Steve Brock lives in Adelaide with his wife and daughter. He has lived and travelled widely in South America, and has published his poetry and translations from the Spanish in a range of journals. In 2003 Steve completed a PhD in Australian literature at Flinders University. His first collection of poems, The Night is a Dying Dog, appeared in Friendly Street New Poets 12 in 2007. Steve recently translated an anthology of Mapuche poets from Chile with Juan Garrido-Salgado.
the night is a dying dog
the dawn came upon us
unexpectedly
the night, a dying dog
lay across the gutter
its black lips
offering a last quivering kiss
to the fading stars
from the taxi window
we watched the shopkeepers
take it by the tail
and drag its corpse
through the city streets
From New Poets 12
juan’s bilingual bicycle
see it waiting patiently
on the steps of the state library
or protesting against pinochet
on the steps of parliament house
watch it dodge the main-stream traffic
all the way back to mile end
(handle bars raised like inverted commas)
if you are lucky
juan will invite you in
to eat empanadas
a black olive to be discovered
in each one
like the kernel of some rich poem
play chess late into the evening
converse with lorca
and neruda
in the lounge
open the doors and windows
of rooms revealed only in verse
and as he bids you farewell
on the front porch
contemplate his bilingual bicycle
leaning against the wall
the streets of adelaide translated
its spokes gleaming in the moonlight;
motion recollected in tranquillity
From New Poets 12
mostly water
elbows resting
on the front gate
i lean into
my noisy street
and train the binoculars
on the craters
visible just before
the 3/4 moon folds over
into darkness
some people are like this
exposed
without any atmosphere
to absorb
incoming objects
and those other impacts
disguised so well
we live in the zone
oblivious
to cause
but not always effect
otherwise
we are mostly water
From New Poets 12