Whorls: Three poems by Ariel Riveros Pavez

Shellform

spiralling to
the infinity of
a hermit
living inside you

home for aqueome
little thumbling by shore
pod for crustacean exemplary
exploration and I

take you to my ear
rush of sea like
a phone call
from a static who

will I answer you
and speak back
to the banging ocean
on your door?
 

A Ruptured Home

that order is truth
is no flicked lumiere

the pleasures and
vision of those clothed

in night and cleft to chaos
harried by the irregular

but no grip too fast
in duration

that I cannot undonn
my hat

where inside it rains upwards
a hat a home for hair

this is a skeleton of a house
a home truth is unreliable

better the streets
and fields, dots of grass

line of path, fold of hill
sweeping the pavement

with statements
the earth a big wristwatch

 
Your Bed

Entering the field of radiation
of your room
the warmth pinches like
substation coils
hums like tongues
quenched by saltwater.

It’s a yert
of dance and jester gibe
and you sleep.
Black barred
circus cages and
all surfaces become mirror
to confined quarters
of shared muscle and sweat.

Your breath sings
skeletal lieder.
The next act is where
jumbled projects
rise as you snooze.

Any solitude around you
is the recitative
about the last time
I froze innocently
in front of specific
rose gold expanses.

Geiger counter readings
charting and
crackling with hot linen
my eyes to past fixity
my well-wet mouth
at the beginning of returns,
adapting to a
twenty year wide span.


Ariel Riveros Pavez is a Sydney-based writer. His work has appeared in various publications including Journal of Postcolonial Text, Social Alternatives and Southerly. He was the convener of The Blue Space Poetry Jam readings. As well, Ariel is founding editor of the transcultural online arts magazine Australian Latino Press. To find out more and purchase Ariel’s latest poetry pamphlet, visit Ariel Riveros Pavez.