Writers in Libraries - CS Hughes

The streets are library quiet

A clarity, hid in the serried facades

Serrated trees and telegraph lines

Crossing at that infinite point

Where perspective fails

I put my reading glasses on

Finding in the shapes of words, clear and close

The world – not so far, gone indistinct

We abide in our houses, like rough, disordered books

The leaves of other people's dreams

In that owling susurrus

A white noise blur

In my clumsied restlessness

A few loose pages rent

Gusting down the road

In obdurate branches, catch

Wondering if

By a kind, entangling osmosis

What stray words are crossing in between

Beds are narrower on TV

People talk face to face

Unafraid of halitosis

Or other unfortunate intimacies

We populate our borrowed homes

With arbitrary things

To imbue ourselves with personality

And life's outré laugh-track semblances

Wearing masks to unpretend

How we see familiar faces

In the shapes of cups and clouds

But just these peculiar vacancies

Where strangeness starts

From your face

An ageless breath has carved

Another empty planet

In the atrium

The statues grow

Life moving slow as sundials

Faces blind

Even when the painted eyes

Of their subjects blink

The tears away and light

Slanting from the transom window

The morning vainglory gold

But the marble

Translucent as a sigh

CS Hughes is a local poet but he has also written short stories, articles and essays. He has produced several poetry collections including 'The Book of Whimsies', 'The Little Book of Funerals', 'The Book of Bird & Bear' as well as the illustrated children's verse, 'Sweet Christmas'. At the start of last year, CS edited a poetry collection called 'From the Ashes' which featured some of Australia's most renowned poets – as well as those just starting out – to provide a unified response to the 2019-20 bushfire crisis and to raise funds for charities that were working to rescue injured animals. A member and organiser for Burra Poets, CS was busy during COVID, releasing a speculative poetry narrative which featured hand printed Lino print artwork.