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