returning to the earth when she dies
and the earth harrowed by my father
underworlds
everyone is looking for underworlds
all over the earth but when it lands
on them they are not so happy
death is the key character there
and he is not a nice fellow
controlling and the heat is too high
or so cold your toes and fingers freeze
but death comes in female form too
usually cloaked for death is hidden
some underworlds come with return
tickets Orpheus had one of these
but blew it as did Job some of us
have multiple city round trips
but we never know the departure
or return dates so have to live
as if today will be our very last
drugs allow day trips to the underworld
like looking for a house to buy or rent
every location is filled with fantasy
and it all looks so much brighter
than the everyday mundane world
underworlds are with us all the time
we fail to notice their intersecting
presences until our number is up
Llandudno
Alice was once here in this hotel
the girl who went down the rabbit hole
she is still here and is watching
the seagulls fight over chips
she lost her sense of reality
when the world spun out of control
he is so much bigger than me
the legs of this table have grown
I am too small too small too small
*
the red queen stands in the street
shouting at the passers by
Alice is afraid of her
as the calls out punishments
at the pier clowns swallow balls
dodgem cars dodge
machines screech for money
Wales’ beachside holidays
with grandeur and hidden shame
post seizure
they say she spoke gibberish
but iambic pentameter is not
that easy in a post seizure state
falling into the chasm of darkness
she returns with oracles on her
tongue only she returns from trance
the cleft not so frenzied but divine
words bundled into poems
Pythia ecstatic on earth’s vapours
divination a chthonic not clonic
seizure an underworld of words
sliding out of her old snake skin
double embrace
sit in the embrace of language
sharing sister tongues double
entendres whisperings veiled
write in code as we must
elephants trumpet their rage
hide our lives in shrouded words
syllables are star-stitched
as ancient as galaxies
or Pluto’s hidden oceans
liquid nitrogen frozen burning
the Buddhist nun inflamed
above pachyderm clouds
threaten rain like a woman
carrying a gourd speaking
with her friend in nüshu
her tongue a faith hard as marble
Sistine sybils with ambiguous
oracles speak in rhyming couplets
language as embrace poetry
as architecture holds up the sky
like ancient Nut stable as
a celestial table no easy camouflage
sky stars dark light our two-tongue
speaking knitting underground
knowledge poems committed
to memory and transformation
our dissertations excavated
to snuffle out meaning today
she was murdered by someone
sent by the government
Draupadi brings bees in her
flower-braided hair the queen
smoldering her diffracted lyrics
her fury as great at the Erinyes
her rapture disbelieved just
as Cassandra’s words were
a woman who speaks truth
registers her revenge but history
unwraps her story and it is lost
© Susan Hawthorne