Rob Schackne #919 - "Is it still"

Is it still
rusted from
the inside
surface glorious
all the books I read
autumn comes
the rain in stages
turn the page
a few drops only

Kit Kelen #1187 - tinder confession

1187

tinder confession

little arrow hit me

when I was just a kid

hit the bottle

and the bottle hit back

hit it again

went down

hit up

hit out

things were heavenly

just for a bit

hit a brick wall

steady forehead thump

called that a head massage

came away

best dressed

rolled on a coaster

coasted a bit

hit at

scored

hit after hit

hit the thing for six

could have been a little Hitler

but took a hit myself

very palpable

went down for the count

saw stars

saw sheep, saw goats

over hills far away

staggered up again

they said

have a laugh at yourself, won't you just?

red bull, will I?

that was the limit

hit out wildly

hit the roof

shook it

took off

sky was no glass ceiling

I was a rocket

reached for the stars

but I was a handful of dust

it transpired

weren't you? aren't we?

nothing breathing out there

then it hits you

the whole shebang

the Hittites knew

hid in a cave

took in the view

hit rock bottom

started digging

mattock then pick

some kind of jackhammer

so many of us here in hell

you know how I paved the way

down among the demons

and everyone’s a lover

it's so hard

after all that

in the parade

I was a hit,

single

might have been something I said

Anna Couani #230 Complex beginning

complex beginning

from the first beginning

before I have a chance to tap into the inexhaustible well

all the issues of daily life

sure they’re more intellectual than they used to be

too much reading already in the early morning

or maybe especially because of that

they crowd out the well

the opening of it 

the only hope is to observe the cat

who knows how to meditate for hours on end

follow her example

before jumping on the phone to discuss

further complex events

Kit Kelen #1186 - what the war did to me so long before I was

1186

what the war did to me so long before I was

or

circumstance of flight

a swatch of light

call colour of the past

say what you don't know

won't hurt you

I don't know to name it

in those eyes

whose

though we be the biblical umpteenth

and I'm a kind of cutup

here's confronting justice

so much best never mentioned

all another world was gone

that's how we are here

it wasn't fate but hate

had them from me –

those whom I never met

still with us in our skins today

paint the thing over

as many seasons as days

as other skins

in other wars

worlds away as well

in a language I never knew

and won't have time to learn

heard them in my childhood

crazy dreams to be, to live

only a ghost comes this far

lore lost

and love

and all those objects meaning

to another fire

same sun

a trickery of reasons

hall of trophies

the ancestral loss

come through the wall and breathe

now all the agonies are mine

neither felt not saw

but eyes in which

my love was learned

all the past welled there

and the hand wound world runs down

still flickers

I take refuge in a song all out of tune

this is the past we're not to know

what did the war – so long before us –

what did the war take from you?

the war to which our weapons go –

what will it take from them?

Rob Schackne #918 - Ute (Snake Tanka)

Snake it out the brush
branches groaning in the ruts
dragged behind the ute
all that is contained inside
some lizards, beetles and ants

Kit Kelen #1185 - remains, not mortal

1185

remains, not mortal

tables we can't take

cigar box full of keys

(to nothing for a long while now)

the fridge apace

last chairs

microwave

dead aircon even

books no one can

or has the will to read

watches wanting batteries

but I don't think so

everything yet to be painted

came into the night

and slipped away

from dust

years passed

and the drinks go round

a speech is made

other centuries peer out of walls

where the slot car flew off the track

where dog bit guest

and tore down blinds

here sat by Rachmaninoff candles

and found the speechless world

house of echoes

like a death tried out

now the ashes

the Christmas angels are gone

draw back the curtains

day comes

Rob Schackne #917 - "Trails of beetles"

Trails of beetles
the teams of ant
bodies will spread
maps we can't read

one dead creature
in the tall grass
putrid remains of
plans that didn't work

a pack of gods
enough concern
to exalt the second
that life gave up

evening comes
with a million sounds
it's small and slow
the thorns and glass

I get off my bike

I take the picture

Kit Kelen #1184 - little bird come

1184

little bird come

full of what’s

not speech

nor song

come

to the other world’s window

to wish

namelessly blue

and I know you

little bird

do you think

I am mirrored in this?

