Aidan Coleman

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Aidan Coleman was born in Aberystwyth, Wales, in 1976 and lived in Nottingham for a number of years. His family emigrated to Australia in the mid-eighties, living first in Wollongong, and later in the Barossa Valley. He studied arts at the University of Adelaide and currently lives in Gawler, with his wife Leana, where he teaches English and History. His poetry has been published in numerous journals, anthologies and newspapers, in Australia and overseas, and in 2002 a chap-book, The Main North Road was published. His first full-length collection Avenues & Runways was published by Brandl & Schlesinger in 2005.

I Like Airports

for the big screen TV
of weather,
the city’s hazy histogram
and the unsteady horizon.

But also nights:
a missing suburb
in sugary dark,
its capital
a small-scale city
of radar and eyes.

I like the way planes dwindle
to tail-lights, shed
their angry skins.

And every avenue ends in take-off:
every poem begins
on the ground
then is shot heavenward.

From Another Universe: Friendly Street No. 28

Fever

When you wake
your body

remembers
that shattered vase

your head
whose memory

is pushing off
into a cold sea

burning –
slipping

in an oily kindling –
those

ice-hot splinters
stars.

But now
the quiet day

blank sky
wind

well-traveled
young

annoying.
You come

back
to the poem

but it hurts
like maths

and you’d give it away
to be well.

From Friendly Street No. 24

New Mornings

To love like some glorious panic
in the shy light of dawn.

To beat the alarm.

To be so fierce, we could give two fingers
to anything.

It’s seven – late – light gasping at the curtains.

From Flow: Friendly Street No. 25