Domestic Hardcore

DEEP WATER

i’d be myself for you
i’d stumble through fragmented
bits of speech, quick breatht
grabbing words away from silence
stuttering through pause to meaning
then open to your smile

i’d be myself for you
aqua profundo (the sign
at the harbour pool
in weather baked like custard
slurping pineapple frosties
then splash & dive

i’d be myself for you
difficult enough to be simple
harder to be naïve
resurging as if bizarre
wavebreakers of suburbanity
then call us the poets union

i’d be myself for you
embracing puzzlement i’d give
silence the right to be heard
dazzled by grace i’d lay down
clumsy &/or delicate
then smile for you & for myself

MANGOES

mangoes are not cigarettes
mangoes are fleshy skinful passionate fruits
mangoes are hungry to be sucked
mangoes are glad to be stuck in the teeth
mangoes like slush & kissing

mangoes are not filter tipped
mangoes are indiosyncratic seasonal seducers
mangoes are worse than adams apple
mangoes are what parents & parliaments warn against
mangoes like making rude noises

mangoes are not extra mild
mangoes are greedy delicious tongueteasers
mangoes are violently soft
mangoes are fibrous intestinal lovebites
mangoes like beginning once again

mangoes are not cigarettes
mangoes are tangible sensual intelligence
mangoes are debauched antisocialites
mangoes are a positive good in the world
mangoes like poetry

Richard Kelly Tipping 1972
Published in Domestic Hardcore (1975) by University of Queensland Press