Stuart Barnes > Quotes

“Through the small windows, through the plane tree
branches, new lime-green leaves, it's no longer
winter. He stands naked for a moment,

eager for company, invites it, knows.
His heart is thumping hard inside his chest.
He leans his head onto the edge, eyes closed.”
― Stuart Barnes, Glasshouses

“From his ebony eyrie
the moon's a fresh apothecary,
round as the white lotus' root.”
― Stuart Barnes, Glasshouses

“The little thickets were the only place to get to.
The absence of the sea

Set a white, extravagant quiet.
I awaited the great beauty of the gorse—”
― Stuart Barnes, Glasshouses

“trumpeting
through blood &
bone the glasshouse's
yellow stars”
― Stuart Barnes, Glasshouses

“Your coal mind and mechanical eyes
turned the sea of light downside up, World.”
― Stuart Barnes, Like to the Lark

“Rape declared nuclear war, but I am not rape
-torn or -weary, a rape trophy or poet.”
― Stuart Barnes, Like to the Lark

“Happiness is black cockatoos squabbling in the eucalypts.”
― Stuart Barnes, Like to the Lark

“Red-
tailed Bedouins
of Poetry, black
cockatoos embroider
the sun into us,
seam-rip it asunder.”
― Stuart Barnes, Glasshouses