Project 365 + 1

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Sarah St Vincent Welch #293 Grevillea

you are more scorpion than spider
flaming tailed
pollinator presented
marching through serrated terrains
alert, coiled, sprung

I wake,
slick-eyed and sore,
and find books strewn around me
like empty bottles.
I went too hard last night,
sculling sentences–
whole paragraphs–
cracking a new chapter
almost before
I'd finished the last one.
No way
could I have driven home.

Michele Morgan #298 grianghrafadóireacht

photography and
recording
are not permitted

Mikaela Castledine #307 Whale song

I’m singing to whales

kind of low and long

not that they can hear me necessarily

you know

all that water in the ears

and even with good projection

they are a ways away

And I don't know what genre

they prefer

country classical or jazz

I’m going alternative

come come come where I can see you

is the chorus

but I don't suppose they will

When it was

all choppy in the waves

he said there is no point looking

they’re not around today

even though he knows nothing about whales

I said just because you can’t see their spumy breaths

above the curl and crash

doesn’t mean they are not there

he said if I was a whale

which wasn't in any way scientific

Whales

doing those flukey leaps

waving at the sky

singing about the place

as alternative as can be

come where I can see you

please

Dan Disney #1 - Genoa

Genoa ...

Lachlan Brown #2 - For the end of semester

For the end of semester

You know that you need to clean
your office when a pile of books

collapses onto you. There is
something fitting, I guess,

about being struck by a tower
of one’s own ignorance,

the guilt of all that you’ve
left unread or unfinished:

to be slapped by The Slap,
to be zwacked by Fay Zwicky’s

Poems 1970-1992, to be entombed
under Geoffrey Hill or knocked

senseless by Ranciere’s Dissensus.
One day humanity will probably

attempt to build an immense new
Babel, made entirely of second-hand

copies of The Norton Anthology
of English Literature. Can you

imagine it? All those student-editions
with their uncracked spines, holding

the foundations together, while millions
of pages stretch up into an unthinking sky.

Chris Mansell #30 he is worried

Jeltje Fanoy #70 the empty streets (1960s)

the many snapshots don’t really in any way tell the whole story there’s us opening

presents from relatives flash from far away the many cards the Christmas tree

an elderly relative looking exhausted after the long journey but

still smiling finally at our table we’re all caught smiling like maniacs

at first only in Collins Street a couple of people here and there

outside a Café dressed in their Sunday Best

out of the darkness escape hatch emerging together in greater numbers

together some sort of curfew that was never talked about

Kit Kelen #307 - noon

307

noon

an age to all other hours

but this one

you drive through it

in an ancient Cadillac

the one Moses had in the Bible

the suburbs never thin

they go on with the wheat

they crumble and they stand again

and no clock ever strikes

Man from Mud and Moss #2

“He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical.” Hesse, Siddhartha

Timothy Edmond #2

Conversation Class

I went to a conversation class
but it turned out to be
the conservative class.
I didn’t realise it
at first but they
soon let me know.

And they intimated
to me that they
want everything back.
Now.

The best one
is when you
have 15 minutes
before your bus so you
nick into the Pub,
handily there, get
a schooner, light a
smoke and bang
a 50 into a poker machine
smoke a second smoke
finish the beer
pull a hundred out
of the machine
have a piss so you don’t
get caught short on
the bus, buy a
packet of chips to
eat on the bus
and step on the bus
that’s running 3
minutes late.
Sit on the bus swigging
from a bottle of red wine.
Use the bus as my office.

Funny dancing ladies
Englishing.
Thank you Angharad,
bit on the finger
by a sliding boom arm
but by Monday my finger
will be fighting fit to
find the perfect spot to
cross the lines of action.
Saw first 30 minutes of
Operation Petticoat tonight
while waiting to go into
action.
Tony Curtis one of
my favourite actors and Cary
Grant one of my favourite
actors in an “odd ball”
WWII comedy – one of my
favourite places in time.
     I grew up watching
WWII films.
    It was a close thing
but we beat them we
spent years making
films about it.
    There was the war
and then the ghost war
represented on film.
Heroes that never served.
Midway was just luck.
Hitler was destroyed by the
Soviet machine.
Dancing with death.
Now the money classes
wants it all back.
They will have private
armies protecting themselves
against the world
    then launch into
space.
    They make money
out of chaos.
    And want society
to protect them.
    We the people.
We the shirtless.
They drive on our roads.
They make money out of
our stomachs
    They felch the shavings from our coins.
No. We own it all
and they only pretend they
have a right to it.

