[Today I’m pleased to present three new poems by Australian poet Rebecca Kylie Law. The poems were submitted to The Afternoon Journal and are published for the first time. Please note the copyright: All rights reserved.]

 

For St Francis of Paola, Hermit

 

In the afternoon becoming night,

 

noticing small ribbed shells

the shape of petals, reminding

 

myself not to pick them up

for the inconvenience of not

returning home directly, I looked

 

instead at the silhouettes

of two figures standing on the precipice

of a granite rock jutting

 

out just as the bay curves

round to invisibility. It

 

seemed strange that in the

approaching dusk their shadows

 

had already been cast head

to foot. And then jumping feet

 

first into the water, their

arms flailing, daylight returning

to their calves, stomaches, then in it’s

 

entirety. A sleep forgotten.

 

Later that night, my mind

in the woods of Schumann, his

 

lonely blue flowers and yellowing

Autumn, I lay my head

 

on a freshly laundered pillow,

a grey loose weave rug about

my shoulders and drew my

 

hands together, the tips of my

fingers to my lips. You never grow out

 

of owls. Their wide-eyed blinks and

moist irises, their round steady pupils,

 

the swoon of their beaks from a high tree

and half-smiles. “Ne m’oubliez pas”

 

in our prayers, “ne m’oubliez pas”.

 

— by Rebecca Kylie Law

 

Whilst the Hourglass

 

Here

birthdays come

as the practise song

of anonymous birds;

and day is the almost

blue of sky.

 

The brother or the sister-

They have turned older

in another Capital

and I am waking to the memory

 

of tandem bicycles or mini-

frights in surfacing the waves.

 

Last night, walking

down the street

behind my flat

 

I looked for the first

time at the rooms

of my neighbours

lit up in strong lamplight

 

and I felt as though

I was rambling over

 

love. Then tonight

the idylls of birds

still anonymous, air-

bound, a paling sky

before the true darkness

 

and candy striped candles

that light up a face.

I tie you a ribbon.

 

— by Rebecca Kylie Law

 

 

Excerpt From The Secret

 

My dreams have no land

though seem peopled

 

as flowers grow in this

 

manner of sporadicity:

 

Myself within and once

a cloud wide as rectangles

can be, was It –

 

then a clamouring of forms

not distinct as bodies

gathered about like the

 

flowers again, for their petals

(which was really, better

 

to love and be loved

 

forever mindful, these nights

 

of cloud-kissing, how it

truly epitomises the making

 

of a scene). In the beatitude.

 

— by Rebecca Kylie Law

 

(Editor’s Note: Poems copyrighted © 2014 Rebecca Kylie Law. All rights reserved.)

 

Rebecca Kylie Law is a Sydney based poet, essayist and reviewer. Published by Picaro Press, her poetry collections include “Offset”, “Lilies and Stars” and “The Arrow & The Lyre”. Other  publications include thewonderbook of poetry, Notes for The Translators, Poems for the Young Chinese Adult, Best Poem Journal, Virgogray Press, Australian Love Poems 2013, Southerly, Westerly, Rochford Street Press, The Australian, The Euroscientist Ezine, Poetry Pacific and The Lake. She holds a Masters Degree in Poetry from Melbourne University.