"The MAG"

KALEB STUART

Kaleb Stuart lives in New York City.

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ORANGES

in his poem Why I Am Not a Painter O’Hara suggests

that it is much easier to eat an orange than to paint it

in his poem ‘The Third Party’ Jonathon Holden regards the unlocking of an

orange as a simile for the scientific exploration of a differential equation

in Monet’s masterpiece Apples & Oranges he deconstructs Western Art by

revealing the multiple perspectives through which a piece of fruit can be viewed

in the joanne burns poem ‘so far so good’ she uses the

metaphor of a lost orange pip to describe a lost ‘belief’

in his poem ‘The bi kid’ Michael Dransfield, the persona

saves the life of his client through an injection of citric acid

in one of his early poems John Forbes suggested that

one should write a poem about oranges, possibly long

I view an orange much like a vase. Both inside and out its

lines establish subtle connections, contradictions between its

integrity as an artistic object and as an eatable worldly form.

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THE SCULPTOR

Between etchings & screen prints & acrylic paintings the

Kiwi sculptor meticulously crafts a life sized human skeleton

in his one bedroom Maroubra studio he cuts & delicately shapes

each of the 206 skeletal bones from Indonesian balsa wood.

He discovers that most bones act as a system of levers by moveable

joints lined with articular cartilage & powered by a locomotor system.

To him even the picking up of a brush or an electrical saw is a complicated act

of anatomy, of the interplay between consciousness & touch receptor centres

& as he cuts & carves & sands & pastes & binds together his creation

he imagines it all layered with muscles & connective tissues & nerves.

Opening night. Bondi Pavilion. Everything is in place, perfect for the unveiling of the

sculpture - the weather, the organisation, the finger food & drink- all absolutely superb!

Light bop sprays the walls & in the far corner a young couple dance,

caress- in the sculpture’s mind - their spongy marrow filled bones

sway in an elastic band of cartilage their muscles at ease anchored

Yet no one, not even the sculptor, could have foreseen what was to happen next:

a drunken flatmate, with a glass of red in hand, suddenly reels backwards- clutching

at the masterpiece to re-orientate his balance. He lands heavily on its torso smashing the

fragile skeleton- the sternum is instantly crushed/ there are multiple clavicle & rib frac-

tures- the artist shrieking- cursing clutching his own sides his head in jigsaws of pain.

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SO WHAT?

Poetry had better say something important to readers. In writing classes this is known as the ‘so what?’ test. Michael Sharkey

So what if you mystify,

bamboozle me in your seemingly playful

intricate discussions-

with your obscure literary allusions

& name droppings-

your incoherent hybrid academic babble

resolutely grounded in post-structural theorists

like Focault, Lyotard, Jameson, Baudrillard?

So what if no one can understand your poetry-

your post-colonial ideology,

your pastiche of perspectives?-

the fluidity of your

constructed self-

reflexivity?

So what if you have only lived an

academic life?

in a shadowy world of words

a proponent of institutionalised

discontinuity

cloistered in the dialogue of thoughts of others (upon others)

So what if you got your eclectic poems

published

in that clever new magazine-

but who is going to buy or read them?

So what if I was at the book launch?

& so what if I was the only person

throughout the night

to actually purchase

a subscription?

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VASECTOMY

Talking nervously to a fellow patient

in the foyer of a Parramatta birth control clinic

he reckons it is the best deal in town- $5 a snip.

Christ, you’re probably saving a couple hundred grand each unborn child

I field some obvious but awkward questions from the young counsellor

Do you enjoy sex?
If one of your children dies would you want to replace him?

I visit totally inappropriate thoughts but play the game & say something like:

How can you ever hope to replace a dead child with another? It would be a long & difficult process but we would have to come to terms with the death & realise we will never ever have another child etc…

I am instructed by a worldly looking Indian doctor to undress-

the sharp stab of the local works quickly.

I hear a buzzing sound-

a cross between an electric tooth brush & a vibrator

and in 10 minutes it is done. They stick a yellow

happy face at the point of the incision.

Before I leave the doctor warns me

I have a varicose vein like condition in the groin area

& he had to dig deep on one side. I hobble uncertain to the car

quickly- before the drugs wear out

& soon I am home

In the night I feel a growing discomfort

& in the morning my left testicle

is the size of a grapefruit (no exaggeration).

I take a couple of days off work & soon everything is swell.

The sperm, I suppose, is lumpier now & more yellowy in colour

& harder to hit the roof.

m.a.g.