Tuesday, August 31, 2010

'The Moonmen' by Anna Livesey

On the last night the moonmen came.
We woke at an unaccustomed time and knelt by the window.
The moonmen pushed lines out in front of them,
they marked off their territories with orange markers.
The moonmen made a regular thud thud like a generator.
They walked in spaces we were used to seeing cordoned off.
It was a strange light the moonmen moved in -
a greeny glow they brought themselves, a glow that reflected
off their white suits and off the shiny visors curving stiffly
across the front of their heads.
We were leaving in the morning and so we said
'the moonmen need not concern us', and
I thought perhaps they were acting something out for us
while we crouched below the windowsill
and our knees grew tired and stiff.

From 'the moonmen' (VUP, 2010)





This poem is published with the author's permission. 


Harvey Molloy said...

Great choice. What strikes me is the almost childlike quality of the language. The sentences that all sit on their own lines and the comfortable way she uses 'greeny' rather than over dressing the poem.

Helen Lowe said...

I think this is my favourite poem in the moonmen collection--& I love the echoes to Charlotte Grimshaw's short story (Opportunity?), the one that won the Katherine Mansfield, about the house being shifted at night.