Graham Nunn
I am not a voice
Crying in the wilderness
I have looked into
The rooms of the city and seen
Man beat his woman
Then kiss her
The white rose go black
In the sun
I tremble
Like a flame
Tomorrow my eyes
Will have burnt skin on them
For I am without refuge
The city flows around me like a dirty river
I am afraid
Do not leave me in these shadows
There are buildings falling
No stars shine in the sky
There is something horrible
Something to turn us mad
They say the world is ending
They are already an hour late
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From the ivory tower he created floats the sound of the palace girls,
their newly painted faces nesting in the windows like small moons.
In the shadow of my lantern I watch the smallest one snap at a moth
with her diamond hairpin, dusty wings frantic against her lonely stare.
If the east wind had not come to my attention,
I would never have heard the body perish.
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on the back of a lonely swan
the recluse returned to her village
her jadelike face staring at the black ruins
that dimmed the rising sun
to signify her heart she took out the parchment
and recited the wisdom of her journey
one day we will take to the sky and join arms
like great one-winged birds
the sky was silent
in the presence of this dying audience
she fell to her knees
the swan just a pearl on the horizon
Graham's poetry also appears in Synaptic Graffiti
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Liam Guilar
My friend is
cutting onions
in his high rise by the sea
Jungs archetypes
meet Celtic myth
I listen, counting waves
hear all my yesterdays
come knocking at the door
Sandra slicing onions
In the hostel at Golant
Mick washing dishes
sings "The Foggy Dew".
Behind her evening settles
in the valley of the Fowey1
Down in those trees
some centuries ago
Tristan waited for Iseult.
Go back along the road
you come to Castle Dore
where cows now plunder
King Mark's castle.
This one's confused.
First pineapple
In post war London
Tins. Hawain salad
onions in the salmon
Well take the boat
to Greenwich,
visit Nelson's trousers.
London bridge
Three washings of the tide
A dead man's clothes
His voice:
It was a day full of sorrow for Ulster
When Connor Macnessa set forth
Wearing a dead sailor's trousers
To meet with another man's wife?
My parents
In their garden
Peeling onions.
He said:
And now the jars
A little diggy pog
some vinegar
You put the lid on this
1 It's pronounced "Foy".
Liam's poetry also appears in the Primary Condition Guest Pages
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Rowan Donovan
I saw Yukio Mishima tonight
dressed in matching white
blazer slacks waistcoat and tie
a panama too
on a table with leftover coffee for one
with all evening to spare
Chic Asian chic.
He looked as cool as the moon
behind a smoker's haze
of Autumn clouds stretched thin.
He had that far away look
in brown almond shaped eyes
interested disinterest
staring into the distance
last seen when photographed
bare naked dressed again in white
white loin cloth
wound tight around lean limbs
and pale skin that would provide
the perfect backdrop to blood
red as the circle of sun
seen on flags left to the imagination
when viewed in black and white newsreels
from sixty years ago.
I saw Yukio Mishima tonight
sitting alone outside a street cafÈ
reflecting on his next line
his last line
a self penned
self inflicted obituary
drawn straight and true
from left to right
slicing surgically through
skin fat muscle and tissue
with breath taking sharpness
that incised his scream
before spilling his guts
and losing his head
to a trusted friends deft expertise
with quality made in Japan cutlery.
I saw Yukio Mishima tonight prove
the sword is far mightier
than the pen
and when ghosts reveal themselves at night
they do indeed
dress elegantly in white.
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Sitting here
in palpable silence.
The last act between
consenting adults
as close as the width
of a dining room table
yet miles apart.
Now that the deed is done
drawn up
signed and sealed.
Now we can tear up
the last shreds of pretense.
I have nothing more to say.
Caught between gaps
that fill the silence.
Who fucked the pregnant pause?
Rowan's poetry also appears in Synaptic Graffiti.
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Liz Hall-Downs
The girl with hair like Raven's feathers
slips her slim body into day-glo rooms,
dances with the chemical rush
smiles on squares of blotter.
