Uprising
Please be
an uprising
scissor my
black lace
indicate
be light
I’m scared of losing my faith
in people
/
I’m scared of losing my face
/
when I look into silver
your lips kiss all the shit away
I want an electric guitar
with a big circle amp
someone beautiful could sit there
& fuss over me
I like controlling the sea from my bedroom
bleeding & tearing the moon
I like howling at my octopus tits
one in every room
I’m a virgin
framed
a baby grand
next to mops and brooms
please keep calling me
so I can watch
your name flash angry blue
/
a storm
under my pillow
/
electric lines smile in the sky
with my smallest finger
in the smallest hour
I trace the maze
you were good at holding me
when the rain had nobody to fall on
you were good at knowing
souls from bodies
I still wear my organs like 80s leather
I still hear your voice in the corner be light be light
©Courtney Sina Meredith
Author note: I was 22 when I wrote this and in a lot of pain, I had no idea what was ahead of me, ignorance really is bliss. Months later I would undergo my first major operation and my endometriosis would be confirmed. I was channeling ancestors and trashing lovers and asking myself to keep on giving when I really felt like there was nothing left to give.
Courtney Sina Meredith is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and musician based in Auckland. She’s held a number of international writers’ residencies including the prestigious Fall Residency at the University of Iowa. In 2012 Meredith published her first book of poems, Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick, and in 2016 launched a collection of short stories, Tail of the Taniwha, with Beatnik Publishing.
Courtney Sina Meredith, 2017 Arts Queensland Poet in Residence, will talk to Annie Te Whiu of Queensland Poetry Festival about her poetry, and the importance of place and politics in her writing, see here.
From Paula: For Poetry Shelf’s Winter Season, I invited 12 poets to pick one of their own poems that marks a shift in direction, that is outside the usual tracks of their poetry, that moves out of character, that nudges comfort zones of writing. It might be subject matter, style, form, approach, tone, effect, motivation, borrowings, revelation, invention, experimentation, exclusions, inclusions, melody …. anything!
