Brian Garrett

Brian Garrett is a professional philosopher and a part-time poet. His poetry has appeared in 'Takahe 2', 'The Antigonish Review', 'The New Quarterly' and 'Poetry New Zealand'.  He is currently writing a book in philosophy entitled Is Determinism an Excuse? Having taught philosophy in Canada for the last 14 years, he is returning home to New Zealand to write and spend time with his aging parents.







Haddock’s Nightmare

It went like this, the Yeti

is the illness who captured

pour Chang, that’s Anouk,

and naturally I was

Tintin clambering over

Tibet,  except I was

Captain Haddock biting his nails as the

Yeti descended.

Tintin began that adventure

with a dream of lost Chang;

poor Chang lost in the wreckage

of the aircraft, her desperate loneliness

and doting Abominable Snowman.

I dreamed of Chang today

 “ooooh! Le Migou!”,

yet I don’t know how,  each time

I climb Tibet, I find myself

weeping over cappucino and sweets,

shaking like Haddock on the wagon.

Chang lies in her empty cave, Yeti

feeding her small squirrels,

roots and berries, while Haddock slouches

drunk on some patio: Tintin is

no-where to be found.

The Touch (after Roethke)
         

They opened him
like a fish
cursed his small
bones and the choking,
the choking on
his infinitesimal
soul-bone; his last
gasp of vicarious life.

After they dis/
/membered the body
mutilated his passport
tortured some cousin's photo
set light to hair in
an envelope, they found
humour ran through
veins in their hands.

The quip and the quick came
flippant and quit: they say
the olive skin of Christ
cradled a pit
deeper than death;
they say the flesh
is weak and yields
to the slightest touch.