Gillian Swain - #57 - Salt is not a season

we sweat like pigs 
(do they even?)   feel the entrapment
even auras pant   we sweat
salt is not a season
throat wants not heat on air
the supping was more than enough
after the first week of forty-plus   enough
was when the air stopped breathing
that pigeon won't leave her nest
she won't eat won't drink

must shield eggs   cooler to incubate
the night will have its calling

Kerri Shying R - # 585 - light

Light

from the bus   you were the high wire
people  dancing     on skin   on concrete
handfuls of each other     up against the
shirred wheat stucco      by the air con
a small haul of white powder-coat balcony
set dressing jenga-stacked       to give you
purchase      in the absence of the sea-side
view     a hot day   this knee trembler   us
below    who looked up   only because
we are not used to seeing cranes

Rob Schackne #883 - Senryu (28)

The gusts are so strong
five cockatoos fly away
the tree waves goodbye

Rob Schackne #882 - Hat Island

Hat Island

          (after Vollmann reading Twain)

Old master Bixby

the Mississippi pilot
read 1000 miles of river

the face of the water

in time, wrote Twain

became a wonderful book
today the face is muddy 

new snags were created
Hat Island disappeared
and the old knowledge 
of a place is useless now
where does that leave us

except tired and behind
with our little gifts of sorcery

more temporary than ever –
do we care less because
our dreams were rattled
do we care less because 
our time is running out
come let's ride together awhile

Clark Gormley #86 sad haiku

it's harder to write
sad haiku apparently
you use more muscles

Kit Kelen #1128 - I'm the one got away

1128

I’m the one got away

the others were herded

death had them

such various

no one saw

I got away from the crowd

slipped under the wire

I escaped in a dream

I was fed on gravity

blear light

had to keep a record

somehow the ticket was good

I walked all the way

had the visas

I got the coat

the others froze

I climbed to the top of the pile

changed my clothes 

my skin

my tongue

I am the survivor’s son

take the lesson to heart

not all of my ancestors were

but enough

someone pointed

they were heaped

how happy must they seem to some

I prefer fresh air

I was a lucky fool

and there but for the grace

but someone had to stand through time

and keep the queue alive

I never believed anyone would save me

I knew there was a better place

I never asked the question

you’d have to wait until Christmas to know

I secreted myself in a crack

called that the future

I was the one who had a gun

they saw me as defenceless

I ducked

I bribed them all 

rolled away in a little ball

turned blind eye

winked as well

I could not be detected

I made myself so small

although the light was shone in my face

I told them what they wanted to hear

not what they needed to know

they were distracted when it came my turn

because I was so innocent

because I was a bully

shy

put up a fight

lay down

I was open to that kind of idea

could do all kinds of tricks

the time had passed

and I was still there

by that time I’d set out

better to die

a great age in my bed

I could entertain

and I sold myself

I had no soul to sell

in the dead of night I snuck

caught a cadence, rode it

just those last few chords

were a life

there was a gunpowder flash

it was like it was, I suppose

and cannot be explained

things in those days

along the way

one grazed

could have starved

been taken for or to or from

anyone would

so much almost

I slipped away

and now I’m here

was never chosen

we do not speak of such things now

you wouldn’t understand

we sang to keep our spirits up

it was summer or some other season

I hid the thing in my nose

or other orifice

leaked like a sieve

made music

it was everything till now that let me

though we never knew it then

it was the angle of the thing

a leaf fell

where the web was loose

the world’s too young to know

I did it all for love

sharpened the sword and passed it on

you have done just the same

come into the magic

I’m still here

impending as with all deaths

if you like you can call all of this betrayal

someone had to stand through time

and keep the queue alive

I will do the important things

do what needs to be done

I’m the one got away

I’m telling the story today

Rob Schackne #881 - Senryu (27)

Without my specs
the imagination
is just hearsay

Clark Gormley #86 List

written on used envelopes

sometimes prioritised

numerically

sometimes asterisked

meaning Do Today!

