Rob Schackne #226 - The Body

The Body

                   "Are you really Doctor Wu?"

Its horrible politics
the practice of the body
how desire twists

an octopus cooked alive
till a small girl is horrified
the things she has to eat

from a cavity she whispers
how true is this desire

baby baby baby
gimme a private room
how much to consume her

girls in a cage
swimming in a sauce
a fat fuck paycheck

controls then destroys
destroys & disappears
none of it exists

before truth
where is our desire

a boy in a uniform
a dream of killing big ones
then the fever takes him

then a cavity from
the family screams
till they're empty

Nails # 57 Claine Keily

When I helped him
off with his coat
I could smell
winter under the
scent of limes
see the tags inside
glossy against the
thick black thread
rich with well known names
and see that there was even
a dying leaf
threaded into his
front pocket

Then he raked
my neck
with the ends of his
smooth fingers
as though I
were a painting
bought in an
expensive gallery
brought home to nail

Rob Schackne #225 - "This"

This opium dream
only two pipes in winter
to dry my wet heart

Kit Kelen #388 - Amnesia Day

388

Amnesia Day

there are days you could forget your disease

and some have never known

it must have been quite a blow on the head

to stagger with so stupidly

as if I had been led

it's left me with some certain things

and I know what is mine

let's not let the others in

they're always looking for a way

so jealous!

why can't they fend for themselves?

they can just fuck off

we celebrate this day together

no one's sure which day it is

who can recall the year?

can you remember how we got here?

forget who's the place was before

that can hardly matter

and anyway they're gone

or else they must have melded in

I wouldn't trust the bastards though

the playground's all ours now

Christ it's dry

in beer we trust

in spirits and in wine

still the name of a country creeps up

and when it's freshly ironed

you'll salute until you're silly

sing as if the words were yours

the anthem and the war and which

and whose and when and why (?)

none of these are questions really

it might as well be the cat's birthday

love to watch puss chase a mouse

and corner it and play

sit back and drink – we're up for a party

to slaughter, baptism and blood!

we can call it barbeque

we little lambs

are led to love

and smell that flesh to flame

a thirst!

don't sigh at me as if I'm dumb

I have a vote as well

and eyes off, gaarn, fuck off again –

this sausage here is mine

under the bonnet of my beast

a miracle brings me about

I've heard of a bloke who understood

but no one knows the weather

it's pretty well the same with food

you pick it off the shelf

it must have somewhere before

it's just the same with clothes and haircuts

some come like Christmas, dead of night

but I'm too busy to believe

I have an idea what day's now

and how to get to work

but not today

today's Amnesia

I'm blind with it as well

that waft of singed fleece

it's familiar

yes that's right

it's barbeque

does this country have a name?

well we can make it up –

let's say 'south' so no one knows

and that will be a secret

where were then we before we woke?

of course it's impolite to ask

foreigners have no manners

in beer we trust, in spirits, wine

in pills prescribed and otherwise

all the cash that's in my pocket

all the cash that's not

I wonder where it's from –

results!

they keep me on my toes

and I feel it in my heart

this land I know is mine

Christ I was so out of it

no idea how I got home

and dry in the morning!

what a mouth I had

give me a sea to girt

who wouldn't party for all of this?

who wouldn't sing along? 

 

Kerri Shying R - # 186 - Installing bars

Installing bars

I put up some baby gates to keep the dog out

of my work rooms   it cut off two thirds of the house

and he looked sad  but it was a necessity  he whispered

in my ear  you are the foot of Captain Cook

I  am not    I told him    you keep pissing on my papers

learn some manners   so each night we lay down

together in the same bed     this grudge of bars of

nomenclature   between us and this   this was the year I stopped

eating the animals   so now when I look at pictures

of recipes   maybe ones of   like roasts   all I see is

dead birds   I feel sad  now   the bars   the sadness

drunk people     and  all the ways to think of being

better than the next thing

hit  me like a brick 

 thrown overarm, and hard

First Weekends # 56 Claine Keily

They have not yet
moved in
and yet already
I am teaching them
of dark things
about the threats
of damp earth
in the tropics
and fires in dry weather
and they so young
purchasing rugs and
fairy lights
in a haze of first weekends