They presume to trade
on our corpses. They have
no right except what
the people condescend to
allow.
    They are no one.
We will take away
their privilege to
trade and learn to
deal with honest
people.

Red Cone(LF)#274-courtyard

courtyard

so still
in my courtyard
so quiet inside
wait
hide

outside
the wars prevail
and fail
where are the gods to save the day
politics is toxic
here and far away
is all hope lost
and at what cost

the spinach still grows

Lucy Alexander #64 ‘If prose is a house, poetry is a man on fire running quite fast through it.’ - Anne Carson, October 2016.

the man is a smokescreen

combustible his flaming hair confrontation

grappling for water is he breathing that fire? is he

turning to paper? are his words vapour ?

the pages of his skin the ashy flecks the light pours out of him

word’s own headings the font of his footsteps

hastening the clack of his feet like fingers on keys,

rattle of breath, the fire leaping from him

is he breathing those flames? is he eating that heat?

fat spattered walls skin sizzling

the house is akimbo and flailing

how is its rambling rooms now?

the chapters of its presence redundant

now aflame, now just fuel

now the dream of the burning man

running quite fast, is he fast enough?

is he breathing in that stench of

arching sentences soaring themes the ounces of

time worn words clasped in covers that are

on fire now shrivelling under the poem man’s glare?

and still he is moving and flaring and his eyes

are the stuff of legend and his smoke smells of

elegant curlicues phrases unbent and scorched

shriveled into single words while the house

topples, like a horse to its knees and there it

whistles and keens while the man runs on

his hair like volcano is he breathing? how is he moving

through volumes of smoke? and out of the structure

lighting the world, flicking ash out behind him

down the stairs down the bombshell building

the smokescreen of his figure leaps see him there

arc in the sky a sunset orange

a spot too bright too watch for long

throws himself into the arms of the sky

who holds him shaking and murmuring

until he burns out and the rushing over

sleeps dark sleep of the lost and the broken

until the next poem.

Red CONE(LF)#273-settle

settle

return to me
my rambling thoughts
steady the travelling instinct
turn away the tourist notion
settle the restlessness
be still
content
the white damask table cloth remains pristine
a place
a space to dream upon

#13 Bekim & Merima

Chris Mansell quad #29 outstumped that

Roadmakers killed a beautiful tree to make way for the highway to bypass our town.
(And for non-Australian readers, the 'rainbow' in the third last line is not some fey poeticism, but part of the name of a Rainbow Lorikeet, a rambunctious, brightly coloured, gregariously cheerful bird common where I live.)

Jan Dean # 2 Swoosh

Swoosh

A long whistle pierces the night

preceding ka boom. I pull the blind

back far enough to view

fancyworks over on the hill

3-D mandalas of magical colour.

Memories of backyard fireworks

jump and skid. Festivities, so big

they sent fog

all over town. Only a few

midweek explosions reverberate.

Local legend says

the latest load of drugs is here.

Kerri Shying R # 120 the franchise men

the franchise men

there you are

the birth

of this fourth one

of your children

the last baby

you don’t see

under 9 months older

than this girl

here the mothers

overlap

the same words that were spoken

then hang around the wards

same wards

same town

same nurses

watching over the day

today she came to be

this girl let her live and

let her leave it

far behind let her

fly away to safer lands

where fathers play they

stay with children love them

no matter what you say

so the group sex was off the

table

it made you sour then

now

this piece of the triangle

new minted mother

best get the teddy on

or little girl

here may

overlap again

John Bennett #2 -

Ambition

Have caught up with yesterday’s John Cage letters on Music Matters BBC Radio 3 - wonders of internet radio. My interest was piqued by an old professor from Uni days Peter Dickinson being on. We took him for granted but he brought amazing musicians for us to discover c1974: Steve Reich, Copland, Peter Maxwell Davis, AMM . . .

Anyway, my ambition is to listen to Vexations a 4 minute piece repeated 840 times as Satie requested. Cage discovered the piece in 1949. The experience changed him for ever –but how to find the time to concentrate for 18 hours. I saw a performance at Sydney Uni 1981 that lasted 4 or 5 hours.

