Friday, November 30, 2018

Rob Schackne #819 - "Stretched jeans thick as a brick"
















   Stretched jeans thick as a brick
   beholden to a bee, to the light
   everything is there to see

   the past is a passing plane
   a photograph taken quickly
   the shadow of a future and run

Tug Dumbly # 61 - Tulips


Tulips

People say ‘wozup? You look a bit down. A bit tired, a bit sad, a bit blue …’

Well, if I wasn’t those things before, I am now. Thanks a mil.

Look, it’s just the way my face sits. My resting face. My private face. My room-service-sign face saying PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB THE FACE.  

My face is happy to look sad. Sometimes. Doesn’t mean I am. But even if I am, please don’t bum my sadness out. I’m happy to enjoy my sadness. Undisturbed. Just me and my sad face.

No, I’m not consistent. I’ll take compliments. Say I look great – skinny, youthful, vital. I’ll lick you like a puppy.

Still it irks me. People try and read you like an emoji – ‘there there, chin up, never mind, might never happen …’

‘Wozup?’

I’m so glad you asked, Mr Sandwich Hand. You saved me from a moment of quiet reflection. Maybe tinged with a bit of nostalgia. Hard to put my finger on really. Shall we say a wistful whisper of regret, with a delicate filigree of yearning? Something ever-so-slightly rueful? Not really maudlin. More a light dip into melancholy. A plangent little shiver. A slight frisson of some lost past gently goose-pimpling the skin of the soul?

Know what I mean?

A little pebble plopped in the millpond of my being, sending tiny ripples spreading out to gently kiss and lap at the soft mossy verge of the human condition.

I dunno, how would you say?

A sort of softly swelling glow. Like sliding into a warm bath of mare’s milk coco. Or settling into the mantric hum of an ancient fridge in the dawn kitchen of an old beachside weekender

or trancing to a wood fire, dying with the gentle crackle of a Noel Coward 78 in the grate of a little log cabin by a lake in a wood, with you a sweetly bruised plum in the palm of evening, and just the chit-chitting of a lone cricket in the knotty pine floor boards.

Know what I’m saying?

A bit Whitman. A bit Thoreau. A bit Disney too, to be honest … actually, now I think of it, these are someone else’s fantasies. These pictures are just composite archetypes from the collective unconscious, ethereal vapours from the Lost Property Office of the soul …

… but anyway, that’s what I was thinking when you said ‘why the sad face?’

But look, if you’re really worried about my ‘wellness’, I’ll get into my clown gear. I’ll ride a tiny novelty unicycle on a highwire over a pit of flaming meth junkies while pulling a bunch of Gerberas from my bum and singing the best of James Brown …

No, no, please don’t go! I want to reassure of my emotional equilibrium. I won’t feel truly happy until I’ve convinced you that on the inside I am actually feeling delinquently overjoyed, just internally bursting with mirth and yuckety-yuk good cheer. So I’ll give you a joke:

This woman makes jam. All kinds of jam. Strawberry jam, blackberry jam, dandelion jam … All her life she makes jam. But one day she says I’m sick of all these old jams. I want to make a new jam. So she gets her hamster, sticks it in a blender and turns it into jam. And it tastes … disgusting. So she tips all this hamster jam on the garden. A week later all these tulips spring up in the place she tipped the jam.

Anyway, this guy’s walking past her yard. She says to him ‘look! Just look at all these tulips! Where did they come from?’ The guy says ‘oh yeah, didn’t you know? You get tulips from hamster jam ……………………………!!!’

GEDDIT!!

TULIPS FROM HAMPSTER JAM!!!?

… Ya see, the reason that joke’s hilarious is because there’s this old Max Bygrave’s song called Tulips From Amsterdam. (No one remembers it though). And what I did, see, how I engineered the joke, was I replaced the word AMSTERDAM with HAMSTER JAM. (Of course you shouldn’t explain a joke. Take it apart, expose its delicate mechanisms, it’s like killing a watch).

… Hey wait! Where are you going? I haven’t finished. Come back! You’ve got something on your face … It’s called a nose! (Yeah, I do dad jokes too). Hey, wozup? You look a bit down? Cheer up, smile. Might never happen!

