<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Night, the Possum<\/strong><\/p>\n Giant starry sky night behind an illegal beach shack Here among fishermen of the Roaring Forties Lists mulled over: jobs held, the dead, names whispered, Tiptoeing over soldier crabs on his crescented walk Now it employs his naked thigh as a trampoline, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ian C Smith<\/strong>\u2019s work has appeared in , Antipodes, Australian Book Review, Australian Poetry Journal, \u00a0The Brasilia Review, \u00a0Poetry Salzburg Review, \u00a0The Stony Thursday Book, & Two-Thirds North<\/em>. \u00a0His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy<\/em>, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide).\u00a0 He lives in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Night, the Possum Giant starry sky night behind an illegal beach shack in a rickety add-on caravan he calls Steptoe\u2019s Castle, broken window wedged open for cooler air, a possum squeezes its way inside, his bed adjacent. He stirs, wind a banshee, half-wakens to noises. Here among fishermen of the Roaring Forties […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15279,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15278\/revisions\/15279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin a rickety add-on caravan he calls Steptoe\u2019s Castle,
\nbroken window wedged open for cooler air,
\na possum squeezes its way inside, his bed adjacent.
\nHe stirs, wind a banshee, half-wakens to noises.<\/p>\n
\nhe trawls the roar of his past before he shook the grog,
\nto make sense of his footprints in the sand vanishing
\ninto a cloister he tries to treasure for calmness.
\nThe possum scents fruit, a dietary compromise.<\/p>\n
\nplaces lived, airports landed in, lovers lusted for.
\nHe sometimes rouses hard, limbs creaky, tantalised,
\nwanting total dream recall, not glimpses, re-entry.
\nA kitchen tin clatters, sounding in sleep, outside.<\/p>\n
\nhe ogles a ferry balanced on the horizon as if painted,
\nrecounts ferries boarded, turbulent straits crossed,
\nthe excitement, enigma, of expected arrival.
\nWildness crossed his sleeping form to reach that tin.<\/p>\n
\nclaws gripping to launch back to the window ledge.
\nHe wakes to his own shriek, kicking out, bloodied,
\npossum scurrying into the shack, a havoc of curtains,
\nboth shocked by how it came to this.<\/p>\n