Oblations
Lou Garcia-Dolnik
Experiences of divinity often fall short of what is willed, longed or prayed for. In departing from Jack Halberstam’s contention that to be queer is to (willingly) fail, these oblations focalise the constraints of the body, its encounter with love, loss, sacrifice and ritual, as sites of possibility, surrender and becoming.
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A Brief History of Waves
to say tumour from torpid? to say time from terror
a wave is water in the shapeof a sobriquet of a tempest
one knows water
by saluting its bending one knows wavering
by signalling its vengeance
◉ saluting the wave is asking obeisance
to God in the eye of the rise
◉ the river
◉ for what is crescendo without catharsis?
◉ ocean without depth?
◉ I write the poem
◉ though I mean to write
waves
water on water is the logic of the waveone hand clapping is the logic of the wave
it shirks off it desires
its duty to mathematics
and becomes itself its burden to substance
and architects itself
feet first though what
other way to enter water the flinging of cargo from its sleeves
as feathers through what other way to matter wilderness?
the wave stops before the ocean
subsides and rises the wave halts before
its withheld silences
Canute issued his imperative to the wavewaves dressed him regardless
took his robes and made them waves
◉
Hokusai lived in the faith of waves
enclosing their vast greeting, hence,
◉ here, the naked of me
◉ and how many lanterns did they light
in Kanagawa? A fisherman’s wife
laid in bed alone
◉ the first time
since her wedding night
◉
but she convulsed in awe
to countenance the greatest wave
the world had ever seen
Content warning: this poem deals with disordered eating.
let me look at it
let me set my life on it
& swear to God,
to all that is unruly to all that is holy
you will bury me in it
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Litany Cataloguing the Items She Cannot Eat
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Careful;
Your Heart is Healing
—After Patty Chang’s ‘Invocation for a Wandering Lake’ (2016)
23 and still a poem about death
How I can’t get enough of it
after the deluge
the howl:
Where did it come?
itinerant~
(formless)
All my life I resist flying
my body reticulates me
Who is my grief?
ocean-swept wind
sounding its depth
fading from field
of view
How is my time?
And anchoring is a place
as is light
a wordless cavern
we live beneath the burden of greater things
my weightless feet
disrooted of me.
Where is my grief?
across
the gymnosperms that
resist flight.
and so I listen:
a ghost subsuming edges
ocean after which there is no
a light-modulating genus
my promise
with vastness
asks
every moment unasked
is an anchoring
just as anchors belie the rootedness
of the animal
as grief is emplaced
which sets my hollow down
unsure of what tethers us to obligation
I do not know what keeps me here
the way the rain
touches itself
the way memory
holds the brain
some things
never leave the mind
before time is taken
I am nowhere
near forgiveness
a directive
The world is angry and
nothing profound
nothing innocent
I learn to tell the world I am falling
shifting weightlessly
or why
but I know it is things.
in the way I reach to touch
with still—
however plastic
some things need undertaking
but I am near how
to be kind to oneself
listen
but gentle
but already fading
I am learning falling
precedes flight
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Lou Garcia-Dolnik is a poet and editor working on unceded Gadigal land. Their work has been awarded Third Prize in PRISM International's Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize (2019), Second Prize in Overland's Judith Wright Poetry Prize (2019), a place on the shortlist for the 2020 Blake Prize and an Academy of American Poets University Prize from The University of Texas at Austin in 2021.
Their writing has been published in or is forthcoming with Australian Poetry Journal, The Emerging Writers’ Festival, Firstdraft, Going Down Swinging, Island Island (Bus Projects), LIMINAL, Overland, Rabbit, Running Dog, Un Magazine and Scum Mag. A poetry editor for Voiceworks and alumnus of the Banff Centre's Emerging Writers Intensive, they are a Varuna Residential Fellow and 2020-21 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow.
Oblations
Lou Garcia-Dolnik
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Lou Garcia-Dolnik is a poet and editor working on unceded Gadigal land. Their work has been awarded Third Prize in PRISM International's Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize (2019), Second Prize in Overland's Judith Wright Poetry Prize (2019), a place on the shortlist for the 2020 Blake Prize and an Academy of American Poets University Prize from The University of Texas at Austin in 2021.
Their writing has been published in or is forthcoming with Australian Poetry Journal, The Emerging Writers’ Festival, Firstdraft, Going Down Swinging, Island Island (Bus Projects), LIMINAL, Overland, Rabbit, Running Dog, Un Magazine and Scum Mag. A poetry editor for Voiceworks and alumnus of the Banff Centre's Emerging Writers Intensive, they are a Varuna Residential Fellow and 2020-21 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.