Feature poet

Feature Poet: Autumn Royal

To be consumed in something rather than by it

‘a moment’s unrecoverable banishment of self’ — Evelyn Lau

In whatever era this finds you, I am out of my depth — regardless, of this, the more I say I write poetry, the less I express it, and so into a container of salted water, I saturate my pages for tomorrow’s absence. Inside the mist of living without death there is the accumulation of living with death and the lure of drama, barbed assumptions, the only way it goes—is drama. Natural versus man-made injuries—as if tragedy allows for transferable roles and the glorious thrill of gorging on the banquet that is your own body. No one has ever wanted to consume me like this, and one must be composed when both guest and host. Heritage-listed façades in the foreground, assemblies in the background. The common areas of the complex, in order of appearance—the entrance, the hallways, several outdoor-facing windows, and the laundry. Letters to outline measures of permitted distances—as if adoration could be restricted. My account allows for building poems, not a house. Wipe a finger along the dusty plaster of a wall and rub the powder over your eyelids. If possible— leave your home during allocated hours—blink as a reminder you may still own secrets and must harness the gift to lie. A circulated memo updates the limits of imagination before it falls into predictability or magical thinking. I am cushioned in pursuing experiences from written scripts as you ache in a pre-arranged room for a statement to be recorded after the accident—your mouth craving for water and space for slippage. The fever of the scene heats, like love, endless love, rumoured to be as expected as flesh and since there were no physical injuries after the collision you must form and sustain a narrative, a statement for insurance. I sit and visualise the rising, the falling of your chest, my cruelty heaves as I relate these undulations to thoughts.

When each line assumes that the one(s) before it are addressed

‘Sometimes it feels like it is over and it’s not. Sometimes it feels like it has just begun and it’s over.’ — Juliana Spahr

This whole account will be written for you, yet will barely be about you and so— O, I’m in dispute with words, distracted by the task of detailing flowers—bouquets brimming to escape poses with rosette trimmings, weighted by childhood—dominating the core of my figure, this form, not priceless or refundable. Tell me this is terrible, and I’ll believe it—not for need but for the sake of it—it is all for the sake of it—an idea, an empty bladder, a chamber to fill. The frills of naivety render me as unkind as the assumption anyone has ever been innocent, with a window beside a bed overlooking a lake to bathe in— after a breakfast of poached pears and cream, stalks left intact—a cinnamon quill endlessly bobbing about the boil. And as we evaporate into the things that keep happening—a poet may be positioned in front of a grand piano, they cannot play. No matter what is requested, some poems will enter streets—I hope for more.

Autumn Royal creates poetry, drama and criticism. Autumn was the founding editor of Liquid Architecture’s Disclaimer journal and interviews editor at Cordite Poetry Review. Versions of these poems were originally published in Running Dog, 2021.