Lizz Murphy — Poem 151: In the frame (with Sarah)

In response to Sarah St Vincent Welch's With Lizz

IN THE FRAME (WITH SARAH)

A long awaited coffee

splash of red framed by orange

Old time’s sake

precious writing mornings

What colour were the 90s

A scarlet man on his smart phone

The memory of a raptor’s hindquarter

framed in my car window

A hawk like torn tan bark

its catch limp-winged

The reflection of the barista

In the corner a chuckly breast-fed baby

Sarah is laughing I am laughing

her eyes searching out a poem

poking it into her phone

She thinks I’m writing about testicles

(honestly – they were kestrels)

Note to self: improve handwriting

She is serious now

hair hooked back

Concentration

The tangerine saucers walk me again

through 70s suburbs

Orange is a happy colour we agree

but I still hate those orange curtains

Susan Hawthorne #152 devining

behind the vines another world
a path through the rainforest
cutting the vine back with my hands
I look down on a forest of pandanus

the vine clings to me
I pull and cut and pull some more
some are as tough as old leather
other vines are thin as feathers

it's a hard slog sweat drips
down my chin my hands ache
but it's also satisfying to see
the light of the sea behind the trees

Sarah St Vincent Welch #148 With Lizz

still life

(a table of bottles merge reflect rub 

invite like a Michaela James' painting)

graffiti edge frame behind you

this could be an older style cafe

booths and 60s orange vinyl

(we date everything by colour,

Lizz and I)

here we are

not meeting virtually

here we are

being here together

a return of a history

of before work, early off

bus mornings

over manuscripts, fragments

spirals 

now I write on my phone

a poem a day wherever

on whatever I have,

you've got a notebook, I

point at my name in your words

push my fingertip on the S

(recognise it wrong way round)

I’m all over the place as always

not writing but reading yours

you cross out a word next to Sarah.

Goddesses, I’m laughing now,

I’ve got a kestrel and a testicle confused

in your beloved handwriting

I’m reading upside down

askew

we agree to agree

this shade is a better shade of orange

than in the 60s
lighter

Efi Hatzimanolis #115 Filling

our comfort

inside the day’s, 

shepherd pie

Michele Morgan #144 gnóthach

check the postbox, do
the banking
quiz with finger food

Mikaela Castledine #152 Clear

We are reduced eventually

to simple elements

some days sad rain sighing grey

others an irritating wind

which blows us vexing

today the winter sun

yellows us with happiness

I love you she says

clear as anything

31.5.16 (#150) last day (of autumn) by Myron Lysenko

last day

of autumn
leaves in the bath

Red Cone (LF)#147- Dawn- last day of Autumn

Dawn - last day of Autumn


rising early
farewell autumn
welcome winter
wood fires
red wine
snuggling up

Lies Van Gasse #150

(dag 1-148)

Het ding is, ik heb een klein zwart boek
en er staat een naam geschreven op elke pagina.

Na een week stilte herlees ik de oplichtende namen:
mijn eigen naam, mijn vaders naam,

(day 1-148) 

The thing is, I’ve got a little black book
and there’s a name written on every page.

After a week of silence I read again those lighting names:

my own name, my father’s name,

Chrysogonus' Translation #65 - from Robert Verdon's "The Great Fugue"

Fugue Megah

kita mengikuti

lekuk tajam ujung kuku

lengkuk mentari pada kabut

di pelangi kematian putih

kapal megah melambat menyapu jatuh segala rupa bagai bola bowling,

kerumunan melompat bagai air hujan pada besi membara,

tirai terakhir yang tak pernah terbuka

biarkan aku bersamamu hingga tanah

menutup kita berdua

sementara

biarkan kita bernafas dalam detak

di fugue megah dekade terakhir kita

dua beo indah di tengah rerumputan

dua ngengat putih di hampar rosemary

we follow

the sharp arc of a fingernail,

the sun with curved fog rays

on the white rainbow of death,

the great ship slow but sweeping all aside like a bowling ball,

the crowd jumping like raindrops on hot steel,

the last curtain that never parts

let me be with you until the grave

claims us both

meanwhile

let us breathe with a skipping heart

in the great fugue of our last decades

two brilliant parrots in a wattle bush

two white moths in a taiga of rosemary

Béatrice Machet # 138-139 HEADQUAKE

It’s a headquake / faults in the brain / rifts at the bottom of the grey matter / and the electric power running through the eyes first then invading the consciousness extinguishes and the concussion grows stronger. 

It’s due to a temperament / always a kind of overflowing movement followed by remorse / dotted with splinters so as to imitate the hedgehog  / something like beneath a gruff exterior / so as to scratch letters / a healthy peeling makes skin flakes rain / dandruff are to words what scales are to snakes / causing the tongue to split

C’est un tremblement de tête / des failles dans le cerveau / des rifts au fond de la matière grise / et des flots électriques qui s’emparent d’abord des yeux puis la conscience s’éteint et les secousses s’intensifient. 

C’est dû au tempérament / toujours une forme de débordement suivi du remord / un piqueté d’échardes comme pour faire hérisson / genre ourson mal léché / afin d’égratigner les lettres / un peeling salutaire suivi d’une pluie de pellicules / les peaux mortes sont aux mots ce qu’écailles sont aux vipères /ça fait fourcher la langue.