Kerri Shying R - # 185 - Desultory Day

Desultory day

touched upside the tendrils

 I am drawn inside the shell 

 this day  war takes my unsubstantiated

 body  all apart    into  quotes   spare parts  grades of

meat  assembled dis-mantled  here   I get the phone

 say yes    with gratitude    the offer of the shopping   Angela

put her hand up   when the call for the volunteers went out

 my social support day     fell today  

talk talk    talk the woman’s ear off  

her hubby out at Gilgandra   on a property  getting

didgeridoo  from the place   if no trees good   he will go up

round Brewarinna   we get my   door gates  stop my dog

from peeing in my workrooms   yarn it out    there are few

answers    how to take yourself  apart    all the while we put

it all together  make it   get it done

at the door  we smell the bbq  and it is good    on the road

we see the worst shirts  laugh and wonder

if anyone is happy for the ancestors

 those prisoners

  in dank chained bilges 

 forced to leave

  their homes

Béatrice Machet # 348 "AWAKENEDREAM"

# 348

Silence preceded you

beyond was something sluggish

awakenedream

Silence as forgetting

along with the dumb body

but let water run

on the skin and here it is

vibrant and forming

a melody  

with the flow.

Silence preceded you

and beyond the wind

I’ll go find you.

Page 6 page 60 whatever

the memory keeps no trace of this

but your steps in a book

I’ll see them. The letters

born from your life

will be the movement of

your body and beyond silence

its remote limits

at the bottom of syllables

like so many numbers and milestones

marks of oblivion and souvenirs as well

and beyond

silence preceded

unless

it was

a desire

without history

the word gets up

réveil encloses  rêve

how come then that the dream escapes

as soon as the eyes

open

an ordinary desire

Le silence te précédait

au-delà quelque chose d’endormi

réveil-êvé.

Le silence comme un oubli

et le corps engourdi

mais que l’eau coule

sur la peau et le voici

vibrant qui forme

mélodie

avec le courant.

Le silence te précédait

et au-delà du vent

j’irai te retrouver.

Page 6 page 60 qu’importe

la mémoire n’en a plus trace

mais tes pas dans un livre

je les verrai. Les lettres

seront le mouvement

de ton corps nées de ta vie

et au-delà le silence

ses limites reculées

au fond de syllabes comme

autant de nombres et de bornes

oublis autant que souvenirs

et au-delà

précédait le silence

à moins que

ce ne soit

un désir

sans histoire

se lève le mot

réveil il enferme le rêve

d’où vient alors qu’il s’échappe

aussitôt les yeux

ouverts

un désir sans histoire

Rob Schackne #224 - "Winter"

Winter a small buddha
floating near the cracked window
listening to this poem

Kit Kelen #387 - money is sleeping

387
money is sleeping

under your breath
under the pillow
if it's not one thing
it's another

money will be Christmas yet

one shape
one more
all colours come
finely engraved – it's art
each note numbered
and such heartfelt views
heads you have to trust

interest only compounds
the miracle

just think of it
and you'll be poor

safe as houses
gold in bricks
bid up to a fever pitch
what are you worrying for?

money is sleeping
wild nights!
what dreams!

casino chips
fools' plastic
months before you start to pay

at ten per cent
you could live forever
all ghosts have come
to think this way

it's in a pocket
now it's not

the magic rabbit is sleeping
in the headlights dazed
there's not a burrow safe

it's at the bottom of the harbour
it's all in pyramids
on horses
clip coupons
cash a pension cheque
your lucky number must come up

add value
and fly frequently
lay-by
and on delivery
who's a girl's best friend?
what is there that cannot be hocked?