Kit Kelen #1065 - three for the tip of the tongue


1065
three for the tip of the tongue


close to the word

under the blanket of all is
and so we are as well

lit every way
the one consisting of others, of many

in certain stretches sung
or do we commit ourselves to paint ?

you can just about smell it
like the rose to the nose
and then gone

some days
almost in it

the word is work
and with
and is

stands as tall as me
toe to toe
then back to back
at paces
turns
and
do you ever see
the arrow between
?

a hint
this under the word

overnight web
morning walks through

under this word
another
above our heads
how to spell?

it's like this
one climbs over another
the ladder falls away behind

you won't even need a carpet up there
pillow on a cloud
all around
wise sayings
great comfort
just to be home

word alive yet
under a world
and so many heavens
all
on the tip
of the tongue






before the word

was singing
that was the wind
we were told

music was in us
has to have been

everything was just in the making
no one said a thing

before we were thought of

a stretch
to fit
all the world in

the web of it all
dust and light

we were all surely meant to begin?

wait for the word
somebody said

tell the truth
it's all inside

though that was scarcely possible
and then we were away

imagine the first word
on its toes
what yelping yawp
ready and set

that supreme effort
has to have been mere nonsense
still
more meaning than anything since






a writer lives on the tip of the tongue

then out of nowhere
pages
a crowd
and all of my friends
wombat and possum
platupus streaming
all the air in arcs of song

sometimes comes like laughter in fits
or sneeze
and you've said so

not even knowing how much we won't know
but it's by this way we're making

those who are gone
are with us in words

each every one to its season
a given land
a promise

in love
in war
all cats' pyjamas

and will I be struck from the record​?

hours creep up on them
some words stand and test us
with remembering

settled in the bottom of the cup
will you read?

will you lie in my arms?
will I in yours?

and in one word
surrender

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Clark Gormley #68 Boredom Romance

Boredom used to be my flame.
We'd spend every free hour together.
She’d drive me crazy but I’d hang around
as if I had nothing better to do.

But now I don’t have time for her.
My Boredom all-encompassing
obsession I have overcome.
These days I find her quite ho-hum.

Lizz Murphy Poem 379 Skylines 6 (after Michele Elliot # 35)




I ask the stars is there ever a right moment no good asking the moon it just questions the tides The moths are waking They leave the cool of cave take to the night skies travel the migratory route Lay their eggs Die The pupae hatch navigate the same path to the Alps gather in the billions cavern cavity crevice On the way they may divert block the light


Rob Schackne #818 - "This concept of money"
















     This concept of money
     has to be quiet, doesn’t it ‒
     (the waste) but like scratching a cat
     or taking a bird out of the cage

     share it with the buckaroos
     & buckarettes ‒ except you spent
     all the ideas on yourself, weren’t you
     still shining, crazy diamond

     keep it to yourself then ‒
     anyone with a heart, a concept
     blowing a gale for two weeks now
     the bush is getting brittle


Kit Kelen - two poems - leaf & a libation for the gyroglyphs


1064
two poems

leaf

go to ground
dumb sacrifice

of sorts
a gathering

wrinkle from bud
to grey

die for me
to autumn it yellow

journey's end
and flutter yet

from here to earth
make light of

sword wind
nobly flame

all falling
for this world 








libation for
the gyroglyphs

a little Ra-Ra for the Seti-set
I invite you to

Sufi spin
for dizzies

imagine a merry-go-
make it all music

spin to spark
be dynamo

and on the burning deck
lost pants

green room's all pond and lily
bush behind

in the come again rain
tin rhythm

the winds sing
come out of the weather

to the wise this combo kept
make something sacred of ourselves

around the amphora priapic
Maenad meander

name the script
play up to it

be dotty
join the lines

fill pages here with score
inscrutable we'll be

into a ball and spring
invite you

and us the ghost
to tell as bees

all golden gathered
risen on wings

all because the world spins
curious this writing to make

something once
must have been meant









Kerri Shying R # 564 - Here.


Here.

clean with honey 
soap   bed resquared
stalk of lovegrass
all that’s missing
for a one note
idyll       me

a day away
from mopping
shit up off the
hospital floor
 stop   to feel this
hollow  I won’t
sleep    there’s a
jerk      he  

has the time
to graze
on facebook
pages  telling
me  how big
and wide his death
is going to
be   not me

let my body fade
into the garden
occupy a
screw lid
jar  please feed
it to the cat
sell it on the
bourse  dry
it off for
jerky  then he
won’t
visit it
no more


Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Kerri Shying R #563 - here where people of the just-enough-land


cream blossoms  take a drench 
beside the house the lotus pond
refills   a season  grows we have
no thought to name    the fifth
among   the too cold   too warm

here where people of the just-enough-land

pride themselves on  common
ground   this anomaly unsettles
like the lady doctor  speaking
in the House   today  answer  best
to turn your back and go the other way

Kit Kelen #1063 - true madness


1063
true madness

in a hollow itch
and feather me with light

to see the truth and shy

am bitten
I bite back

one wallaby unpaddocked
peering through the static

a little drowning in the words

lock up
and self same liquidate

administer me
in pill form
jab

I am the page filling up here

I could be falling leaf
be tree

who says a way around?

some certain days flower
so I am a season

weeds become a garden
Columbus in his India
and not just the imagination
but wrong to take

others dire
telluric

all this 'oh no' in the weather

my crossword is a crypt

an orchestra conducts me

I sing a bouncing ball

can we see ourselves
out of the picture?

pretend to knowing
where we've lost

all and all about to be gone

here – hold the tiller
believe!