I’m ticked off

until they’re ticked off

after a while

they form a notepad of sorts

bulging the pocket

that’s when the cull occurs

those with only a couple

of uncompleted items

have them copied

to a new list

and the paper is chucked

regretfully

since that’s a document

of achievements

being thrown away

Kerri Shying R - # 584 - the summer sea

you were the first
to swim  beneath me
alligator     tortoise

eyes blue as the sky
wide as the sea

water slick on your shoulders the
varnish on your hardwood floor

shoulders of ancestors
all branches   in all directions
no falling

Kit Kelen #1127 - without a thought in my head (a little effort at meditation)

1127

without a thought in my head

a little effort at meditation

can you imagine what such a silence suggests?

beyond mere breath

a striving for the nothing there –

the all-beyond of strife

as if a breeze from empty air

between the ears

and all of this something

always something else

mind trains on

must keep an image tether to

make sure that I don’t float away

empty ideal you could say

but shhhhhhh!

all such bubbles are soap

so portentous

in order not to have a care

to brush off the grime of day

must sometimes trick myself from thinking

so make all things new and far

the colour of nothing

is all of this time between zero and one

fall through or for it

and from this great height

it is a well, moon minded

dust of nothing

and no one to kick

we imagine

join dotted lines

so far and away so good

the head returns to a roll in the hay

listen for it

how the world stops at the top of the clock

an open window

or else I’m a mirror

step through

insects land from the future

not a thought in their heads

but here we are

life in the egg

bound to be like this

cross the eyes

and dot the teas

worry us into a new disease

try not to follow a train

or stoke

electrify

keep parallel with tracks

deal with the simplest facts of brain

and so on till infinity

come clouding clear

in a glass of water

follow a lit speck there

I make myself a fascination

to be unknown among my works

lauded for such absence

interested in everything

and so it is we must imagine

blank mind

pure soul

clear heart

Clark Gormley #85

A woman steps out of the shadows in front of my car. I stop and at first I think she wants to get in, but she’s arguing with a man who is walking a few steps behind her. I recognize the situation. He’s always just a few paces behind. Then the woman on the radio asks “when were you late for a party? Maybe you were caught in a storm or your train was late? Call in or text us on blahblahblah”. But I don’t.

James Walton #130 De Heading the Hydrangeas

Amongst the old

spent heads falling

the colours gone rheumy

bleached bones on the ground

just peaking dawn

air’o mist from the summer night

suddenly next door’s Terriers bark

then quiet as a pricked balloon

in the shade of the strawberry tree

older than our country

the monsteria of politicians’ lips

mouthing over Menindee swollen fish

a detonation for waking

but can I still drive that far.

Rob Schackne #880 - Senryu (26)

I read the music
and I listen to poetry
is that the right way

Kerri Shying R - # 583 - Identify the Kestrel

 Identify the Kestrel

he can see as far as Dungog   hear
us from Pine Gap

we’re not    complete
this family     all burnt

around the edges   stained
with tea     some old map  

stood beside the stove    kept
company by sausages that whistle
from the oven     I know

I mustn’t touch you
my fingers hurt too much

Kit Kelen #1126 - on Day One of the poem

1126

on Day One of the poem

I was there

combustible

remember you darling hung

the playpen beads

I built it out of mud and timber

everything was made then

you can call it primeval

call it the cranium cave lamp

yesterday’s sun still with us

everyone got the headgear at Bunnings

no one fell to their knees

in a penniless loft

will someone anyone strike a match?

another was already begun

and persevered with it

from chaos

(can we even spell it then?)

a dabble to begin

and out of compost muck I mulched

one imagines then rain

on such a night

was I an envy green?

but no

I had a face to it

and grew

into the storm

every inch of it a stretch

all the forevers there

and flowers

no one knew that they’d been said

my aim in all

not to be remembered

I know I will be buried in

best suit I ever wore

this is how I go to the maker

Day One is a tautology

and yet we are believed

you had to have been there

Rob Schackne #879 - Dark Moment

Dark Moment


A dark moment
we were speaking
he said all he'd miss
was a dozen people
the animals and birds
the beetles
rain and thunder
the lightning
the stars at night
how the wind changes
he would miss
the colours
a few sunsets
full moons
good booze
and the grace
of a few seconds
sounds not so much
what do you expect
he said he'd miss me
yes and a couple poems
he never wrote

