Stefanie Lash

Elliott Smith Is Dead

Awake in the deep bowl of the night
I flicked listless channels
hoping for something about old Russia
or nebulae and black holes

I found a news item
dead at thirty-four
they kept saying ‘suicide’
while a black ribbon running
across the screen repeated
‘Elliott Smith is Dead’
as though he were the Queen

there were grainy clips
of his punk rock days
then solo, in a white suit
losing the Oscar to Celine Dion

and the most lovely:
a dark, quiet interview
in a late night laundromat
rings of light reflecting in his eyes
and the black wood of his guitar

it was a warm night
I walked in the garden
inside the television sputtered
like a roman candle and outside
the bald blue moon lit up the lawn
a dark ice field

the white suit, the black guitar
I thought of the suicide scene
in The Royal Tenenbaums
hair on the floor mixing with blood

and wondered if we really walk
on a carpet of flowers with Krishna
on that far off day
like in the Hindu pamphlet
in the dentist’s waiting room

before I woke up I dreamed
I sat with him at the glass bar of Nighthawks

I kept waiting for him to speak to me
and I kept waiting for morning
to come to the painting
but the long seedy night did not end

 
Poetry
Hinemoana Baker (audio)
James Brown (audio)
Rachel Bush (audio)
Jen Crawford
Emily Dobson
Megan Johnson
Andrew Johnston
Stefanie Lash  
Anna Livesey
Stephanie de Montalk
Marty Smith
Elizabeth Smither
Cath Vidler
Sue Wootton
Sonja Yelich

Hosted by the New Zealand
Electronic Text Centre