The girl, whose face is rain clouds before storm,
sings flatly of an angry father's
alcoholic beatings. Her words are sharp,
as the knife's edge she balances so proudly.
The girl with eyes that spin mirror balls
calls me to speak grey bitterness.
The kaleidoscope of her suffering
sees her starve herself with juice fasts.
The girl with the knack for poems and songs
slaps the smiles of those who look lovingly
paints her nails and eyelids black,
walks away, alone, never looks back.
It's lonely, living on the edge;
`edgy' is how she describes it.
She dreams darkly on mouldy mattresses
while friends pray her return to sanity.
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My marigolds are powering
in the compost from the past
which produces all I'd thought I lost
rogue tomatos, the pride of last summer's
spicy salsa, and nasturtiums enough
to fill my discarded boots with orange abandon.
(The boots, black thirteen-hole Doc Martens
have been with me to hell and back
and through some heavenly fields of scams, man,
and things not worth recounting, so desperate
were their tarry endings…
Still, I could not throw them out, eleven
years of love and blood and nights of
bands and booze and drugs, cheap wine
spilled on cracked leather.) Now I have
new boots from Ballarat they hug
my heels and are just right
for traipsing this bright sandy soil,
and are immune to chemicals and oil…
And in those Docs I plant nasturtiums
to add a little of that soaked-in sweat
(from moshpit floor to aeroplane door)
to the spicy orange flowers that will adorn
the salads of next summer The marigolds
They're for later.
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She's tattooed his name
on her shoulder blade.
He's taking the train
to work each day.
He's shaved his head
to be more cool.
They look into each other's eyes,
lovesick fools.
Who can tell you
at nineteen
that all our live's movies
change scene,
but that names on tattoos
aren't forever,
just remind you of what was, once?
Acid Child, Yellow Boys and Tattoed were previously published in The Girl with Green Hair.Liz's poetry also appears in the Primary Condition Guest Pages.
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Liz Hall (Downs)
the words she offers float like appletree blossoms in spring
compost into earth and whisper
or hit cold concrete, roll under tyres.
Schoolteachers made of her an example
the one who always did the homework
perfectly. she grew fat, shunned –
In the staffroom they talked about brilliance.
once an old man tested her sincerity
on the basis of words produced in blue siren flashing paranoias/of darkness/rapists/fear of dependency
and lectured her about brilliance.
sometimes the wrack of pain frightens the dawn
crippled, cut down
relentlessly as poor rainforest
she dreams of astral travelling
quitting the shock-wave bones
knifing out the blood and leaving it
seeping testimony to the lonely dripping of taps
and ticking clocks
while men want, want to join forces
for the minimal time it takes
to sap what energy is left
- the stewed concoction of alliances
and tainted wisdom
knowing it's profitable
to talk of brilliance.
she talks of leaving the city
hobbling down unknown roads
where the faces are familiar strangers
following the sun
chasing just one maddening touch
of its brilliance.
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I'm rubbing you out Steven
you, who chalked your name
in the bluestone walls
of this cave behind the falls.
I've waited all year
for the water to subside
for the falls to stop menacing
instant death, waited all year
to clamber over rocks
to sit here, with ian playing
the pennywhistle to the mysterious waving
of ferns in the breeze.
I'm rubbing you out Steven
because I came here to imagine myself
the last human, and the first.
because these tesselated rocks
have spent centuries becoming
this perfect art, because
these tiny green mosses
have struggled whole lifetimes
to survive here. because
these waters have healed me
and deserve more reverence.
i spit on my fingers steven
and summarily rub you out
because, to be totally honest,
I don't give a damn
that you were here.
stevenson falls
otway ranges
january 1986
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(sources: Daily Mirror, Sydney 3.1.86 PIX 20.10.62)
page three, daily mirror:
“...here is another of the bay's blonde beauties
– a part-time model but a full-time beach attraction”
here is a woman in a string bikini.
here is a woman smiling for the cameras.
here is a woman looking seductive and happy
for today a whole city will survey her body.
