20: SUBMERGED

Mark Pirie: Kool notes, for you

i buy George Barker
on flinders street
and study the pink/blue cover
in the half-dark. but

thinking of you,
not the cover, &
then mixing them up,
regardless.

George is standing
or leaning
into the light, a fag
in hand,

not really smiling
or trying to be any-
thing but being 'him-
self'.

i'm reminded of you,
that natural cool.
i'd like to be like that.
like 'you'

'the you holding the letter,'
that's what you said,
George knows it,
i know it, & you

said it. melbourne is
terrific, lots of gardens & parks,
beautiful at night, & especially
i like the river.

Mark Pirie was born in Wellington in 1974. He is the Managing Editor for HeadworX, a small press publisher of poetry/fiction. His poems have been published in India, New Zealand, Australia, Croatia, the US and the UK. In 1998 University of Otago Press published his anthology of 'Generation X' writing, The NeXt Wave. He is an editor of JAAM (New Zealand), the contributing New Zealand editor for papertiger, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Antipodes (USA) and the committee of the Wellington International Poetry Festival (NZ). Salt Publishing, Cambridge, England, has recently published his new and selected poems, Gallery: A Selection.