Clark Gormley #67 Bathroom Renovations On Hold





















brown tiles, smashed mirror
and exposed particle board
but it's functional

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Clark Gormley #66 The black AM band view


driving through the CBD
there was so much static
I could hardly understand
a word the announcer was saying

it’s due to bandwidth congestion
the superhighway gridlock
mobile networks blowing their horns
contaminating the airwaves
with their fully sick 3G, 4G
NextG and the one after that
drowning out the AM
with their Wi-Fi hi-fi

it’s only a matter of time
before they discontinue the AM
same as the shortwave factory
in the Pacific was closed down
the old drivers who can’t
steer the new technology
like the Tuvaluans
will sit parked, in uninformed silence

Kit Kelen #1062 - it's only by singing we're here


1062
it's only by singing we're here

after William Barton


come to the fire
to listen and sing

come among these sands

a voice runs through all things to be

this is the story of how we are here
is it too hot for you to hold?

as the moon is
as the sun

fire is forever a circle

and all in words
by words
no tricks

around around is dance

light casts into itself to go

chase tail to see
sit branches
and join arc to arc

is there anyone here who won't sing?
we come to the fire to learn

that low murmur is the wind
that vast stillness
ash to be

see how we skitter
by little legs or not
roll away into a hole

how we leave these tracks
and then the tracks are gone

this is the story
of who we may be

come to the fire
to learn

Rob Schackne #817 - A Man's Gift










               A Man's Gift
                    
                   The solar panels open
                   the energy is ready

                   push the boat 
                   until the sand
                   it never was so hard
                   Mars is a comedy
                   it keeps on trying
                   checks the butterflies
                   it still needs guitars
                   everybody wants to play
                   now it starts to rain
                   another whisky please

                   these dreams of violence
                   what was I thinking
                   where was I going

Kerri Shying R # 562 - crickets sing to the glory of white nighty


punch holes left by the gold tip of your
light-plied needle   pink French knots
buttons  the mother of pearl  no mention
of who is the father   the river is a slosh
with seed pearls   all dying for a berth

crickets sing to the glory of white nighty

which sits so light on me that I’m hugged
not as a foreplay but with the intent of cocoa
perhaps a tulsi before bedtime  breakfast
to look forward to   you have made me  this
garment  life  a daily covenant    for us both

Monday, November 26, 2018

Rob Schackne #816 - "Where a new goat resides"


Where a new goat resides
a couple properties away, chortling
& the evening goods train races through
screaming about time and money
(and no one cares it's gone)
I’m sitting out the back smoking
after creating my garlic ginger soup
which simmers while a cicada rattles
& I bide my time making up poems


Kerri Shying R # 561 - Little girl's memory of a sunny day in childhood


Little girl’s memory of a sunny day in childhood

the body  at the bottom
of the pool

inside my head
quiet for all these

years   are we one adult
woman  or two

it was this
moment  of blue

triangular limbs
rubber  flesh

men diving  in to
get  what was

remaining  of
you   I don’t know

now if we are one or two
this is the first glimpse

back to you
 drowned girl

what popped you
to the surface

no clue

Kit Kelen #1061 - joy of was


1061
joy of was

for a book of flimsy reasons
gone to the foretelling

when once before winter got in
it was all down to luck

make a page of rolled up scraps
that was a life

to say we were
and slept into each other's arms

far from
always far

trust and wind up here
(set out the jagged automaton course)

a bitter fall is always to earth
then I'm the shell gone into

hiding in the words again
and hammock up the text

picture all in simple choices
know that was no world

is it just to be here
always choosing a side

[?]
(cage the mark of question)

I check for your heart
and see I'm not there

look for our days
and we're gone

Jeff Skewes #56 Whose park

The altercation was over
the vacuum cleaning bay
seen by some as allocated such
and some just another way to park

perhaps this dispute is at it's roots
the land
underneath
at the local love my car 
car wash and servo

dispossession
never leaves aunty
with laws at play
the rhythms lay some
quirky karmic tunes

a right royal battle insisted
lots of witnesses called
then again others see
unfinished business a play
on activism

so whose land
laws and customs
don't you agree
this land once
roamed free

true this land was stolen
the servo bought a lease
now we live in a vacuum
only legal customers use
the vacuum cleaning bay