"YOUNG MOTHER'S THROAT SLASHED
victim of frenzied attack"
found by her husband in a pool of blood
stabbed repeatedly though already dead
another day
another pinup
another victim
it was no different in 1962
PIX magazine's model sat in a begging pose,
a well trained dog on either side -
the cover story? Teach your dog to obey
today see connie francis on page seven
admitted yesterday to a psychiatric ward.
she's famous, starred in "Where the boys are".
now she's chronic with manic depression
after the rape
in her hotel room
eleven years ago.
another day
another pinup
another victim
and on the video station in the prison
the women are passive, succumbing
in their raped and buggered role.
night after night there's bored men watching
learning well, learning fast,
how it should be, how to be
"masculine".
i learned an attitude once
from some psych division nutcase:
that sex should be taken
that women should be beaten
that killing yr victim is okay
because we only exist
for one thing
anyway
he raped his grandmother
carved her up with a chainsaw.
now he switches on his t.v.
relives the glory of it all.
the authorities say it
"gives the boys an outlet".
another day
another pinup
another porn movie
another rape
another murder –
who will be the next victim?
3.1.86
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(to a dangerous minority, in their own words)
now listen 'ere, ya young spunk,
and I'll tell ya wot's rong wif yer pomes...
have you met X?
she's going to be a great writer
– when she matures
stick with me
and you're gonna be famous, darlin
Well I'm sure we'll be able to publish your work
in the near future. you wouldn't consider
staying the night?
Well I think the way women write about men is offensive!
you're just a woman with balls
that's all you are, ya fuckin' bitch
i loved your poem about the waterfall
but i'm not too sure about all the rest...
(i mean, all that feminist crap – didn't you know
that went out of vogue in the sixties?)
(you know, I discovered her...)
when you get to be my age sweetheart
you'll understand what i'm saying about your poems
it's obviously quite beyond you at the moment...
i wasn't groping you! just showing appreciation!
no upstart young WOMAN's gonna tell ME anything about poetry!
well
it's a jungle out there
but i don't want no tigers
in my own back yard.
on brilliance, to steven whoever the hell he is, another poem to aid the revolution and so you think you're a poet, girlie
were all published in the 1986 volume by Liz Hall.
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Kathleen Romana
We're soul creatures
moving in and out
of time...
to the synchronization
of days and nights,
seasons, years...
wingless flights.
We're silver shining
earth and sky,
dancing on sandy beaches.
We're living dreams
inside our separate skins,
threads of life woven and wound...
laughter echoing.
We're memories and
mystical future telling.
We are...
a dream;
that's slow awakening
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Strong as the old
chestnut tree,
that I sat beneath
as a child.
Soft as salty sea
spray blown from;
every land, to here.
Deeper than the furthest
reaches: where stars
are being born.
Higher than the
loftiest spirit to ever
grace this life...
Nearer in great separation
than my own flesh
that covers me...
All the clocks
have stopped at once:
This was meant
to be.
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I will create a world
of peace and light:
a gentle world;
woven with shimmering,
silken thread.
Depressions - wars that involve
entire known civilizations...
follow a template
of peaks; that jut out to ledge,
then freefall.
And society inevitably re-births
Hannibal,
with his immortal flaws.
The repetition is predictable;
it's the fatness of the table
that calls to the wolf;
and insatiable hunger
that powers his lean form.
Such as it is: the world
can go on spinning;
and it will....
while I create worlds
and worlds,
and worlds.
