Kerri Shying R # 447 - all your gumption dried caked chipped as a cup

vanilla ice cream and the tic tacs

Andrew gave me   tasted  unexpectedly

nice   on the day Heidi came to take care

of my healing up old bones   see    when

the  people paid to do it  stop  you stop too

all your gumption dried caked chipped as a cup

it takes that friendly fire    richocheting

about the lounge  across the tops

of boxes  furniture  through the open doors

and sheds     the tic tacs  spring out

live and fresh wakening  my rip van winkle heart

Red Cone (LF) tossed #343

tossed

words
tossed away
with disdain

not caught in
flight
nor grounded

words and thoughts
not stolen nor
bought
the trace of
brush or pen
is fraught

a mangled tangled thing
images
words
invisible
on wires and string

placed on  paper
more solid
than now
where words
winged up high
whirling
crashing
where meeting
or fighting
over and over
like Sisypheus
the day begins

Kit Kelen #850 - morning, is it?

850

morning, is it?

in song

in flower

where sun snuck

bee because

a world all doors

turn to the tune

all open by light

for colour come

everyone once

its own dark

all now

looking

up

James Walton #97 A gleam in resolution

late, late evening

I’ve cleaned the trough

of branches and leaves

up to my elbows

the soot of lived things

fresh water hisses

dances a spilled travel

horses prance over

curious as the way of cats

I turn around

let them drink of nonchalance

a colt snuzzles my neck

places a chin on my shoulder

reaching an arm back

scratching his cheekbone

watching the red moon winking rise

one lateral to the setting sun

each of us thinking

on this day that was

 

Rob Schackne #643 - Outlaw's Honest

Outlaw's Honest

                       for Kris Hemensley

Give us a call orbit
slow me mine now
whistle does it love me
ah rock was young
time & space waiting
these poets reading
dreaming of their turn
twenty-four hours thirty-six
don't hold your breath
utter delight don't laugh
the spin barely works
probably your turn next
left home this afternoon
did you hear the coppers
it all drops in autumn
bicycle tyres are to flat
the long road ahead
it be my turn soon

Thirty Summers # 130 Claine Keily

I came here to name my demons. To see all the poverty around me. To pay witness to it and to examine the lack of ache to end this in all the bureaucrats around me. I decide to displace it with a brimming joy that is needless.

The winter descends. I watch the Brush Turkeys move in closer, hungry perhaps as there are now no longer available all the ripe seeds of spring. I anger to find myself still teaching and decide to find a new path. I decide to talk to people of their anger rather than still it with the threat of detentions or failure in the classroom.

Kit Kelen #849 - remembering to breathe

849

remembering to breathe

so simple

words are the tune

in the little bird

a tree

time grown to be

so still

so hard

till day upon whom?

a self beside me

in the mending

from light to light

trained up among

the seeking leaves

the poem littler littler

turned up in another life

is how you have me here

open my eyes to the dark

where the apprenticeship

goes on

Thirty Summers # 129 Claine Keily

It is May here in the tropics. This is the month in which the brooding seasons find they can no longer play. Night falls more quickly than before and I am caught out, riding too late on horseback. I enter my garden torchless -my blood still heightened by summer- remembering that death adders do not move if you approach them. Only last week there was a snake before me at night that did not move despite my stomping.

The river thins and loses the muddy hues it acquired in the monsoon. The trees are now bare of mangoes and the grass aches with one last burst of life, throttling me with its vivid green.

Kit Kelen #848 - draft of a dance of it

848

draft of a dance in it

is someone nesting

where the tree is lit?

the garden light

the moon song

and often in a trick of which

a toe tap to begin

as if an itch set off

the all around and up

facing on tip toes

till the storm

such as this mist

or round the face

a twitch

in the blood and carried

because we live this love

it's all got up, was primed

each one is a journey

and sometimes it's

as if to pounce

drift from this into other arms

this rapture yours in only

like letters on a page

make war and treaty too

wraiths do it, all souls do

please whisper as you pass

shake a leg at sea

it's in a song as well

sprung from stretch

a roof holds on

and like nobody's business

all attentive, all attuned

come so very still

Thirty Summers #128 Claine Keily

I sleep deeply now, like a teenager come back from the beach. In the afternoon I sit on the steps of my house with the forest so close it touches me. I know that soon I will have to cut a pathway through the bush or become enclosed by it. But I laze before this task, having spent decades living on dust in waterless paddocks, so as the trees, now before me, appear as something out of a fairytale.