Kerri Shying R - # 582 - woo and tricky

suburban    basket of woo and tricky  footpath
cracks asprout   the leaves about to stain

who knows  who planted the Illawarra plum
We go with baskets   a day too late sliding

in magenta     answering everyone who passes
what are they and can you eat them    try

to hold it all together    this fragile ecosystem
let the small dogs and children roam

Kit Kelen #1125 - desideratum

1125

desideratum

among my wonders, few behold

things I cannot, must and can

and on the list today

and lost

for resolution

then there’s that for which I wish

not all of the seen must be known

few do

how close, how round the ends

another world I stretch to reach

angels pinned to the board

still preach

few will know my crimes

and who detects humanity?

and in the creek dark cool

how task bent to the truth I’ve been

broken

(as on the wheel)

for just this gardens weight of grief

how little and lost

gone and gone

and me to the mirror too

the bailing and the bilge

salt snout

the art of it

and set to sea

in less than a canoe

how long the damned thing takes

scribble on the floor

and of the tune

I have to be the fish

there will be few recall

how far in time we are to go

slept and dreamt and drawn aside

called to the curtain again

all points of a compost green

to the treetops!

the robot moves

the dinosaur thinking

arrows all directions

how I am bent to the tune you won’t hear

how on a stick

sat up with

magpies

possums

cockatoos

and everyone imagines me

the beer and even skittles

hooked

how humid all

before a fall

how still the listless cattle stand

in saplings

and breathless

clouded in self

how far few

the ways I dreamt

and all aboard

how tumbling down the house must be

and come along with you

sing

paint it

scribble

pipe

or pluck

blow it all away

but wish

how lost I am among you

quiet in prayer

no one is listening

though every poem is

and I, most wanted here

have stood for the rain

where it would not fall

here’s me going off

all mouth

how exercised I always am

out of an ache of morning

the struggle up

as in the sun

my day in

pile of some clock’s leavings

no one would know the top of my game

how deep my well of failings

the weariness of it as well

how shook the bones to have been

… and more  

mere words to lead me away

more words to bring me home

not much of the known is ever seen

then will it be the same for you?

I know it must be so

unnumbered senryu - pumpkin pride

unnumbered senryu

was it because of my pumpkin pride

this summer

no rain fell

Gillian Swain - #56 - heat collisions

You think a cold shower
is the answer
there is no chill in the ruination
of heat swept insomnia
the room presses on your forehead
chin up and take advantage of 
this wake   trailing behind
like a day half spent
your thoughts   cave in
collision has no landing   only   pieces of
better ideas   judder
cajoling you into plans and bent
on a staunch stance   for tomorrow
when   you'll take that heat
and swim it like soup

Kristen de Kline #248 Goodbye 5

it's the English words you lose
first, in the card you sent for our

boy’s birthday you write in a curious
mixture of upper and lower case letters

English and Spanish words   hearts and
flowers etched in Indian ink like a frame

I listen to your words over the mobile
each syllable slowly crumbling, an Eagles

riff sneaks in from the nurse’s station
he says: you're hooked up to the nines

I watch another helicopter hovering overhead
with one of those giant buckets of water

they dump on flaming houses   it’s true
we never get to say goodbye quite the way

we imagine it,   the things my son tells me
I did wrong   - they're all true - and more 

I turn the air con onto MAX    go out the back
where concrete pavers burn my feet 

and cry 

your ashes blow over the veggie garden you
carefully planted      palm trees, bend double

whatever happened to us

Kit Kelen #1124 - cookin'

1124

cookin’

days like this we all catch fire

first thing up in

wilted to the flower

and too much summer said

winter is a bonfire waiting

and clutter up to flame

we live

as if a lightbulb bloomed in the dream

till all of Christmas lit

yesterday’s sun still with us, stays

can’t get it out of these rooms

yellow as we are to it

and tunnel ending ever after

a kitchen caught us

who could stand that heat?