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Rin Healy
to lop the lobe
i^ll chew u^rrr ear off
gouging deVINE creVICES
boxed and prepackAGED yEARS
write to your door
hinged
vacant
ajars
cREAKing bottles
t[h]inkling in the breeze
of the
moonbulb
as its petals plummet onto the waves
splishslPASH I was taking a bath
SKINny dipping fat DRIPping
the sIN and drONE syndROAM
LONElieNESTS cum with sADDNESSts
cradling ladel cravings
of stark ravings
on writhing desks
pounding out
wizzDUM&
HUManOUR&MORE&MOREhumour
peekKING@the cronic ironic
moronic
postharmonic tonic
GARGLE&SPIT
turning ova&ova
juICEs dRIPPING & skin crackCLING
the protokillogram>
the gram that kills>>>cut two it
keel over and die a gram
exsorsize u^rrr rights
kill the gram to produce the tone
32beats be4 making the step up
on the spot
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theInstigator>>theInstant gate WeWalkThrough
2get2the conversation>>con verse sensation
SheNestlesHer a/restedHead againstHisBrikWall
I'm trying to say something
theOpportunity2jump mayScareOpportunityAway
alien meth/rods of hunting
sygh_snapped neurons
taming >> capturing
tikd tikd tikd >> offt offt offt
ohItsNotDone ohItsUntold
patience will not hurt you
patience is a virtue
patience will subvert you
I love 2 dream 4 it is a lie
2 dream is 2 lie
lying in weight >> capturing truth:
STAR STUNTED STREETS
LOBOTOMISED IN THE DEMISE
ADORN THE DAY TO BEHAVIOURS
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manure misfits
the scribe of the scribblers
the recluse of the close-up
the credible of the conduras
the multitude of the marginalized
the academic epidemic
endless entities
entitled to enlightenment
the devolving of the end-of-cyncrisies
the cryses of the edeocyncratic sporadic
force feed and the fed up
the gorge and the gorgeous
the gain and the grain of salt
classy eyed or blurred
teardrunkards 4 both
beyond the looking glass
shattered or shackled
fractural franchise
the precise resized
yeah yeah its all right/youll fit in
loop the mundane
knit the knot, fluffy furcoats
future coverings
soft down for when your hard up
retype the unwritten
rawtious…regulator
alorgorie alorgator
volotile volunuptual agreements
of the violent stained volunteer
vitality versus virtue
blue caress and candlelit cowardice
of the fluro fanatics
powerpleagic powder bleaching
pondering the empowerment
of plundering ringtones of fire
pick up pick up, not just sticks
fetching this world far fetched
in fetishes fetched from far world foetuses
rekindle the kindred
realight and reafirm
the hidden agendas
so sewn in step
while unknowing steps await, ladders and stocklistlessings
for those travelling at the speed of enlightenment
elasticized by the romanticised
bouncing beyond the great divide
the flounce
the divinity of the infinite bounce
beyond strung strings plucked
and turned keys played
the pied pipes stand still drained.
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Kim Downs
Up against the wall Matell Doll and spread em!
We're gonna make you pay big-time, Momma.
You and your one billion sisters.
Purveyor of sordid stereotypes!
Exploiter of little girls' expectations!
We can't take you with a grain of salt, Barbie,
we need the whole shaker.
Yeah, yeah, we know your history:
astronaut; presidential candidate; UNICEF ambassador; rock star!
But deep down, Barbie,
You're just a vacuous clothes horse,
With your big Barbie-boobs
And nothin between your legs.
False advertisement Barbie!
You know, we never even saw you smile until 1977.
I've got a few questions.
Exactly what do you expect little girls to believe about you?
That they'll all grow up to have 36-18-33 figures?
That perfect skin and eyes that never close,
Will render them successful and all-seeing?
That designer clothes and flash sports cars bring enlightenment?
That Ken is waiting for them when they're all grown up?
And anyway, what would they do with him if they found him,
with his blow-wave haircut and that bulbous ill-defined lump
that passes for a groin?
And, given your respective anatomies,
exactly what have you and Ken been up to all these years,
sharing waterbeds and steamy nights at the drive-in?
I heard you dumped Ken for GI-Joe `cause his lump is bigger.
And what about those rumours of you and Gumby,
in a cheap motel?
Hollow-headed whore!
Youre so transparent, Barbie.
You think you've passed yourself off
as some kind of buccaneering visionary
but all I see are pathetic attempts to disguise your
corporate invasion of foreign countries with
Indian Barbies, Italian Barbies, Eskimo Barbies,
Bloody…Barbies from Botswana!
Bogus bimbo! Brainless plastic bombshell!!
You can change your stripes, Barbie,
but you'll always be a dumb dolly hung up on fashion
and fast cars.
