Kit Kelen #760 - two rain related pieces

760

two rain related pieces

1

remonstrance with a sky

and you call yourself heaven?

to rain

would be the decent thing

one reasons with a sky

hoop holler for it

till blue

pray

and bluer

yet

and dance

so up insists

its true is pure

and in the not-so-noiseless bush

cicadas dust dry deafen

hell hasn't frozen

it's all boiled off

and we're still waiting

waiting for the rain

2

drizzle into

there ought to be a word

for the beginning of the rain

lovely when we wake to it

still wondering for luck, wide-eyed

and grey all up

scan for a body of water

a puddle where like might meet

and not mosquito larvae

but something falling now

see lemon leaf waxed to grip

a game

like ping pong

on your stiff felt hat

daring these first attempts

to meet a roof in dust

that rain's a little pinkie run

to shelf and show disdain

yet to hear the echo tank

on not-a-solar day

but hush!

it is among trees now

late-Victorian elf about

and Hanrahan portending

gladsome!

look to it!

from somewhere

whether tears or sweat or

just cicada urination

brings a breeze

greys out the overarching

the rain begins in a faraway land

now we're across the border

you wouldn't know the place

it's all lull

and picks up

then forgets what clouds were for

not a lick but travel

and it might yet come again

cobwebs hold it for a bit

steadies on after a while

and we're in it then

the actual

that soaks the page

so you can't write

but stand under an awning

now

listening in the stuff

tries plainsong

and we hum along

having prayed for this

whose joints know of its coming

make sprinkle biblical

from dust to mud

in days of it

I have dreamt a place like this

never knowing which way

piano goes

but you can still

tinkle it round

till tune

let us not mistake

the roof drip rhythm

or second fall from

wind-shook tree

it has been spoken to us

told

noted

and

we'd like it untold today

for the rain that comes from nowhere

never quite gets going

it goes to mist and comes again

all shout out for heaven

is that the lot?

that's all you've got?

so you put on a load of washing

and some sun

takes it all away

Kerri Shying R #406 - Yarn Up

Yarn Up

yesterday   we were sat on the porch

surrounded by the bones

admiring   the subtlety of action

tenacity of tendons     milky  at  a few years dry

still with the movement in them   see

the variation  in the growth plates   know

why I must be careful

not to fall   

we found jacks

sat them atop lamb knuckles

drank the lemonade 

 all the schoolyard  rushing in  

here

we are women 

there is nothing   we are afraid to know

Kerri Shying R # 405 - Day Lily

Day Lily

 for Lynn

sat out   by the shed door

that breeze  whipping Buddha

on his curtain  

around your carer’s head

we eat  brie    and I keep thinking

how life  takes the shape

least imagined  the day before   and that

the more nooks

I set up round here

the more beauty

will fly in 

and land

Kit Kelen #759 - in treetops

759

in treetops

the reaching

sky touch

the highest of the song

plain air

and wings have this spirit

weather catches

stars come close

dissolve as mist

how cloud was

this is the place

someone came to the end of the twig

never looked up or out or down

and walked back home from here

Rob Schackne #574 - "No machinery sound"

No machinery sound
the grey clouds come
a few cold drops of rain
some errant birds snap past
the wind rises in a spinnaker
the big gum across the fence
a very mad electric dance
what the cool change brings
say what you like about beauty
I will bid you goodnight

Kit Kelen #658 - plinth

758

plinth

idyll summoned for the autumn moon

stairs of a tall wind

forest full of gopis

whom Krsna calls

the years in their after each following

breeze through a window first

stream and wheel

and water falling

sing skin

thunder

and then rain

slower

the turning

slower

a net of wires

clouds catch

tinkle where a goat is

and donkeys

fence tethered to a higher pitch

scythe, sickle

plough and

fewer implements

smoothed to time

clouds drift

like stone come from

shone mist

girls churning the sea of milk

shell to circumcise

the army of monkeys come to assist

come back to me

stars of a tall wind

this last night

footprint of the Buddha

shows what we deal with here

what but eye to climb?

all of a singing sky

a moment

and the Earth's moved

we're a long way gone

Rob Schackne #573 - Notes for Hope

Notes for Hope

Capacity for happiness
Cf. Capacity for unhappiness
The chance that poetry can
Complete a circle
Communication as a circle
Connected language
Cf. Prose
Alien
The Other
Fear it won't get better
Cf. Hope that it will

Kerri Shying R #404 - There is no death

There is no death

drying the winter melon

see there   falling

in  the sucked-up cheeks

of elders   reclining on the carport roof

in sunshine  

let the hard skin hold the seeds

  lubricious capsules

shrink   by the day

in those hours of the sun

held away

from the beaks of the teenage crows

the noisy gangs  of minors 

cracking safes  and pumpkins

through the autumn 

the winter melon   waits

Rob Schackne #572 - The Sky Beneath The Stars In The Rain #15 (redux)

The Sky Beneath The Stars In The Rain


The notion of no second chance frets
the guitar, the history of Peter Pan
a treasure going forth to be lost.

Lessening of spirit? Perish the thought.
You and I have a few more chances left
in which, at any rate, actuarily speaking
more is riding your way than mine.

So now please let us not conflate
the fiction that we like to read
with fictions we like to make.

You will travel the seven seas.
A piece of weed, a piece of shell
a thousand sunsets will be different
in every one a restive breeze.

Faraway the future, a million dreams.
Ships underway, the holds are full
everyone waiting for the winds.

A song to ring your ears.
Mountain, anchor, whale
bird, water, engines.
Friend. Every heart.