there was no getting out

baked

broiled

poached up

sunny

leaves above us falling

books as we read – fire

there’s just this one bottle of winter

I’ve kept to crack on a day like today

the ants are

from drought to this

a flame away

the nakedness is ours

days like this

fire catches us

Vesuvius prophetic

at deeds and chores

we’ve hell to burn

another day of our cremation

we brought this on ourselves you know

and it goes on

do you imagine

it droppeth as a mercy would

upon the place below

?

keep faith and cling

imagine that

on a day like this you must

Kit Kelen - of the innumerable

of the innumerable just one day is

tree is like an arrow laid up

trunks in the flood

branch breezes to sway

a leaf for a turn in the story

 

Tug Dumbly - Exploded Monologue From Unwritten Irish Play

Exploded Monologue From Unwritten Irish Play

… cobwebs float

                            unlodged                

                    lonely

spectral strands of unborn self

rows of little polio cripps                pitiful things curled

and browning in spirit                    jars on shelves 

webby back sheds              

off

cuts

edits   

of what you think you’d think

if you could think

but you can’t think

beyond a tiny clammy hand

                            tracing your spine

spectral sense insensible 

cobwebs float unlodged    lonely

unrealised undead

    poor bawling little edits crawling

           round your feet

not understanding the dance

mistaking the chance they never stood

they float on        choked on          all their terrible         

dead child potential

midge cloud of coulds       not knowing

they’re unknowing      little edits           

                                offcuts

                                loppings      

                                bobbin dolls unspooling

millennia of

spilt umbilical thread

sniff blind long gone to dust

parent script      seraphim spitting

light of death

flap like fish on the black lip

of a mercury lake

mutely mouth for mercy’s sake take me back

and develop me

I’m your property   

take me back and develop me

like a property developer

develops a property

develops a child   

wards of wards

of crisp white scripts

Nurse Butcher & the little polio crips

the undead unread          scalpelled

in white sheets …

Shhh now

Shhh, go to sleep

go to sleep …

o, to sleep 

count backwards from ten

the dream of a dying fish

on the black lip

of a mercury lake 

mutely mouth for mercy’s sake

dream an army of snowmen

searching your head

for little lost black eyes 

mutely moaning  

manmade mouths

just go to sleep

count fire engines   or dolls   that make a sound

like fire engines

flotilla of plastic dolls

backwards bob in the wake of a ship

forever receding

moaning mute beyond the scream

take me back, for pity’s sake!

ship disappearing into dark

over a black ocean

ship receding

and all those plastic dolls

bobbing in its wake

big screw turning

churned cappuccino foam

settles to espresso black 

forever to black …

no one saw you go over

another gull cry

no one’s coming back.

Gillian Swain - #55 - he passed, part one,

(prompted by Kit's He passed, She passed poem)

He passed   on

another day   had had enough

was ready   to let   it   go

he passed   the memories cluttered

left them on the shelf   in 

your heart   quaking the gap

he   passed them as he left

it was as they'd said   those

last   obscure glimpses   and

stand   alone   images   like company

one more visit   he

passed the years

doing   occasionally pondering the

being   he passed

the tidbits on   to those he remembered

to tell   gifted morsels

resonate at grave side   old stories

still told   some died   with

him   and the past

Kit Kelen - unnumbered - as the forests vanish

unnumbered

as the forests vanish

behind the land

a mirror sky

the bone home of the gone

little house in the woods

where image and emotion live

each always daring the other

there is no way of dwelling forever

we have to pity the homeless gods

their morsels of worship

Rob Schackne #878 - "Last night I revisited"

               
               
                Last night I revisited
                an old overhanging horror
                another Grampians test piece
                no belay light free solo
                the climb's a piece of cake
                the crux revealed itself
                a pinched hold to the left
                cross leg and short dyno
                latched into a big crack
                problem quickly easing
                I must've been dreaming