And now that you're thirty-five
will you be endorsing wrinkle creams and lipo-suction?
Or will your market strategy embrace
new and ever bolder personas to titillate young teen-age girls?
Whats next?
Barbie the Bi-sexual? S & M Barbie?
Bangkok Barbie who does odd things
with razor blades and screw drivers?
Not this time, Momma!
Your Barbie bacchanal is over, babe.
Didn't you know theres a price on your head?
That's right…a dollar a head.
Even as we speak, legions of little girls
Are ripping the heads off battalions of Barbies
and posting them to us for the rebate.
Our ethnic cleansing of cliched icons has begun
and you're numero uno on the list, Barbie,
so kiss your ass goodbye, bitch and good riddance!
Off with her head, boys
Kill Barbie!
Kill Barbie!!
Kill Barbie!!!
Kill Barbie was previously published in Fit of Passion
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Janice M. Bostok
For my Son, Tony…
in the distant classroom
the panic crying of my young son
is sharpening my senses
to the modern decor
the perfectly designed playground
the pseudo-bushland setting
from a stringy gum
its leaves showing white
in the rising westerly wind
a crow suddenly hops
onto the slanting roof
head to one side
he peers at his reflection
in the glass of the skylight
in the resulting silence
left by his raucous call
my son's screaming closes in
Day 1 at the Autistic Centre was previously published in Scope, the journal of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, Queensland. Read More of Janice's poems for Tony in the Primary Condition Guest Pages.
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Thom (The World Poet) Woodruff
we understood each other-
empathised blood to blood,eye to eye
listened deeply to an earth beneath us
river blood ran through our common veins
moon could be called down and upon to guide
when divination and auguries failed...
Senses were wilder then-a sniff of flesh
could tell of histories/ tracks through wilderness
traces footprints even upon rocks
when one went, others could follow
This was the way we hunted then..
Even now, there is a twitch
when electrical energies switch
into primal mode. We are olden, golden
waxed and flow. We are what we remember most-
of fire, following the hunt-a track of Light
that spills upon us still , waiting until
our time comes to range sans sounds-in a silence
known to those who came before us
leaving( like leaves in autumn)-these gifts
inside us. Like the gift of light
still radiating each to each. Ancient. Silent.
before words were used-to divide us.
THOM NOVEMBER 5,2003
Eye listen deeply to what they say
Eye tend to believe most of it
A certain felicity of expression aids them
A piquancy of images demonstrates
They are largely unconvinced by headlines
at a distance from the official versiona
They see newspapers as diversions
Television as mass hypnotism
And movies as weapons of mass distraction
Eye number among them-merge within their company
watch as skyscrapers of past fall like ratings
read their diaries in the words of poems
hear them nightly at opened mikes
as they recite the litanies of their redemptions
their tangled illuminations
their shopping lists of miracles
Sometimes, eye believe them(believe in them)
eye take my pen of eye and hand of type
and compute a track for future footprints
This is as far as my faith will take
Didymus asks only for no faith
just the fact of blood and opened wounds
to show we are all so truly human
as to rely upon each other
to share our deepest , darkest blood truths
and that is why there are some people
eye trust with what is left of my life.
THOM NOVEMBER 19,2003
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Human heart regains compassion!
Streets cleared of million homeless!
Imagination restored to cerebral wilderness!
All those spectral auras holding placards
were emissaries from a future we dared not envision
First we had to endure prosaic prose patterning
Then came the poetry-after the invasion
we could make our own up and share it with others
Venues opened and closed with amazing frequency
Brief as a passage of Light
Haiku telegrams from supraconsciousness
Rhyming limericks for the bawdy bards
Sonnets for lovestruck swains
Gazeils for philosophers of beauty
Free verse for hot and heaving evolutionary
adolescents
All prophecies were poesie-all languages
heard and recognised-even ancient tongues
dusted off from rusted lips
whose songs were frozen by Republicanism
Now they could speak-they gathered,laughed,shared
made their world in the stamp of dreams
declared cultural Independence
and passed the flame of laughter
on to every one who made it
to the last line of this endless saga!
