claudia jardine
stop reading catullus 51
wedding season on the desert road
all the brides are wearing ancestral fur stoles
the only light that we’ll need
provided by my burning stores of self-belief
I grow a forest in my head
between the blooming glances we go walking
a thousand tea-lights are flickering inside me
I am paler green
than a kina shell exposed on a south-facing beach
there is a thicket in my mouth
gods forbid someone else is listening to your laugh right now
no parties! not allowed!
for as long as my head is ringing with its own bells
all the poets are dead
it’s the funeral for the wedding of making good choices
and idleness
idleness wants to judge and not dance
Is It Hard to Follow Your Heart When You Have Three?
(on the story of the giant octopus from Aelian’s De Natura Animalium)
is it hard to follow your heart when you have three?
one for circulation
two for breathing
i am the stone jar of pickled fish
you are the giant octopus
i wait in the dark for you
you crawl up the sewer for me
we cast our votes
two are for breathing
Claudia Jardine (she/her) is a poet, musician and postgraduate student at Victoria University of Wellington. Her work has been published in earlier issues of Starling, Mimicry, perverse, Salty, Landfall and at The Spinoff. Claudia is currently researching Byzantine historiography and managing the independent release of her first collection of songs, the North EP.