(I mention this in a short video on Satie pts1&2 ) [ambition: Wagner vs Satie]

For the first public performance in 1963. ‘Cage set the admission price at $5 and had a time clock installed in the lobby of the theatre. Each patron checked in with the clock and when leaving the concert, checked out again and received a refund of a nickel for each 20 minutes attended. "In this way," he told Lloyd, "People will understand that the more art you consume, the less it should cost." But Cage had underestimated the length of time the concert would take. It lasted over 18 hours. According to the 1971 edition of the Guinness Book of Records: The New York Times critic fell asleep at 4am and the audience dwindled to six. At the conclusion, one of them shouted "Encore!"’ (Wikipedia

From the garden, Flannel Flowers are covering the cliffs here.

Cui Yuwei 24#--lotuses

Cui Yuwei 24#--lotuses

lotuses

lotuses in the pond

distract her, high heels

sounding down the stone path

under her lacy tunic

rosy petals

toss of her hips

she, an over ripe

lotus flower

smells raw

《荷》

赏荷的上午

她走在我面前

细高跟踩在石板路上

黑色蕾丝外裙下

玫红花瓣

在她双臀上凸跳

一枝

过度生长的荷

飘来

肉香

Rob Schackne #133 - Words & Ideas

Words & Ideas

(letter to a former English teacher)

Sure. And you’ve got nothing better to do
than to read about poets in the madhouse
(whereas I’ll admit I’m quite delighted
that there are a good many situations I’d
prefer to be in) and it’s probably true people
are not the same. The same! Delete immediately.

I know all about your moments teaching
those young rascals how to think. To think!
Delete immediately. And it gives me hope
and broad pleasure (spread across my face)
to share a similar curious employment
searching for words & ideas that aren't there yet.

Sure. And how it's strange when poets
forget everything they know. The poets!
And I remember the sun on my fountain pen
when I daydreamed in class! Delete immediately.
Nothing else (I thought) than smart shapely women
or (failing that) the hundred poems to make the world crazy.

martyr 2

Kit Kelen #306.1 - celebrating the return of my camera (yd probably call it a phone)

Kristen de Kline #25 - Dark Dreams 2

Dark dreams 2

there were no dreams of electric sheep
when I left the first time
an adjoining terrace house
crumbled
crumpled
brick
by
brick
you could feel it trembling
through the shared walls

when I left the first time
steel twisted like an old-fashioned cork screw
drilling
down
into
fragments of burnt earth
flakes of ash, like resistant teardrops,
blowing in the wind
without answers without friends

when I left the first time
skyscrapers
tilted
toppled
like a 9/11 re-run:
Twin Towers paused for breath on the Flat Screen
you pressed down on the OFF button
pulled the cord out of the wall socket
the plane was still aiming for the second tower
an onlooker made a gurgle that wasn't quite a gasp
you heard a scratchy voice on the audio track:
Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God

Lizz Murphy - Poem 306: sunshine

Jan Mellinson steel sculpture (detail) in Pivotal at Belconnen Art Centre

sunshine

the crowded

footpath

outdoor

umbrellas sway

floating bird

shovels

bacon and eggs

porky legs

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Susan Hawthorne #305 Luna

Luna rises like the moon
behind a sky of clouds
she begins hidden soft
and when I hold her
I know this is it
she comes to our
house slips so easily
into routines and soon
she is creating new
routines for us at
four o'clock tools
down time for
the daily walk on the
beach there is no escape
she meets people and through
her new friends come into
our lives it is as if she
carries me on her
back and then one day
within one day all the lights
go out like a sudden new moon

lizard on a path

looking up, as they do

lungs like little bellows

(cold blood,

but it reminds me now

for no especial reason

of a steam engine I had as a kid

that broke and was never repaired

or replaced)

lizard waiting to bolt

thinking it is camouflaged from us

ironically I almost stepped on it at first

thinking it a stick

camouflage is not always

protection

I walk on

thoughtfully

Lucy Alexander # 63 Blue

Break the earthcrusting

blacken sunlight with shade

stems the shape of longing

exactly the width and malleable

like time there frisking the seconds

as they go by so many of them

so many bud heads molded

by time those long thin moments

so one day, just for the sunlit hours

there on top of the wiry stems

the sudden lotus, the blue of insight

the blue of enlightenment

gripped there by the thin stalk’s

own will power, gripped by longing

the tips of the petals pointed skylike

the rip of shade on the underside.