mine is the pond stood up

nothing bends this beak

a hit!  see so much

in the rain’s round soul

all your angles, calculation

heights, swoop

pirouettes of air

for love, for a meal, for a drink

how alien and in I am

to your trajectory

no branch, no twig

sufficient

but to the tip

and past

because you’re of this atmosphere

instinct to work

so play this way

and sometimes curious

landed, peer

o nest of nests

so sighted pure

the inward shelter

gods perform this it

you’re here to see

come to the window to wish

as insect otherworldly

delicious

and I’m in here

with history

the plan to take the tree down

because it is the book

come to the stilled wind

is the border

not a scratch of this sky

but because it catches

to show the dreamland

here within

I wave away

but bird wants more

it’s as if truth drawn to

warm blood, flight feathered

can you not see me, under glass?

this wanting is a kind of prayer

do you not know

your sun is up, your day is out

the song is all in you?

you cannot sharpen

beak this way

terrible student I am

not to know what it is

you are teaching me

may I guess?

just this?

what mystery to each

we others always are 

Tug Dumbly - Oedipus & Messiah

Oedipus & Messiah

Oedipus complex

meets Messiah complex

in a shopping complex

they plan to marry, buy a duplex

have a son named Rex.

They’ll embrace anti-pasto

anti-freeze

and the anti-christ.

They’ll live the life of Riley

the real McCoy

be happy as Larry

with Hobson's choice

but Murphy's Law says

they have Buckley's chance.

They hail mary

hail caesar

hail hitler

hail a cab

they honeymoon and send postcards

of the big potato

big banana

big sheep

big prawn

till she finds

the small penis

and writes a haiku on it

and sends it as a postcard to her lover.

Cowboy lover unwinds in his chair

serpentine cool

hair-trigger smile

coiled to spring

there's a blue baby in the bath

there’s a body in the pool

and that’s the end of act 1.

Meantime, ‘small packages

come in good things’

screams Oedipus enraged

engaging in bedroom,

bathroom, bar and brothel rage,

staging drive-by shootings,

home-delivered hits, takeaway killings

without the messy bits.

He goes looking for himself

finds god in a garbage bin

and goes home homes singing

there's an itty bit a hippy in everyone.

Messiah, eyes all a glisten, says

well stone the crows

till the cows come home

you snake in the grass,

you vulture, you fox,

you shark, you weasel, you ox.

All is forgave, come here you divil

as she takes him in like washing

Oedipus nuzzles her fond,

says the gall, the nerve, the hide, the cheek

humanity is listing,

but least we have each other ....

it's a funny old world

there's a lot to be said

there's a lot to be said

it's a funny old world

jesus I wish I had a dollar

for every dollar I ever had.

Jeffree Michael #65 Teena's Cleavage

She came she saw
blundered then it got worse
who throws themselves under a bus

nonplussed unremitting
calculated kettle black
just dig in when you're under attack

to call them green on Q 'n A
was that irony pardon me
or comedy theatre slow burn

it all seems pure abc to me
only Cleaver & Co join these dots
taking pleasure raking over old coal

perhaps a spot on Cal McGregor's
after morning show where such a diva
be the wonder of the party... just sayin'

she stole it from Howard anyway ...
on guns control  that was our idea...
no need for egging self-rising souffles

but on tv
the veil slipped

still think politics not theatre

Kit Kelen #1183 - because I made the time

1183

because I made the time

every day it’s there waiting

has to be woken

the story in the stone

the voice from out the air

the poem

must be because I made an appointment

or called upon some other cliché

draft let like window ajar

a door to foot

press beyond the thought and thinking

it’s as if a dream were daylit

comes back

the voice from out the air

the story in the stone

neither wish nor skies are summoned

yet a life may point to this

because I made the time

Rob Schackne #916 - Landing

Landing


You don't stop
on the road to
look for cars

heatworn highway
a chance of rain
watch that laugh

the clouds flat
the slowest river 
move above the valley

the baby tight
the seat up straight
prepare for landing

the conversation
comes 'round to
how much we need

my heart beats fast
I watch both ways
I will not tarry
 

Stuart Rawlinson #93 - Morning at Entretat

Monet, or maybe Elstir 

Fiction blends with fact as

Certainty bleeds on the horizon

The little band off camera

Quelling the incoming tide

The land. The limitless sea

We’ll see things more clearly

When the sun finally sets

Kit Kelen #1182 - how tall was your poppy? or the stupid entitled come in to vote

1182

how tall was your poppy?

or

problems with democracy 2

or

the stupid entitled find their voice

the stupid entitled

come in to vote

they have come into their own

the ignorant

and no respect

who trust the hospital to cure them

who trust the car to go

and no!

no one landed on the moon

or knows the cause of drought or flood

there never was a Holocaust

the Nazis – who were they?

they smell conspiracies of knowledge

the stupid entitled

hate anyone smarter

(that’s just about everyone)

hate anyone different

(and that’s all of us)

frightened

they watch the world going down

make us less to be who they are

they have a little something to add to the flames

gun in one hand

and herbicide

and pesticide

chase the living world away

and curse

they cast about to blame

blissful in hate

which is their habitat

they wash!

and they are always more!

so secretly they vote

jealous of our everything

and mostly of our luck

the ignorant have our attention

the stupid entitled

they’re scared

stand guard

shall we call them the neighbourhood watch?

give this one a badge

a football and a beer

it’s someone wants to take my toys

and someone tells me – ‘listen! look!’

but ‘I will never do it!’

in every language there are such

progress

the train wreck

shovel it in!

