Reverberations

by Gina Mercer

 musos are making
       divine dissonance
 in the resonance of the museum
  
 immersed
      in this massing mess
                          i float
  
 one level up from the musos
 wedged between an Egyptian sarcophagus
 and a casually well-muscled security guard
  
 study their mutually inscrutable faces
        one painted and ancient
              one patient and wired
  
 what do they make of this              surreal
  
 whole performance
 music, spaces, images, faces ‒
  
             refloats
  
                    rewires
  
                          my brain 

This poem unfurled after an avant-garde music performance in the Museum of Old & New Art, Tasmania, August 2014. Part of a weekend event, Synaesthesia +, staged at the remarkable MONA.

Biography
Gina Mercer revels in being a writer, teacher, and editor. She was Editor of Island Magazine from 2006-2010. She‘s taught creative writing in universities and communities for over 30 years. She’s published ten books (poetry, fiction, and academic nonfiction). Her two latest books are: The Sky Falls Down: An Anthology of Loss (co-edited with Terry Whitebeach, Ginninderra Press, 2019) and The Dictionary of Water (Wild Element Press, 2019, wild.element@iinet.net.au).