everyone freaks out if it burns
or rots or flushes away

you can't take it with you though
give it all to beggars
to the cat protection mob
it goes off like a two bob watch
how much is your bucket of prawns today?

money is everywhere floating
it's on the front page as well
and behind the sport
it's all between the lines
in every asset class

zero-sum?
we just count higher!

on screens
it's faster than the eye

it's like an illness
and we all cough -up
bloat and waste away

that coin the Seven Sleepers had
it won't buy bread today

you see that tattoo
on my forehead
net worth – that's a total
as of now
five digits, six?
the scone must be widened
as in the case of some dubious ancestor

you'd like to think relative
but money is absolute

nations are a market
and every realm is coin

who is there won't salute?
scrimp, save
then let's rein in
and tighten someone else's belt

tax is famously evaded
as in the roaring days
but when you're down and out

money – you've got lots of friends

everything depends on
must not wake 

money is sleeping
ready to strike

it's the silence
that measures us all

Claine Keily #55 Ashes

She rarely wears high heels now
or dreams of dinner
in Manhattan
instead she drinks whiskey
nameless
beside a cabinet
in which are kept
her lover's ashes

In bookshops tiny
she insists
on dancing a tango
before she writes poetry
on the sidewalk
where it is ignored
by the passing strangers

Kit Kelen #386 - I am a small potato (effort to be a good man -- thinking of Rob's black hat sardine)

I am a small potato

death is coming fast

I say this in perfect health for my age

I say 'perfect' health

but there are certain reminders

time is throttling up

aches in the bones

there are rings in the ears

you can't set aside

I am a universe expanding

though this can't last long either

it's the weariness will get me

you explode or else you fall apart

yes I'll be ash to air or sinking

remembered for what while?

for what?

then no 'I' at all

none to say long since

so of these species gone

and planets tossed, lost stars

at least I won't have wasted

my time on a war

or believing that any lie's

larger than life

I won't have gone thinking

there was a destination

(hard as that idea is to blot out)

I like to imagine

on my little patch

the trees a hundred years beyond me

and someone still snout in the books

and eyes up

ferreting poems

from out of whatever

in every place that won't be mine

I hope to have lived each day

best as can

so friends

will recognize a loss

and in their short time

spare a thought

to speak of me

this way

Estate Claine Keily # 54

She worked to pay for
a house
near to a fine school system

On weekends
she could not afford
to go to the local
expensive solarium
so she sponged herself
in cooking oil
and lay in the
heat beside the
two car garage
and smiled
as she baked
remembering
the Realtor who had mentioned
that if she moved the rhododendron bushes
the garage could be
converted into an extra bedroom

Rob Schackne #223 - One Bad Man

One Bad Man

                        (after a photograph by Jack Picone)

a body stinks a cycle of change
after which it quickly goes to hell
the victims stay keening to the side

one Bad Man swims to its next life
in a giant sardine thrown in with the dirt
warlord rapist murderer pimp

spitting of course derides the horror
there is chanting and there is silence
and there are drums to alert the spirits

there is shame it wasn't sooner stopped
sorrow they couldn't punish it enough
what it did and what it may do again 

some hope their tears are not wasted
as they wonder why it earned a plot
in this earth where it caused so much pain

the people throw rubbish and piss
all the shit they no longer want
into the empty hole

Painting by numbers # Claine Keily 51

On rooftops now
she strings quilts
under television antennas
while her son
sells combs and shawls
to those who live
beneath the crooked stairwell
and, who like this mother
despite no reward
believe in a house
kept spotless
and soaked in vinegar
while her daughter
disappoints them all
as she never collected
those glass domes
filled with scenes
of the nativity
or learnt to paint by numbers

