Home > Author > Catherine Bateson
1 " Mum's mobile was the most immoblie cell phone in the world. It often lived on the top of the bookshelf closest to the front door. It was there so she'd see it before she left the house. The trouble was, Mum was alwayd leaving the house in a mad rush and the mobile stayed put. "
― Catherine Bateson , Millie and the Night Heron
2 " I remember the morning you walked back from the sea,dirty trousers rolled, your feet pale as prisoners,poems and broken shells falling through a hole in your pocket.You stood for a moment and smiled at the gullsand it was as though the sun, the water, the day had conspired to put you back together again.I hope you walked into death as you did into that morningchasing a poemyour step a little jauntyand your eyes full of the sea. "
― Catherine Bateson ,
3 " I want words which are scalpel sharpand shiny; poems keen enough to gut a fishand clean it. Poems labelled not for domestic use.The kind you keep on the top shelf away from the thieving hands of children.And I want to feed you warmly scented words;small loaves of wholemeal breadso you will remember the kitchens where you stoodin a slant of sunlight and listened to the radiocrooning somewhere above.I want to rock you with my mothering songs.I want my poems to fly out of your pockets---a troupe of magician's doves, somersaulting in the air, a perfect explosion of soft fireworks.I want them to follow you;like Valentine's cards or bad chequesconstantly re-addressed.These poems are birthed from some deep place.They wear that bruised look of the newborn.They will find their way into your sleepwith their naked hands and greed.They will come to you like a lover, saying:let me bring you insideinto the circlemade by my tongues of fire. "
4 " You feel so overwritten you're like a palimpsest;the original girl almost lost under years of scrawlingyet you nurture an illusion of beauty,brush your hair in the darkso when your reflection finally catches up with youyou stare straight past that older womanto the skateboard dancers behindhitting the frosty air with exuberant grace.On the loose in the morning city reminds you of lovers,catching the tram to work in last night's laddered stockings,the sharp-edged day already intruding like a hangover. It's not the sex you miss or the hotel morningsbut the reassurance of strangers and that wild card.Now everything's played out the same,no surprises in the pack except those dealt by disaster.Early this morning such certainty dragged on your thoughtsthey stumbled flat-footed through the breakfast silenceand you knew neither the applesorchard fresh, crisp as snownor the blue bowl they posed in were enough.People disappear all the time,emerge like summer snakes newly marked and glitteringinto a clean desert.Without the photo of a child you carry in your walletwhich reminds you who you have becomeyou'd catch a train to Musk or Mollymook,some place your fingers have strayed over.Even thinking that, you turn your face into the wind,keep walking that same old line in your new flamboyant shoes.Oh my treacherous heart. "
