OVERLAND MAGAZINE JUDITH WRIGHT POETRY PRIZE for NEW and EMERGING POETS

Overland is proud to announce the results of the Overland magazine Judith Wright Prize for New and Emerging Poets, 2007.

winner | Georgina M. Bailey

Chronology

I, Kronos, dream this universe – for better or worse – with Idaea my mate, yes of course. Have carousels for the kids, swings and aunt sally, lively and jolly. Her notion, have variety, motion. I proposed life; breathe in, breathe out, rest or wait, as young Hoyle later put it – steady state – in continuum. Our son Zeus complained, where’s the copyright?
      Human, while magma heaves through your Hearth’s gut, then crystallising under heat and weight, rock to dust to rock returns

Her idea, my mate. Our Plato’s school speaks of her paradigm, an eternally existing pattern, the perfection. Kant claimed she was gifted with capacity to see, to visualise without prior impression: pure reason. Verbose fellow then, Kant, now more mellow.
Gifted, she uttered “Chaos to Cosmos to Chaos.” and “Let all participate, commune, community and contribution.”
“Those that don’t drop first, hauling the lounge suites upstairs to refurbish the gallery.” I muttered.
      Rock to dust to rock returns, mountain trembles and groans, Rock of Ages drowns

Constantine, playing with little gods of power in Eastern Rome, sought to empress her.
Proclaimed her ‘Mater Deum Magna Idaea,’ brash mortal. She, my Great Idaean Wife and Mother of the Gods, now some name her Ma Re, Mother of Kings, or Mother of One.
Vocal bloke, Constantine, keen to become One Of Us. Well … he conquered Rome and preached “Worship all gods, like me” having plundered Christianity; said “Follow me to immortality.” Truly a simple fellow, for We ensure nothing comes to nothing. Universal recycling – guarantee.
      Rock of Ages drowns, dissolves to sand and blows – and I dream it.

Titanic scholar, Velikovsky; Idaea’s current hero. Offered interpretations of cosmos and chaos. Found errors, he asserted, in measurement of dynasties, proposed Venus/Aphrodite as daughter of Jupiter/Zeus, expelled as a hairy comet, fell foaming in your System, battled with Mars, in the days when the sky was falling.
He offended little male-gods of astronomy who published their rages, our Immanuel Velikovsky, in their own nation. He suffered the fate Charlie Darwin escaped. Luck of the gods? Story of the ages …
      – and I dream it, and jealous man pronounces Truth and dies for it or kills the – other man

Akh, jealous! They say I swallowed my children, my own. Threaten to, yes. Especially young Zeus, named Jupiter by Rome; and when rain thrashes down from heaven in season, men lift their hands and yell to the sky Ya Ya Huey! Send it down. O Powerful One, send it down Hu Ptah! The end of the dry. And gold, silver, bronze and iron, his Ages of Man: hidden stories of our Hesiod.
The Golden is the reign of Kronos, seeking thus to honour us. Then Jupiter ruled – Silver anomalous, of punishment from heaven when the sky fell. Bronze for the axe when man passed through bedlam; and Iron, the age of revival when he spoke of Justice, our Hesiod.
Then History, explored by Velikovsky who worshiped veracity.
      the – other man? Could he, perhaps, respect the feelings of the other man.

Worship, sleeting through our universe like invisible light, or music of the spheres, day and night – like, like Falling in love with Love, like brain derangement.
All Idaea’s doing? Ha, love is Base of the Pattern, hard work, not emotion. But Worship, in Brownian motion, sun-tanning some, seeding canker in others, in lovers, friends and brothers. Idolatory? Error! Error! A weak spot in eternity. In profusion, worship is total confusion.
We, Kronos and Idaea, gods of infinity, continue to ignore it. Ignore it in continuum … you um … you um …
      respect emotion of other and that is love

When Hearth’s beauty burns I dream of life and life returns – seed of earth, virus of creation. I, Kronos, incorporate this dust of dreams for use by man or god, ignorant, greedy, playful perverse. Dreamers all, intent to seed the Universe.
      love to argue the action of man against man is love.

© Georgina M. Bailey

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