CAMPING IN THE EXISTENTIAL FORREST L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symbols Qui l’observent avecs des regards familiers —Baudelaire, ‘Correspondances’ I The bourgeois cuts the forest to an inch of its life. “How come you don’t fall?” II Empty bottle. Think of Baudelaire camped in his symbolic forest. III Someone coming in gumboots. Tramp tramp tramp. Beat of own tell-tale heart. IV The forest watches. Watch out! Wrong way! So the forest has its way. V Forest’s colour is fish. It smells of dancing. Tastes pink. Sounds hand. Feels shoe. VI Through the forest: monk on donkey, hitch-hiker“Murray Edmond”
Author: Murray Edmond
is the author of 14 poetry books. Recent publications include Then It Was Now Again: Selected Critical Writing (Atuanui Press, 2014), & Shaggy Magpie Songs (AUP, 2015). He edits Ka Mate Ka Ora: A New Zealand Journal of Poetry and Poetics, & is a dramaturge for Indian Ink Theatre Company. Murray lives in Glen Eden, Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand.