Kristen de Kline #221 When the dead chatter

+
when the dead chatter
you will hear them tapping

on the back screen door
rattling the broken lock

another crow will veer down
on your front windscreen

while you rev down the Monash
singing out MAX VOL:

will you still love me tomorrow
the third crow wings past

sending you a message
about loving     and

dead bodies piled up     and

backyard swimming pools     and

a trail of kisses     and ...

+
when the dead chatter
you will hear them whisper:

at the end of the day
what doesn't matter, matters
what matters, doesn't count

you will forget your lines
when the dead chatter

lose     every     thread
again, you will force yourself out of bed, again

+
the dead, they will pester you
with their tales of oranges and

little rays of sunshine
their lyrics about dying a hundred

times, going back to 
black,    and you,

going back to her

you will be left with no words

no way to love you in the morning
---------- to say goodbye

your hair splayed
across the pillow

the scent of Eternity
splashed across your neck

where does it end

Kit Kelen #973 - clock inside

973
clock inside 


what the body knows is nobody's business

it is a gene does this

redox
between chemical species

zeitgebers

an area
and travels of
say system

sets off, soothes

no clock on the wall comes near
little man inside is more precise
or woman, so to say

like nation of us
stretched songwise

knowing just when
and out like a light

when I'm all used up
there's more

I can't be found amongst it

must be the world turns in
and on me

other bodies shine and dim

it's with the boots gone up as well

when to ripen
when to fall

to an alarm
which is always the news

in the hypothalamus

all of this instance we
creeps over the rocks
for the love of light
no more

Rob Schackne #741 - "Till the buds open"

                       
                    Till the buds open
                    how close we are
                    how hard it is

                    tales of sunshine
                    the fish easily caught
                    all the tea in China

                    painting of painting
                    beautiful & strange
                    what's one life

                    don’t let me be
                    misunderstood
                    so many benefits

                    what Dawn did
                    with her library card
                    perfect midnight

Kerri Shying R # 502 - a buttress pressed against the flanks

I much prefer this   nights at home

no stumbling   on the wards   the rain

 tango  on the warm tin roof   cats

alert  to   someone  too forlorn   after

midnight   they make themselves

a buttress pressed against the flanks

aligning their soft breathing   lung to lung

this large bed   alive   with concentration

I am soothed    to fall   at first light   off

against the odds   and waking  find

the pain  has softened   into fur

Clark Gormley #27 Render

render on brick wall

a bandage for many sins

the bloodstains seep through

Kit Kelen #972 - considering eternity

972
considering eternity 
 


Plan A
is immortality
here on Earth or elsewhere

get to be a god

because
my heart bigger than yours
eternity lives it up in there

a little science and myself
actually all the help I can get

come along for the ride

once I thought five hundred years
but that would just scratch the surface

life is suffering
imagine
and it still is
then what do you call death?
(nothing when it's at home)

but they aren't lives
or soul to say

grace notes towards forever
the tending of the score

Plan B is never feel a thing

Plan C is too early to say

somewhere was stockwhip and blanket
the deep down below
I'll stick with the dingos and crows thanks
I know they'd like to stick with me

they're playing now in a league of their own

and here we are again
waiting for time to end

of course there's unplanned eternity too
but it wears you down to dust

I guess it's starting now

Rob Schackne #740 - "Walk through morning"

                  Walk through morning
                  the way up to the dam    
                  tape and bitumen paint
                  to help plug the leaks
                  philosophy has sprung
                  the day is still and sunny
                  insects and birds agree
                  what we carry everyday
                  the purple rosemary
                  so full of small bees

Kerri Shying R # 501 - these shoulders tired of bearing

I can smell   antibiotics   flooding

out my pores  the animals  look

frightened   testing at the air  food

acquires  new metal  the painkillers

are silent  seeping warm across

these shoulders tired of bearing

the weight of microscopic things

remind me   again   what species

runs the show   and I will take you

to the frail flowers  yellow  besieged

by bees  in the honey home  we sit

Clark Gormley #26 Domestic Dancing

Put your feet down on the floor.
Stretch your arms above your head.
Have a yawn. You've started the day
doing the domestic dance.

Bend your body at the hips.
Unpack the dishwasher cup by cup.
Reach up and place them in the cupboard.
You're doing the domestic dance.

With your left hand turn the tap.
Fill the kettle with your right.
Switch it on and watch it boil.
You're doing the domestic dance.

Grab the milk with your left hand
and push the fridge closed with your right.
Pour it on your cereal.
You're doing the domestic dance.

Shake it while you chew your oats.
Feel the rhythm of the banal.
Step out the door and greet the day
doing the domestic dance.

Kit Kelen #971 - finite

971
finite


fitting like love
into the tune
of here and how
we are

bodies – we're
strewn about
selves much mattering
sometimes other to each

fraying at the touch
sadder than saying
sometimes
joys to have known

who's the sea
and who's the raft
?
sometimes steam comes off

held you as far as sleep

my words for you
not to be heard
questions never asked

as if the hour
had come for us
summer golden and  gone

hold me now
kiss and go on
eternity's just this

Clark Gormley #25 Second World

Whatever happened to the second world?
The one between first and third.
When counting you don't jump from one to three.
It's omission is plainly absurd.

But it isn't the only world unrepresented
I put to you respectfully.
For instance, take the under and whole worlds.
Where's the over and partial respectively?

Some say it encompassed the Eastern Bloc.
Nations dominated by Stalin.
But I've never heard it referred to as such
and that is a second world problem.

It's as if there is something shameful about it
that it's best to remain unaware.
I asked TripAdvisor if I could visit.
It replied "Let's not go there."

James Walton # 115 I will be your open city

a hail ashore

not a mirage of inklings

a gate always open

beneath a white pennant

surrender yourself

here the fountain knows no age

sit down by the brickwork

later I will bring out a towel

wipe away these days

I’ll read your quiet palm

trace the drifting lines back

find your watermark at source

write your name by dipped finger

see how it shines then departs

from these momentary lapses

how soon the sun and moon merge

in an overlapping circumference

another day of lives waits

outside of forgotten sanctuary

above its wing beat compass

a kestrel squawks of wandering

remember the smell of bread

the tired tread to be ahead

of too many willing souls

soon a dark regretfulness

will slow to the fall of a leaf

each side in equal shadow

there are no answers

there are no secrets

we are all a passage here

Tug Dumbly - Lingo Forecast

Lingo Forecast

Who uses ‘ticking time bombs’ anyway -

Dick Dastardly?

And really, the ‘State’s a Tinderbox’?

Maybe the State’s a Little Lucifer

State’s a broken bottle in grass

State’s a kid with a magnifying glass

State’s a lightning strike in the national park

State’s an outda control backburn

State’s a zippo in the hands of a pyro

bush firey tongueing to play the hero

and put out the inferno he started …  

Not as sparky ‘tinderbox’, granted,

but for exactitude we go the extra mile.

  

Kit Kelen #970 - salute to myself

970

salute to myself 

 

can you see me

in these lines?

with any kind of mirror does

or not with one at all

face on into the weather

stretch and roll

ear to the air

up to old tricks

and me the miracle just here

it's after dreaming up

and listen for the next idea

an early recording

how puff along by breath

with skin that I take everywhere

or out of focus recognised

salute without my glasses on

get up a certain rhythm

sort of a circle I am

hail and take care

sometimes float through it

a haunting too and words with

salute to all who sail

this somebody knows me

take serious already lit

candle how far now?

then on my way

like possum up

in branches

blue unknown

Clark Gormley #23 Online Barber

You walk into the room

empty except for 

a reclined chair

and a man waiting 

expectantly beside it. 

“Sorry mate 

we’re all booked out. 

You have to book online.” 

He replies to your 

look of incredulity

“He’s on his way. 

He’s running late. 

Here’s our card.” 

You take it 

and file it 

in the round bin 

under V for

virtual haircut.

Kristen de Kline #220 Under Melbourne's CBD

1.
at dusk you lie
under Melbourne's CBD

imagine your teeth
plucked out of air, thin

your heart, quartered
and drawn, thousands

of human teeth they dredge
as the new tunnel forges in

2.
at dusk we lay
in a Wilson carpark

so many dreams blanketed
under our blue tarpaulin

at the corner of Flinders and Swanston
on the seventh floor of the bunker

it had been three days
(since) we'd eaten
-------  Roxy had OD'd
-------- the cops had come

3.
it was the molars
they found first

after the ambo took off
we passed around the Absolut
---- lit candles
---- didn't cry

then they found the dice
made out of ivory

and a sole ear-ring dropped
through the floorboards

it belonged to a "well to do lady"
(or so they said)

4.
when we wake
the teeth have multiplied

betel nut and tobacco stains
paint-bomb the remains

you find her obituary
on newsprint in a dumpster

so many dreams
so many teeth

land with a thud
go up in smoke

5.
on the fourth day
they found a miniature

haunted doll
it calls out your name:

Roxanne, Roxanne, Roxanne

6.
what do we do with death

morning hasn't broken
blackbirds haven't spoken

what do we do

Kit Kelen #969 - classical

969

classical

when I was a woolly satyr

and sidle up to sing

pipes and bells and lyres you bet

I was a one-man goat

and got the girls all going

woolly in my ways

and woolly underneath

woolly in my head

and wool between my teeth

love! you could bottle the stuff

ship it off in amphorae

we'd get juiced up

and do a dance around the pot

a tree – and I'd be maypole

what a pong!

allow some drunken slump here

yes I was woolly in my ways

and woolly underneath

woolly in my head

little curls between my teeth

but that was my forever

sad since I am come to marble

colour went, shaggy locks

and skin all froze

nothing to tickle at all

worn away face

and fair enough

a nose goes first

...find me a figleaf would ya

not a double negative to say

you can't get nothing up

who wins

once modesty kicks in?

the soul is lost

in stone

Tug Dumbly - Red 3

Red 3

Red ‘3’ birthday balloon  

rising and running fast

into the bright brittle blue

Redfern winter sky, bobbing

and weaving for its life

round the grey Cuisenaire rods

of the housing towers

named for dead white gods –

Cook, Banks, Lawson …

escaping, ascending, trailing a

let-go string, shrinking to a glint

in the rising sun, disappearing

to a possible horizon.

Kerri Shying R # 500 - coursing for a passel of us

my little dog     bit me

fair on the arse    sleeping

those jaws  seemed

so much bigger    what

dreams   possessed him

coursing   for a passel of us

was he    flying   down a  hill

a phalanx of brown bums

ahead    or just   back beside

his mother  we are  both of us

     litter bugs   adrift

Kerri Shying R # 499 - left unmarked by oil

Chinese food     it’s not like that

in China    folded chow mein

over curry rice   unchanged

my life-long   crunch the squiggly

bag of noodles  brown paper

left unmarked by oil

imagine   the association for

restaurant-settings-up

posting out the menu   the small

drawings of the pig and chicken

 to a new life in the soup

Rob Schackne #739 - tell me rooster what time it is

listen to   the didgeridoo
hear the screaming too  no
late night   the next morning
slipping over   the cliff edge
on our own now   precious

tell me rooster what time it is

you say   Tom Clark is dead
new york times   paper of record
back down the track   I see
the poet coming   laughter
yes   it's mostly laughter

Kit Kelen - my love a kind of creature

968

my love a kind of creature

dangling with suspended eye

furry here and there

might have been a rock

but moves

must speak another language

comes of its own wilderness

and proves the eye

with seen

pet, prey and predator

you take a photograph

grows closer with a look

and when you look away

let the sunshine in with

lusted after and before as well

a creature kiss is me for you

like weather come home with

and holds and wants to touch

gender? look under?

or could be overlooked

ridiculous days together we spend

fallen hard for the facts

bounds after in an insect cloud

and in a heartbeat too

and new

this creature never was

as frequently the thing itself

so sad sometimes at going

loves me so so much

pure animal abstraction is

some days as if by my own skin, breath

not even first thing but fast asleep

and far away

come closer, come

enough of myself told

Clark Gormley #22 Back Then

There seemed to be a time
before the battle lines were drawn
there was a bit more of us in them
and them in us
and we roamed freely
or blithely amongst them

it could be the fog of nostalgia
maybe war was always being waged
we wandered through trenches
thinking chlorine gas was mist
and mortars were fireworks

does the war never end
or do we have to win or lose
to go back?

Kit Kelen #967 - servus (series of poems for German words)

967

servus

series of poems for German words

hail friend

here the track has us

the day

the air we're in

let me mean nothing by this

our lives cross here

once always

never again

each to each unknown

every meeting

is a crossroads

be in my eyes a little then

it's not in words

but this one for a deed of presence

we climb to it

I meet you on the mountain

so it must be in your boots

this thus far coming

all the world's in it

you bring yours with you

and I bring mine

so like unlike

turning too

I wish you well

on your way

of course

servus!

and now I've said

it's gone

this moment

brief

this understanding

all the world

it was

Rob Schackne #738 - "It's like a beach holiday"

It’s like a beach holiday
sitting out the back 
the Railway Club
a Saturday afternoon
blue sky the sun windless
spring’s around the corner
a couple old dears come out
spoil the pokies for a smoke
it’s like a beach holiday
we enjoy the warmth
they shake their heads
they look closely at me
they shake their heads again
but spring is almost here
the old ex-Footscray player
he looks at me and laughs
it’s like a beach holiday I say
he measures the distance and laughs again
I close my eyes and listen
off-duty cop on the phone
shouts at someone about his wife
she’s left me with the boys
my battery's almost dead
see you tomorrow

Kerri Shying R # 498 - the frequency of screaming

some light is invisible  me

wrapped up in the blanket

and pyjamas on the porch

soaking  up the heater of the sun

trap    paperwhite a prop

the frequency of screaming

from the flesh   the screen

the page  translated so it means

business  as usual  delineate

what cuts    bring wrappers

  this  vivesection  a la mode

Clark Gormley #21 Drought

wallaby drawn to
the dew on the bitumen
butcherbird's breakfast

Tug Dumbly - Pigeons Don't Mind

Pigeons Don’t Mind  

Randy charcoal

puffball pouter,

purple-green ruff,

pinned hazel eyes,

pulling three moves (at least),

at the same time –

see-saws, circles,

noggin tock-tocks

like a cartoon injun

dancing round a fire

hassling ladies

at the station

in a daylight disco

of shameless pluck: 

                              

buk-a-da-DA,

buk-a-da-DA …

c’mon, love, gis a ride’.

‘Fuckoff

Fuckoff

Fuckoff …’

‘til one caves:

‘oright. Hop on.  

But don’t muck round’.

And he’s up, like a

grommet on a wave,

for the jelly trembling

triumph of seconds  

till dumped

for a crumb, like a

pub punter flung

from a bronco bull.

Doesn’t dust off,

just struts to the next

in a numbers game  

of unloseable odds.

Gotta respect the grit

of the pigeon, unruffled

by a nest of rejection slips

till one comes to fruition.

Tug Dumbly - Sick Trainset Glorious Monday

Sick Trainset Glorious Monday

Scared how new things

have to get old

battered and scratched.

Sunglasses, friendships

won’t come clean

like a beach

tide-smoothed to a slate

to be scribbled with a new day’s stick

fresh printed with a foot.   

Sweating that first scrape

to a shiny new car

to a virgin face …

can’t take the suspense.

Please, I beg these glinting things

nick yourself now

get it over with quick.

I like old stuff too – slanting barns

rusted machines, gnarled trees

ramshackle friends.  

It’s just the transition makes me tense.

From sticky-born lamb

to styrofoam chop

a mild pregnant agony      

an ectopic anxiety

waiting for decay

to get underway.

Rob Schackne #737 - The Perfect Storm

  
      The Perfect Storm

            The inhabited cave
            looking out see
            my hands shaking
            the perfect storm
            why am I here
            trees blowing hard
            high winds
            like a knuckle
            there to fight
            all this shit
            plastic bags
            what do you hear
            animals to shelter
            can it last as long 
            as the next

Kit Kelen #966 - demon lover

966

demon lover

or

my life as a demon

(for godsbother?)

let me tell you about

my life as a demon

an agitation

you could call it

run around on fire

of the soul, is it?

a lot of falling

and through the flames

I may well have been cast

demon is a type

put away the horns and tail

keep it in your pants

fell through time and space like this

people whispered

hurtful, said

can you imagine?

and are demons really unclean?

would you sit next to one on a bus?

have you no pity at all... for

inflammation

every joint

then there's the fire in the belly

and elsewhere!

they wanted me for a red hot poker

you can think of it as a game

kind of a politics

there's a lot of the wrong idea

about demons

I was hot

and had the hots

punished! the best part

I can dole it out as well

whips and chains

all hell-forged too

give as good as got

tongue hanging out

and catches

then everything's in ashes

once I heard a crack –

felt something holding back

hell freezing over, as foretold

some garlic breath and back to bubbling

can call up clocks

mischief is magic

now and then a little lilt

and wistful with the flames

look in – how otherworldly there

and future just the same

did I omit demonic laughter?

but I wear the devil's garments

to spare you the ugly truth

and constantly

I'm coming alight

burst into flames

again and again

whenever you're around