From unpublished notebooks, L.A. & Sydney, 2003-2005 Poetry – by C.C. O’Hanlon
i lie.
for me, brittle artifice
works better than truth.
like stolen money,
marked, easy to trace,
i stash reality in a hurry
and forget about it
until the heat is off.
From unpublished notebooks, L.A. & Sydney, 2003-2005 Poetry – by C.C.O’Hanlon
this fugitive gene: I live on the run.
unnamed crimes abrade
the edge of consciousness.
*
tell me all of it she asked me, once –
as if confession, a mere litany of sin,
might lift the stain of memory.
From unpublished notebooks, L.A. & Sydney, 2003-2005 Poetry – by C.C. O’Hanlon
bloodied, on the ropes,
how bad do i have to hurt
to get this fight stopped?

***C.C. O’Hanlon is a traveller, diarist and lebenskünstler (‘life artist’), who was best described by Wild Culture Journal as a ‘wild polymath’. Over the past 30 years, he has published numerous essays, short stories and poems. His meditative essay, Northing, first published in the Australian Griffith Review, was included in Best Australian Essays 2005, edited by Robert Dessaix. His very first short story was also included in Best Australian Stories 2004, edited by Frank Moorhouse. The poem [submitted to Sick Lit] is the first piece he has published in over a decade. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany. Find him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ccohanlon ***