Bio
Christopher Palmer is a poet and visual artist based in Canberra, Australia. He's been published in eleven countries, including in the Australian Poetry Journal, Blue Collar Review, The Brasilia Review, The Galway Review, Shot Glass Journal, and Takahē, among others. His first collection, Afterlives, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2016.
Christopher Palmer
The book that's never read
It stands, as still as prey, all spine and potential energy.
Lost in the rankless hoards, it's ignored
while its neighbours are pulled and returned
its story dormant. Filled with the laws of attraction
its pages are covered with lengths of fine silk
each paragraph an inheritance for the next;
a floral map of the cosmos. Bound, and illuminated
it waits for a regular passer-by; the sensitive
who lets words fall on the tongue and fill the mouth
looking for infinite vision and understanding.
Virgins searching for 'the one'.
And if that person could hear its whisper
among all the shouting from the shelves, releasing it
with a small gesture of hands, the soft touch of eyes
they would be lovers.