Kit Kelen - 757 - I like to go nowhere

757

I like to go nowhere

stand further off

and wait for it

how anciently I am

stone tombs it

I might be like weather coming

a little hard to see the time

here under my own terms and conditions

and crawl into the conversation

a woad splash

come by coracle

they won't be looking for me here

in a jungle of myself

oboes tympanic

ikat in shibori

and stretch a tale till tall

it's death by shoe for the spider

kept safe from toil

by sweat of brow

it's such a world, yes folks

let letterbox be mute

here in the tangle of notes

breezily grey

each day heavier this burden

to call my life

I like to go nowhere

are you coming?

must make the difference now

this going on forever

really was never a plan

still you have to admit

this world could have been different

and so it will be

Kerri Shying R # 403 -Newcastle Sunday

Newcastle Sunday

today I’m reading 

Andrew Burke then a river

sings tales of the village  

winding the stories  of China

back into my magpie  garden

picking up strewn bark   toffee

from the tree   to pile for skinks

leaning forward

I am a word   keen

for the rangy son

who visits

in the cool

Kerri Shying R # 402 - high summer hums

high summer hums

my garden   all green and pink

hums with the engine of  industrial refrigeration

I get this headache    they are ships

in port   engines on

ready to depart

not quite here

I imagine them    the neighbours

cold slabbed   like the importunate

in Goodfellas

locked up against the summer   

packing heat  into the future

when we fall

Kit Kelen #756 - anniversary poem

756

anniversary poem

30 years home

wherever we are

but happens to be here

as built with much longing

and salting away

our four hands

and many hired

and finally unfinished

as in

what would you expect (?)

the vision was an argument

continues to this day

30 is nothing

the metal not invented yet

though there'll be asteroids to mine

or are all elements known already?

our weight will never be atomic

yet we have that glow of finding

five years past the silver

shine without the polish

who would have thought that a sun

could be charmed so high, so still?

would we have believed this now

the Easter of the rain?

(and thought there was no end of it

so we made forays from, collected)

you drew

and I was scribble

first blissed

and knew this view then

let it grow up and out

all that was portable in the picture

long since to the tip

except of course for us

we made tracks

and thanks to carbon footprint

gathered the trinkets of far

all these healing years to a workaround

ever hard at it

made a maze and we came out

I love the idleness yokels see

we taught a way to here

and emulate their pace

it's not a place this moment

except for in the sense you see

take turns to conduct breezes and trees

to water and to sweep, wash up

you build a home to hide away

all gorgeous in the tower

and goes around in seasons

dark and light as well

an ant makes me a mountain

and I quake to shake it off

undug

we wave legs and arms like crazy bugs

desperate with what soon won't matter

there'll always be something more to frame

crows' feet for a good hard look

kiss to show you care

the forest we have grown around us --

just by not being here

death is a fire

is a roof overhead

is a tune to whittle away

you pull the blinds down to dream

I draw them up of a morning

and the ungendering goes on

we play

until the webs come sunlit

and a very important question

okonomiyaki please!

to office then, and easel

and swim between the flags

at a certain stage easier just to keep going

that's when one needs a good shake

kind you can only give yourself

it isn't heaven nails us here

hello in another day

look to the blue's eternal now

and character for rust

30 years

whoever we are

where the young us must beam for pride

with big ticket items

like here we are

if I don't remember the last things

then something next is on my mind 

 

Kerri Shying R # 401 - today in January

today in January

I want to pull the world over my head

close the curtains   on the get-togethers

while I spend another long

weekend   in silent  contemplation

be my  carlessness   my lack

the income    lost    un-agile frame

the ticket  to the game   my head

so full of disagreement   unplay

my record      here    there is the scent

of double lotus   unwashed wool  still

on the card      snoozy  animals   

every  minute  goes undrained  unpinned

from that board of aspiration     all bulbs

all day   

sucker   it’s just today  

Rob Schackne #571 - Australia Day

Australia Day

Riding my bike

down a country road
looking at the clouds
water in the creek
thinking about
listening later to some Masekela
when I'm overtaken

by a white car
a cigarette is thrown at me
from the near side

shouts of you cunt!
they speed off
three weeks back in Oz
just settling in
I hadn't thought
of them for years

Kit Kelen #755 - fairweather (ekphrastic)

755

fairweather

(ekphrastic)

in a maze of faces

all under

like a ladder stood to show

a house has only so much hold

time touches

and then time sets free

a web of thatch

a grove

the streets in it are dust

but lean to frame a window

you won't see the island's edge

sea still standing squared

there isn't the alphabet for this

it all rings flickering

we're bung

Kerri Shying R # 400 - The White Album

The White Album

there are some people mourn

dead singers  with such passion

see

they don’t have enough  horror

in their lives    Lynchy   today  he

fell

he broke his last leg  

it’s another

hospital  for him   we talk  about

shrinking up our tumours

using apple cider vinegar 

how the dogs are fretting   we

sort out lifts for those

who need to visit 

I was just thinking

of him too   

Rob Schackne #570 - One Imagines

One Imagines

             for Bernard Hemensley

                 

                       As the pain that can be told
                       is but half a pain,
                       so the pity that questions
                       has little healing in its touch.

                             Edith Wharton

One imagines a winter night
a fireplace, and a hundred sighs
between the thought of a question
and the thought of an answer
why did you even want to do that
please tell me what you were thinking
the gathering of words surprises
you listen as you too will be listened to
one summer, years from now
when tears come from the past
what were you looking for
please tell me where you're going
rock paper scissors snake
now we collect the poems
the roar and crack of fire