There is little time to stare at the trees and flowers. The school calls me back and I am expected to rein in the cruelty of children who test me out merely because I am a stranger to them and because they fear I will expose their lack of a measurable skill.

Kit Kelen #847 - the bush is faster than the garden

847

the bush is faster than the garden

for Sarah St Vincent Welch

see how it takes us

and then a leaf along

in the glisten

with eyes up

ears in

whiff at

all to know you are

in rainlight

call shots

and set the dog on pig

here - levitate this flower

measure the gully in lantana

mat

patch

prepare the harvest

let's all go to seed

show the scent around

our book is all the crossing out

and garden for a soul

grows up around

just where we've been let

as if known by heart

and taken to

a beckoning for sunshine

a bucketing in rain

it's all of a delving to be

nothing literal

has its own treetops

makes soil from the falling

the fallen get a leg-up

how where the weather went

and it takes us along

vaster than your pardon

we hear the music of the spheres

ache to go around

time more than stars

and further

though nothing will unend

it's like you could bend the whole piano

trick yourself!

the garden imagines a treaty was

the house cannot be far

goes over hills and all away

once there was nothing named here

and took us for a dare

the tune of it is trackless

brings accidents to

bush everywhere

garden in mind

swivel to till

bend ages with

like breakfast in the branches

where three fountains flow

and equally beyond the map

with sky as guide

you're in the tree
in the stars

come to the carpet slowly

the bush is faster than the garden

can't we just be lost here?

Kit Kelen #846 - ANZAC Day

846

ANZAC day

in a trench of rain

saluting death

an out-of-empire experience

the day is local to us

otherwise, how here?

shall we nostalge a war then?

wrap me in this flag of theirs

where we believe we are

'emotional and moving scenes'

was this not upon us?

but no!

it comes again!

service for sacrifice

for just-like-Jesus

you won't know who did

blood in the trench

are ghosts to drink

it was for king and God

the zombie limbless of us lost

ghosts on the march

for one more day

in a week of rain

with bugle

send me a biscuit, that's all

breast pocket bible

tobacco tin

life saved

who's a statue now?

digger!

a baptism!

it was like this when a first sky fell

we gathered the stars to be

there's profit in this reverence

how politics is left

across the wide frontier

who lost?

who has a hundred years?

send some George or a kangaroo

to show we know you care

wounds are well beyond the grave

takes a minute the silence

then let's pretend Australia

that it's a common wealth

Thirty Summers #127 Claine Keily

My mother phones. She speaks of carpets cleaned, clutter moved then moved again. She urges me to sweep my fingers over floors even when I am sleeping. It is your job she says to lift up the dust the instant it has settled. When she asks about the weather, so as not to make her jealous, I lie and say the skies are grey.

Kit Kelen #845 - in the madhouse

845

in the madhouse 

 

here's shit woman

always offering

go out on something soft you won't feel

into a box in the ground

here's the screamer

and the one who scolds

the one who'll take your food

sullen nurses are all the world come

because we placed a dollar lovely

in this trap

wars are to flee, you know

you have to have wished a way here

we are only visiting

we're a silence

none will remember my cruel remarks

the only test is the code

we're only visiting

like truth to its acre

far far off

the better things we do

Kit Kelen #844 - people of the book

844

people of the book 

 

take pages from the dictionary

so that those things are gone

the one with the aeroplane

now all wings are birds'

and less than them

and angels

all affection is out

aestheticism

the whole affair

we were once

dwelling in this thought

that was an inkling us

things are true because you dream

tunefully, that was

in hours before beginning

comes like a wound truth

crackle comes through

the who-we-are is deep down

scratch it comes off

shines medals

flies a flag

salutes

and forward!

with the ways about

as if it all once were written

so that is the why

in back and forth time

like stars to a darkness knit

we know ourselves full of light

Kit Kelen #843 - west, pinking for it

843

west, pinking for it

lovely in the last light

April all around

warm Sunday

in the after falls

and grey

so lines have drawn

the light that lets

the yellow in

the light that lets

the brown

and all around

the forest green

this is the garden's

beginning on me