Kate Lilley

Rating: 4.33
Rating: 4.33

Kate Lilley Poems

Porter Wagoner in a nudie suit
flashes the crowd an embroidered Hi!
He kids around trading jokes with the hee-haw,
then the lights go down and the teardrops start.
...

As the plot rocks back and forth on a pinhead
count to fifteen very slowly.
By that time you should be alone again
contemplating your evening.
...

quarto doesn’t last a weak crush lingers
like a festival of moss
the clerk of all passports takes me round
for a drink at a popular nightspot
...

Resentment starts to go backwards in search of a new hermeneutic
the appointment slipped your mind that's no excuse

I'm the kind who'll sit in the waiting room and watch the second hand
for as long as it takes it's something I'm proud of I won't
...

5.

After the dance we cross the oval in pairs
to the steep bank behind the softball field.
The hall is bolted shut, teachers pass in the dark,
smoking and talking on the way to their cars.
It's cold on the ground, my buttons loose to the sky.
...

Many words are falling you don't care
wasted lips forget and have some fun

each time you leave I make a vow
this will draw the line

thanks for something I can't win
heartache I can't use

I hate to admit the talk is true
my past is getting warmer while yours is growing old

someone new is crying in the most familiar way
I didn't do one wrong thing to you
...

quarto doesn't last a weak crush lingers
like a festival of moss
the clerk of all passports takes me round
for a drink at a popular nightspot

I hear the voice-over from the start of Dirty Dancing
playing in the lounge and feel sedate
sedated
like one more krispy creme would set me up for life

if it's not one thing it's another,
if it's not your fault it's irrelevant
either way keep it sober
and sweet like some perpetual valentine

I read your letter o'er again
it says what it doesn't say
for so long I've wanted you to be my pretty queen
...

Resentment starts to go backwards in search of a new hermeneutic
the appointment slipped your mind that's no excuse

I'm the kind who'll sit in the waiting room and watch the second hand
for as long as it takes it's something I'm proud of I won't

leave just because it's dark outside and the street is slick with tears
it's impolite to tell you what you know already

and antisocial not to — I'll bounce back in a year or two
sorry there's no one on your side you'll have to take mine

no need to write that down I'll feel like a brute and it'll only fester
then we'll both be on our knees mewling and puking

it's the voice of a thousand gardens making me cranky and out of sorts
quit your dimwit hankering and hollering I don't want to hear it
...

Porter Wagoner in a nudie suit
flashes the crowd an embroidered Hi!
He kids around trading jokes with the hee-haw,
then the lights go down and the teardrops start.
The Queens of the Nashville Sound gear up,
nobody's laughing or chewing now.
Skeeter, frail in a sky blue sheath,
is out of rehab and born again.
Her voice has gone the way of her orchestra.
It's almost fifty years since the crash
that killed off the harmonising Davis Sisters,
the sleep-overs and double-dates,
square dancing after the Big Barn Frolic.
So long my honey, goodbye my dear,
gonna get along without you now.
When she holds the microphone to her lips
and whispers mine is a lonely life
it sounds like a radio tuned to the end of the world.
...

As the plot rocks back and forth on a pinhead
count to fifteen very slowly.
By that time you should be alone again
contemplating your evening.


You could go for a ride and take a fall,
break your back and welcome an addiction —
or ask Miguel to serve drinks by the pool,
that hunky contractor might stop by.


Finally there's a knock at the door,
a lady policeman shows her badge.
She's asking if these unusual cufflinks
belong to the father of your children.
...

Many words are falling you don’t care
wasted lips forget and have some fun

each time you leave I make a vow
...

12.

After the dance we cross the oval in pairs
to the steep bank behind the softball field.
The hall is bolted shut, teachers pass in the dark,
smoking and talking on the way to their cars.
...

Kate Lilley Biography

Kate Lilley (born 1960) is a contemporary Australian poet and academic. Kate Lilley was born in Perth, Western Australia and moved to Sydney with her family. She is the daughter of writers Dorothy Hewett and Merv Lilley. After studying at the University of Sydney she completed a PhD at University of London on masculine elegy. Career Lilley published her first volume of poems, Versary, in 2002. She is Associate Professor of English at The University of Sydney. Lilley edited The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish (Penguin Classics, 1994). In 2010 she edited Dorothy Hewett's Selected Poems for UWA Press. Lilley has a "featured cameo" as Vera Newby in the film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.)

The Best Poem Of Kate Lilley

Live At The Opry

Porter Wagoner in a nudie suit
flashes the crowd an embroidered Hi!
He kids around trading jokes with the hee-haw,
then the lights go down and the teardrops start.
The Queens of the Nashville Sound gear up,
nobody’s laughing or chewing now.
Skeeter, frail in a sky blue sheath,
is out of rehab and born again.
Her voice has gone the way of her orchestra.
It’s almost fifty years since the crash
that killed off the harmonising Davis Sisters,
the sleep-overs and double-dates,
square dancing after the Big Barn Frolic.
So long my honey, goodbye my dear,
gonna get along without you now.
When she holds the microphone to her lips
and whispers mine is a lonely life
it sounds like a radio tuned to the end of the world.

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