A long day I’ve had of it,
and a tiring one,
and little to show
but this loose scree of words
like dinosaurs;
the fossilized remains
of once great moments.

They tell me beauty’s truth,
but still I fail—what use is it to me
that Keats once wrote,
thou still unravished
bride of quietness, and tore
the language from God’s living
throat. I fossick, find, make space
back of the truck—say virgin girl
lets go. It’s time to fuck. . .

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Dennis Greene

Dennis Greene was born in England, raised in Africa, and has lived in Perth, Western Australia, since 1983. His work has been published in Westerly, Unfamiliar Tides (2002 Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology), Empowa (Emerging Poets WA) Issues 1 & 2, Inside Out (Tombolo Publishing), and in Voices from the Parking Lot, an anthology of poetry and prose which he edited for the Parkinson Alliance (Princeton, New Jersey). Online his credits include Poetic Voices, Oracular Tree, Comrades, Wordspace, Ironwood, MiPOesias Magazine, and Pogonip. For several years he was the assistant editor of Poetry Downunder and Numbat.

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© 2006 Dennis Greene