Hania
Stephen Oliver
Before the
curvature of the quayside restaurants and bars. You'd think
the fishing boats had been brought in overnight
especially to set the scene
for dawn over the Cretan port of Hania - white, with yellow
or red trim, all the tribal memories.
They jostle shoulders, low bellied,
open armed, sleepily expectant. Erase this scene, and the
last thing to go would be the boats -
that and the Aegean taking its fill
of bluestone light. We sip coffee and sweet iced water
at a cafe on the quay,
feeling the Metaxa pecking at our livers like an eagle
from the Night before, and the night before that. The Pirates
Bar awaits
the next night's big adventure where you shuffle sex like a bag
full of passports. What is it you expect as you follow
the thread of
moonlight out over the Old Harbour? - it's in the air all about
you. In another age you would have hoisted sail - advanced
a thought.
© Stephen Oliver
Stephen
Oliver is the author of six major collections of poetry. His recent collection,
Night of Warehouses: Poems 1978-2000, covers five volumes of poems and
spans two decades. A poetry chapbook, Deadly Pollen, is to be published
by Word Riot Press in 2003.
In addition,
a CD of poems titled, King Hit: Selected Readings - written and read by
Stephen Oliver to original music composed by Matt Ottley, is to be released through
Public Eyesore Records (Nebraska) in June, 2003.
He lives in Sydney, Australia.
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