Alicia Sometimes is a poet/musician and co-editor of the Australian literary journal Going Down Swinging She is also co-host of the spoken word radio show Aural Text on Melbourne's 3RRR. Her first poetry book, kissing the curve is out now through Five Islands Press.

Alicia' s poems featured in our 2002 Epic poem project   and the Cold Was the Ground was one of five poems selected for our 2006 Cabinet of Lost and Found

Cold Was the Ground

                                 dark was the night

Blind Willie Johnson huffs in my ears

weeping into God. How easy to loop

the past into a soundtrack, light digestion

& here's Willie, scratching life into the air

carving out sight & sense in the squall

So many spills, paths of only one take

So simple, the hatching of intrigue &

sloppy way we invent moments to be sad

I walk at the trees as if I have knowledge

secrets of their past, I don't, but confidence

is a clever accessory. This winter walk

these minuets stall the loud, awaken the soft

my ears, warm with the blues

my eyes with the slow mountain

& the snow, suspended in a mid-fall spill

poem from the future

a tangent is still a line that just kisses the curve.

like Euler said in 1775,
is definitely transcendental

the Chandrasekhar limit for a star collapsing on itself
is correct, we've tried.

absolute zero is absolute. just colder than you would
have thought.

the wormhole is a paradox caused by zero in the Theory
of General Relativity but no-one wants to go first.

we saw old recordings of Star Trek:
phrases like nanovirus leftover, residual harmonics,
triaxilation construct, telepathic conduit-
show unusual wit.

(& by the way, Star Trek got the whole holodeck thing completely
wrong but who knew they'd be so spot on with the costumes?)

we invented a new letter of the alphabet because we couldn't
capture that exact word for triumph.

we moved the constellation of Leo. apologies to those born July
24 - August 23 you now have Virgo traits.

although Job said in the Bible, I am brother to dragons and
companion to owls. We still don't take that phrase literally.

we are no further in knowing if the universe is its own mother.

we don't know what came before the Planck era.
(we have few snapshots left).

we do know how much longer the planet will survive.
(we have few snapshots left).

the poet exists as a learned astronomer.
we have words to prove this.