THOM NOVEMBER 22,2003
by Thom (The World Poet) Woodruff
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Matt Cooper
She takes the knife in both hands,
Focuses her strength, pushes it in,
Gives it a twist just under the skin.
Summons not just the force of her being,
But all the anguish of the past year.
Her bliss, sorrows, rage, joys and fears.
Experiences entwine and grip the blade.
The pain of unrequited love scorned,
Identity eroded and innocence mourned.
She centres her resolve and gives the knife a plunge
Thick, dark, sticky ooze bleeds.
She sighs at her frustrated rage released.
And she kills the cake.
Matt Cooper
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Peter Macrow
How did we let you get so sick?
and weren't we clever turning everything
round in our heads until we came up smelling like roses
while 30 kilos fell away like leaves
and the ground grew soft and wet
your knees sank into.
You needed someone to live with you
after the video was stolen
and you saw faces at the window and heard chalk
scratching at the walls and cars coming to take you away.
But I have to work. But I can't leave my son.
But it's not fair on my wife. But I ring every day
and the doctor gave you tablets you had to take
at midnight for a disease you didn't have
and you couldn't even cry.
How did you get so sick, Momma?
How did we get so sick?
and every day I think why today is the day
Mum will die. We can't give a time, the nurse said
and another around the corner: another 24 hours
and another and another. She was born on Sunday,
perhaps today her pain will end and on Thursday
I hear a crow in St David's Park and feel sick
and think Mum has died. You're being maudlin, Sue says,
melodramatic and Friday and Saturday my brother comes.
I tell her it's the end of June, Winter will soon be over
and Uncle Noel came. She raises an eyebrow above
morphine-closed eyes. I hope it's a nice dream, Momma.
Novalis said another age would come where we awake
from lofty dreams and find our dreams again as we've lost
nothing but sleep. Lofty? With so much pain?
I hope it's a nice dream, Momma.
top
Bridh Hancock
(from 14 Sonnets)
In another book, another writer*
gave as subject worthy for a sonnet
‘Grilled Tomatoes’—and surely all we call
these ‘golden apples of the summer sun’—
and I must quickly add grilled onions—Yes ! —
mashed spud and—oh ! —sweet green shining peas.
Come meat what may, the plate wants not for thee.
Eating is ‘theatre of life’ performed heartily,
and with good company shall truly soulfully please.
Let Shakespeare, and Wordsworth point to the best in man;
and Ghosse and Baxter point to spiritual suns;
I point to simple basic creature comforts,
such as souls in love with life should get,
loved by those whose lives shine ever brighter.
*Lenny Lower in ‘Here’s Luck’
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We are of the environment.
The environment includes us.
Ask not what we can do for it,
but, for the sake of life on Earth,
learn what it does naturally.
To interfere is to risk reprisal.
Oh how humbling to know this:
of all life-forms on this planet,
we are the most expendable;
we are the one most expedient to expend;
and presently we are engineering our extinction !
What big brains we have !
We are the grass and the beasts upon it.
We are the sea and the fishes in it.
We are the wind and the rain.
We are the sun, its light and warmth.
We are excreta and food for life.
We are this poem and a part of this poet.
I met him in the time before war;
a presence informing and reforming our times;
a man of scholarship, insight and honour;
a man of principle and compassion;
an almost likeable fellow and quite benign,
but oh his enclave of acolytes !;
giant egos in cast-iron boots,
stepping upon history and their peoples !
I found my enemy in places of grimmest poverty
where we went to help the poor;
helping them towards self-respect, -sufficiency and -determination.
These we held self-evidently good, right and proper,
self-evidently wise, just, and desirable;
a preferred life-option that, I hoped, was
historically inevitable.
Yes, then let them then choose a church for amusement;
they could do worse: they could play soccer;
but let them find friends who love them in theory and in deed.
My enemy fought me,
and fought to make their lives more wretched,
until they, somehow, should
stand strong, proud, and free,
beautiful in ideological purity,
though they would all have died of disease and abuse
before any should bind them to perversions of Marx.
