Poetry highly commended — Interrobang by P.S. Cottier
About the author
P.S. Cottier is a poet who lives in Canberra.
She is a previous winner of the Thunderbolt Prize in the poetry category, and her latest publication is Quick Bright Things: Poems of Fantasy and Myth.
She is a previous winner of the Thunderbolt Prize in the poetry category, and her latest publication is Quick Bright Things: Poems of Fantasy and Myth.
Interrobang by P.S. Cottier
Erected, quickly, at the side of the road,
this confusing metal entanglement
demands full attention.
Construction opened with the words
Get out of my way!
supplemented by a tang of adjective.
Then the artist smeared his medium
over the road; the broad brush
and paint become one.
A red line points back to a bike,
pushed into a sudden ambiguity.
The bike is no longer a bike,
although the idea of bike
can still be read. One wheel
is frame-attached, and the other hangs
like a halo from a tree, as if to ride up
and away from the sad tarmac,
into the cool, kind shelter of leaves.
The seat has reversed itself
like a chicken’s neck wrung
by an expert’s quick hand.
A bundle, flying fluorescent rags,
punctuates the other end
of the thick red line.
It is such a small mark,
a mere hedera, ivy twisted,
huddling down into the road.
It draws the display to an end;
half Christo and half half-mast flags.
Lycra waves over pebbled flesh.
The court becomes critic;
must judge the intention
behind the sudden installation.
Mere blindness, caused by the sun?
Or sinister, as shouted words might imply?
Separating exclamation and question
takes far longer than the impact itself.
The law nudges one way or the other,
in a more sinuous play of forces.
It tries to snake its head
around the alternatives,
to unseal death.
Physics demands a simpler gift of space.
this confusing metal entanglement
demands full attention.
Construction opened with the words
Get out of my way!
supplemented by a tang of adjective.
Then the artist smeared his medium
over the road; the broad brush
and paint become one.
A red line points back to a bike,
pushed into a sudden ambiguity.
The bike is no longer a bike,
although the idea of bike
can still be read. One wheel
is frame-attached, and the other hangs
like a halo from a tree, as if to ride up
and away from the sad tarmac,
into the cool, kind shelter of leaves.
The seat has reversed itself
like a chicken’s neck wrung
by an expert’s quick hand.
A bundle, flying fluorescent rags,
punctuates the other end
of the thick red line.
It is such a small mark,
a mere hedera, ivy twisted,
huddling down into the road.
It draws the display to an end;
half Christo and half half-mast flags.
Lycra waves over pebbled flesh.
The court becomes critic;
must judge the intention
behind the sudden installation.
Mere blindness, caused by the sun?
Or sinister, as shouted words might imply?
Separating exclamation and question
takes far longer than the impact itself.
The law nudges one way or the other,
in a more sinuous play of forces.
It tries to snake its head
around the alternatives,
to unseal death.
Physics demands a simpler gift of space.