Efi Hatzimanolis #114 Walking in Wollongong

rain and shattered glass,
my morning’s
acres of diamonds

Michaela James: #31 Norwegian Landscape – glaze on ceramic tile.

Thank you Kit for inviting me to post on your wonderful blog for the month of May. 

I am signing off with a work I did on returning from Norway in 2012. 

I wanted to find an alternative to painting to express the landscape. 

I used ceramic glaze on ceramic tile – the image only revealed itself after firing in the kiln.

Anna Couani #148 material

this green
called lime green
in the folk taxonomy
isn’t the colour of limes
the fruit
and I ponder the
efficacy of using
lime green net
that beautiful pale colour
as a book cover
the stuff with sparkly bits
probably used for tutus
if it’s possible to
make it stiff
with iron-on interfacing
and in the process
realise that japanese
book binding
is only suitable for
soft cover books
doesn’t quite work
with a hard cover binding
so walk around the streets
with processes merging
thinking about material stuff
meaning material
not material the category

Anna Couani #147 rain

the hard rain
leaves small
pricks in the
water on the road
framed by the
telegraph pole and
frangipani
still with leaf
but as a photo
glows white
with light

Anna Couani #146 Pacific

swimming on the edge of the Pacific
from the headland above
a smooth cream curve
with the city behind

thinking locally
then submarinely
your eyes stingingly open
the sandy water churned
by the rolling breakers

scanning for the next wave
even seeing a curvature
salt-like grains of sand
whipping past in time
outgoing swell
thinking
Pacific

a vast concave bubble
a big brain

body surfing beaches up and
down the east coast

swimming in the balmy transparent
waters
of Oahu
watching the hotel lights reflected
in the waters of Waikiki

Queensland
days and days of beach
and a million conversations

walking through the rainforest canyons
the beach where the forest
meets the sand

up beyond Cairns
near Cape Tribulation
the Daintree as seen by Jeannie Baker
her collages dense on top of the scene of
the lighthouse
the swirls on the sand
from the crocodiles that come out at dusk

the artificial lagoon in Cairns at dawn
silvery and aqua
lit from within
up there
foreign and still familiar

our Pacific, natural, opalescent, southern
mother to islands
glittering in the sunshine
framed by palms

the cities
twinkling
San Francisco

I stand in my classroom
looking into the faces of
Pacific people
talk question debate

Guangzhou Shanghai

sit on the step
with the teacher
from Macao

chat

here we have Port Jackson figs
gigantic ficus
holding the shore together

Robert Verdon, #159, Future Privatised

walking up the peeling bare flagpole

of the shut-down state school

the fly sees many schools

through its compound eyes

the ones that might have been

and might still be, the schools

(or hospitals, or scientific

institutions) that might improve

our short lives on this earth,

or even lengthen them;

of course, the fly fails to grasp

the significance of all this,

as far as we know, and is soon a-buzz

within the house of a local worthy

whose maid swiftly sprays it stone dead.

Béatrice Machet # 136-137 Game Point

As if. Silence. Indoor but a light swish. Disoriented wings against a window pane. A farce played by life. A mute screen. A couch. One sleeps and the other watches. Game point won at the net.

The windows. Is it a question of shape or of opening or of separation. As if. He sleeps. She’s got her suitcase ready she postpones her departure letting it be at the mercy of the match result. Tie break.

Living room coffee table. Two empty glasses and a bottle of fruit juice. A bunch of lilac. Daffodil’s time is over. One must go from yellow to purple. A rainbow exercise. The storm will have burst after having rumbled for a long time. Ace.

He sleeps. Wings at rest legs as squiggles on the paper.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be back.

Winning serve followed by the smash of the fly swat.  Silence for real.

Comme si. Le silence. Indoor mais le bruissement léger. Des ailes égarées contre une vitre. Une farce de la vie. Un écran muet. Un canapé. L’un dort et l’autre regarde. Balle de jeu remportée au filet.

Les fenêtres. Est-ce une question de forme ou d’ouverture ou de séparation. Comme si. Il dort. Elle a sa valise prête et remet son départ à la décision du match. Tie break.

Table basse. Deux verres vides et la bouteille de jus de fruit. Un bouquet de lilas. Le temps des jonquilles est fini. Passer du jaune au violet. Un exercice d’arc-en-ciel. L’orage aura éclaté après avoir grondé longtemps. Ace.

Il dort. Les ailes au repos les pattes sur le papier.

Je ne sais pas si je reviendrai  jamais.

Service gagnant doublé du smash de la tapette. Silence pour de vrai.

30.5.16 (#149) frosty footpath by Myron Lysenko

frosty footpath

even in long johns

my legs still cold

Susan Hawthorne #151 speaking otherwise

speaking otherwise
it's what you do in a poem
telling stories from
another point of view

speaking otherwise
a view from below
or sideways
the work of poetry

or philosophy
in a Socratic key
it was the muse
Kalliope in charge

of epic poetry who
took on philosophy
as well    poets as
philosophers of

the world both
speaking otherwise
allegoria mythic
ways of seeing

Sarah St Vincent Welch #147 Lost

lost the message

the house rings

the sky, walls 

lost the keys

blade and bow turn, jangle

yours in my pocket

let me in

lost the pen

a pencil hides in the eaves

lost the border

the road has not been built

lost weight

between the days

lost hair

in grief

lost bone

in years

lost jobs

in unkindness 

lost fear

in practice

lost pain

in care