My enemy had Lenin, Stalin, Helmsman Mau,
Slobodan Milosevic, and mad Pol Pot
for shining lights down the path of misery.
I saw Marx's genius elsewhere.
He cared for people and for scholarship;
that good ends are achieved by good means;
that each may do and give of his best to the benefit of all;
and achieve that beyond ideological and geographical obsessions.
Marx revised his work, seeking a happy marriage of fact and hope.
Let those who put theory above their people's welfare,
who do not think any persons are of ‘the People’,
who do not think women are persons,
and who do not give a thought for children, know that
they have Marx for their enemy, also.
Bridh Hancock
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Jen Thompson
Five bodies there were, maybe six.
Blue with cold and lying on the crumbled brown earth
that should have smelled of chocolate
or something nice from a child’s lunch
but smelled instead of death and dust
and five dead budgies lying there.
Their necks crooked,
the smallest of feathers
fluttering against the wire cage
in the crisp morning air...
and something else moved there
in the cage beside me…
my son’s red hair.
I turned to see him choking on the sight
of yellow mottled wings strewn in one corner.
Then something clutched my throat
more than the dust or smell of feathers:
the thought that I had been too busy
to fill the feeders
That I had forgotten the fresh water,
dropped my care of the birds
in the flurry of a busy week.
Now they all lay dead
except the parrots.
My son had the rosellas
fixed in the dull brown of his eye.
A patch of crimson on their breasts
blood-red for guilt.
“The parrots killed my canary”
my son said and I agreed
to shift the blame from me.
But as we turned and walked away,
my hand on his shoulder for consolation,
I heard the chime of the rosellas
and it seemed a hollow tinkle:
as if the birds felt my remorse
and registered loss
in the meagreness of their song.
© Jen Thompson
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Stefanie Petrik
and I see her for the first time in months.
Watching her sit down at an outside table, I can see it immediately.
She doesn't say anything about it.
We trade subtleties and we talk about old friends.
What has happened to them, we talk about children and car crashes
And haircuts and disappointments…
These people have spread and run and grown up.
These people we knew, they have gone everywhere and around
We have gone other places and somewhere else
She smokes 4 cigarettes in an hour and hacks her lungs out over her éclair.
She tells me about her job, her friends, her cat
She tells me that she is tired, and the routine is killing her.
It's so fashionable to be busy. It means you don't have to think
About other things because you have a excuse not to think.
I tell her that the cigarettes, are killing her and that she should
In fact, turn murder and smear the routine across her horizon
Use the straight edge and sink it, split it in tow, again and again,
Use her brain and reconstruct it like a fractal,
Make the situation suit her.
She agrees. She tells me that I am right.
I already know that the effort to do anything BUT agree
Is too much for her.
I watch her hand roll as she talks, cutting through the air and the smoke.
And I watch the lazy living breathe in for her and take her away from me.
I feel hard and so solid, we were once the same but now we are different
I'm not surprised but I feel that I should be, I have watched this happen to other girls.
She will protest that she is solid on the outside too,
This is proved by the smoke that separates around her movement
But the smoke is the only thing that props her up
It makes her look like a real human being
Instead of a skin balloon filled with vice and boredom
Her friends are nice but do not admit their hate
I watch it curl around them , as they walk they leave a train
You can't see it but you can smell it and I can smell something here
And it doesn't smell like love.
She is only spending time with people because she is lonely,
And these people are as weak as her, and have been practicing for longer.
Her friends will set her up with boys who will use her
And she will let herself be used. Her friends will wonder why
She will refuse for a little while, before they get her drunk
And the effort to do anything BUT agree is again, too much for her.
They will tell her that it is a good thing, and for a little while
She will be full of something that is not smoke
And it will for a cluster around her heart and she will feel it being warmed
And not realize that it is not beating
The limb is a phantom and has shriveled from standing inside a microwave
When the table stops spinning and the girl stops dancing and the bell rings
And her friends open the door to take their food out
She will realize she is only going in circles.