‘how did we get here?’

they’ll never ask

but run the thing full bore

the truth is chocker with this type

and you can’t say their minds are made

when there can be no argument

accelerated mutation –

they forgot which story was

won’t admit of species

no one tells me anything

a smirk for all learning

back of the class

don’t know what age it is

how clock?

they dare not ask

it’s them with their ways we blame

history thought to safely forget

in such a place as this

greed comes

crooks a dirty hand

who’s that?

all innocence and smiles

don’t you dare the deity

someone is taking their something away

when I come for them

they’re scared

and something sacred touches

they wrap themselves all up in a flag

how tiny then they are

blindly, how cower

and strike me dead

do they know time will wash them away

will rot the very fabric?

how sharp the saw

fuel burns

make mine tree

and chip it

they are fearful

of how they have felt

fearful how they feel today

slip a hand under your skirt

no one sees

the ignorant line up

it’s their right

and they always are

imagine their no heaven

gullible, so led

they see a world

as little as themselves

as narrow

I curse

they curse

we’re all cursed

they vote for the end days

kingdom come

for the Golden Time

that’s known

cause gone

repeat themselves

they’re our… what was it? – I forget  

and this is the same day again

come into their own

the stupid entitled

the Nazis – who were they?

there never was a Holocaust

and no, no one landed on the moon

or knows the cause of drought or flood

the forest? – where was that?

the ignorant

and no respect

who trust the hospital to cure them

money with a bank

who know the car will go

they’re scared

wherever we laugh

of our knowing and not

and weigh the facts to reason

that is something they can’t do

they’re frightened

of everything they can’t admit

they won’t!

damn you

they are necessary

curse the rights their mothers’ won

and fathers too

jealous of the spun world

see the injured eyes

the stupid entitled find their voice

they have nothing to say

they vote

no use bemoaning

we can too

once they held a blade in hand

once they were emperor, king

Kerri Shying R # 611 - The Volcano at The Mater

 The volcano at the Mater


I visit the vent volcano     every time I come    the dino’s
who lived through everything but some comet

they are the patients in the halls   levelled
by internal explosions

drink my coffee in the loggia
waiting on the bloods

noise bounces    from nurses
from glass to beams   off and into starred

space   radiating to rooms where silent
cancer opens  a flowering doom

Tug Dumbly - Like a dog a retreating wave

Like a dog a retreating wave
the world I chased
to myself retreat
as the world returned

Anna Couani #229 shop window

shop window

sounds in the background

the out of focus doorways

multiple with steps

lift up to focus

then the sunlight 

from the front

and from the back

focus on the pink door out the back 

the burgeoning ficus

mound of sand

the lettering from the shop window

thrown across the floor

sunshine

a date a time

gates open

door closes

signs 

sighs

big windows

an eye on the street

the quiet for a moment

Kerri Shying R # 610 - Call home

Call home

pumpkins     always
running to the east

can’t you dissuade
such lack

of the stuff      that won
the wars

give passionate attraction
to the west

at the going down
of the sun

we shall shout
what the hell

do those pumpkins
think they’re

playing at

Kit Kelen #1181 - live to the magic of next

1181

live to the magic of next

for Anna Couani

the poem

someone I don’t know

comes at an appointed hour

as dreams will tangle

lost in days

you’ll need a moment

thoughtless

I have arranged it so

and look!

no capitals

no full stops

scratch at any surface

see how the pigment pours

sunshine

so digression

who can tell

what ghosts of the street?

another poem

as fresh sky laid

a new world every day!

over the tomb

of words where spoken

this now never said before

my poem

lost moments

bob in reverie

dodge

and weave the words

I wrestle myself to write

and often on the floor

see sprung fully armed

fresh warriors I must despatch

they’re one at a time

home on their shields

no flag to wrap

every technique is magic

a clockwork heart

this image is

because

who knows

I cannot tell

my home is full of mirrors

an open door

you call a draft

and even in winter

tight as a drum

the locked up head

lets in