Walkers at Brittas Bay, 4pm by Curtis Tappenden

Naming

Harry Owen

Sixty-one years ago tonight, a woman
of many names (two borrowed from men)
prepared for the Gethsemane of birth
and I, as yet unnamed, unknown, pushed
towards a you as yet unconceived,
inconceivable. Who were you once,
twice? Who chose for you, pressed upon you
a name, a being, invented you?
You are alive. I am alive. And now,
here in this place, we name one another.

 

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Rising Mist, 6am, Chateaulin by Curtis Tappenden

To:

Harry Owen

You, the one being born now, this instant,
whom I will never meet or see, whose
smile or agony I will never share,
whose voice is, like the shape of the life
you embark upon, still thin and unformed,
still creeping towards your poetry –

know that I’m thinking of you,
offer you my own smiles and agonies
to tell you you’re not alone,
or rather that you are, but this is good.
Here, borrow my voice for a time
and I’ll borrow yours:

May we both live rooted in the world.
May we both sing our songs about it.

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The Teleology of Academe

Harry Owen

Epistemologically questionable, no doubt,
this affective reification of my need
to unpack the ontology of my life,
sublimate the individuated interiority
of my yearnings (my earnings having long gone)
and interrogate the non-normative,
quasi-gendered identificatory parameters
of the referenced sacred works.
A kind of god?

 

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