And she will fall right back onto the plate
Into a bed of burnt girls
Who smell like toast
And taste like ashes.
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feels exactly like last night
This chair, my cross legged stance feels like a container
Today, I'm going out into the world
Tired, caged, and inspired to find the lock.
Because I have the key.
It's shaped like a hammer and drags on the ground
As I carry it…
27/11/2002
Stefanie Petrik’s poetry also appears in Synaptic Graffiti.
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Duncan Richardson
do not believe in symmetry
but let their webs clot and tangle
from the shadow of an eave
and lurk like claws of razors
unconstrained by our fears.
I heard somewhere
they have no indigenous name
in this land or any
but jumped ship, evolving
some kind of mutant cross
black widow/white tail.
They thrive where the land
is tossed and scarred
in crevices
and the bowels of abandoned cars.
They can be prised out and killed
one by one
like regrets
but small as they are
under the beams of night
there can always be
one more.
Give me flesh and blood taipans any day
striking with strength
in some proportion to their size.
These upstart spiders in their jet of melodrama
lie in wait for small and curious fingers
reminding that scattered through
the backyards of our minds
Sudden Death
has its own black holes.
©
Duncan Richardson’s poetry also appears in Synaptic Graffiti.
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Françoise la France
th rising vapor seeths/ calls/ scowls/ scalds/
lips that linger where fingers stare
& millions cheer/ no beer-small jeer this//
hot air calls/ cools/ slorks/ stalks/ lacks/ looks/ lakes/
where comes a puffer-sucker pair
2 sup @ th well-coming of th soul///
lips unzip to sip/ r-e-l-i-s-h//
no fish/ not like U/ likes th swish/ del-lish/ swill/ quell//
th descending & out-spreading fluid full-comeness with
perfume in magellanic clouds in frosty climes/
oesopha-glot-a-gulping/
& vapors still up-seething/ call
temp./ tea thyme/ de-ice device for tie-dice/
kem-2-come-2/ C14H10O9/ carbohydrate of comfort/
loo-brick-ain’t/ loo-bricant/ solace & sooth-rican/
indian/ chinian/ chinny-chin-chinian/
skip-2-my/ trip-2-yours-2/
u come 2 leaves & go 4 coming calm/
c-a-a-l-l-m-m-m-m////
©
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islands fall from swiftly swirling clouds /
this here sure ain’t Kansas City / kid /
splashing into the inland Queensland sea /
char-dash / knees up / laughing / nor Seattle /
30 days notice / hey the doo-ron-ron /
pretty
5 islands / yes / but not 1 Tassie II /
crashing with friction chips and surfie skips /
3 fins on a surf board / more on a shark /
know which I would rather ride / sit well /
extreme ironing this / here be crafty
Chinee
I clone my cyclone / 1 for Tassie II /
this I ask / which sharks have no dorsal /
fast- car- canned- loan- land-
and shark-bait-sharks / artfully frenziedly feeding
epidemics of mad-shark disease /
why
as ignorant as Arabs / blame it all on Allah
who never saw a shark on a surf board bounce
with corellas or the wires of this wide brown / celebrate the new \
Hi! / 5 Bells / cocktail / island / Oz-land
splashing in a sea of bay-leaves / all leaves now gone
dry
©
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Pym Schaare
the moon, blue
because there were two
winked through the still, hot night
it's fullness played between the clouds
slicing through dark and night
underneath the lacework
Stars, Clouds and Moon watched
as the two on the balcony
attempted to align the lens
for a closer embrace with the heavens
Orion was not so much hunting
but hanging low in the east
a calmer version of himself
as champagne bubbled in glasses set for two
the Southern Cross too played
its own amusing game
of hide and seek
though unseen we knew the low south corner
of our sky is where it should be
its five points invisible
no competition for our candlelit table
as we give the sky a miss
and flow into our own heady interlude
lit golden and ancient
by the candelabra in the corner
we unfold our desire
like an astronomer tattooing celestial paths
we fingerprinted each others skin
a memory to bliss
we take our time to remember
something new as i gaze into eyes
a reflection to keep
of the bodies in love
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