Best of All Possible Worlds

This article was originally published in 'Noel' Magazine, 2016 

There was a family we used to know, who unfortunately carried an annual Christmas ritual too far. They were originally from the rural areas of their country: a business executive and his talented, home-making wife, partners of greatness on an upward social trajectory. When I was young I took them at their word, at face value, not knowing much about sociology or class distinction or any of those realities of which we are all now acutely aware.  They were attractive, charismatic and ambitious. He was on his way to becoming a CEO, and she was hostessing wonderful dinner parties and keeping the perfect home beautifully, and involving herself in art appreciation classes and creative decoration. All was well, between us, for many years. Until the Christmas Letters started coming. I recently discovered them all in a bundle, while clearing out boxes of papers from the garage a couple of months ago, and marvelled at the social documentary, the slice of life, they provided.  At some point in the 1980s and 90s, this family started to seriously climb the social ladder in the society of the City in which they had finally settled. There was a photograph inserted into one of the letters which showed them with their teenage children, smiling in their garden, having drawn large circles in chalk inside which they stood, embracing each other. 'We are moving in only the best  circles!' was the caption, handwritten on the back of the photograph.  Perhaps the concept of Christmas Letters was culturally specific to that country, so kindly bear with me while I explain. When people start extending themselves socially, and their contact list grows, it becomes very difficult for them to write to everyone individually, to 'keep in touch' at Christmas time, with Season's Greetings and festive wishes and so forth. Time is money, so their real relationships fade, and business relationships of the 'win-win' variety take their place. There is no time to meet up during the week or the year, so their relating takes the form of an exchange of curriculum vitae: a sort of festival of interfacing resumes.  The business world emphasises the effective use of time and effort, so to avoid the tedium of writing the same information over and over again, this family started to summarise their activities over the year into a Christmas Letter: itemising the best experiences they had had throughout the year that had just passed. This transformed into a 'Best Of' list of overseas trips, events and cultural activities which showcased their own blossoming forays and awakenings. Best Films Seen. Best Books Read. Best Restaurant Meals Eaten.  The items omitted from this summary I have, over the years, come to see as the real substance of a person's life: the failures, the fears, the internal journeying required by the occurrence of tragedy, of unenvisaged loss, of unexpected betrayal. The kind of event that Premium life or Platinum health insurance cannot generally cover. The CEO took up golf, (of course); they joined their local Country Club, and started fine dining, during which they developed their palates to enjoy and speak with familiarity about European cuisine. Walking tours of Tuscany and the great gardens of England, France and Italy followed. Tracing their development year by year, via the annual family roundup, it became clear that they had become shameless braggarts. Updating their acquaintances in detail, annually, about how progressive and productive they were being throughout that year. Celebratory self-congratulation.  Twenty years before the onset of selfies and the celebrity-style promotion of surfaces and sheen inherent in modern urban living, this family were pioneers in self-portraiture. Creating a sort of family brand.  The tremendous self-approval that all this revealed was remarkable to those outside the corporate world. But in the circles in which they now moved, the inhabitants went to gyms with names like 'The Winning Edge', and attended professional development courses with titles like 'The Unfair Advantage', to help them re-calibrate themselves and deal with the spiralling stress levels they were experiencing. They had, along the way, inevitably started to value everything in life according to a financial estimate of investment and expected return. 'Look out for Number One' was actual advice they gave others, with absolutely no sense of irony. This was my first vision of the compulsive competitiveness and posturing and positioning apparently required to 'count for something' and 'make your mark' in the 'best circles'. Year after year, the Christmas Letters  came, with the bullet points of humble bragging making their indelible impact on their recipients.  We gave the family the benefit of the doubt for as long as we could, but eventually the generic and impersonal nature of the relationships they preferred started to grate on our sense of what real relationships were about. Christmas to me was a time for virtue signifying: helping out at the soup kitchen for the homeless, without telling anyone about my participation except the organisers, hearing the wonderful old songs sung by charity choirs, and baking shortbread and mulling wine for two, and re-reading Christmas stories like 'The Little Match Girl' and 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe'.  The vast smorgasbords and all you can eat buffets left me cold, in the air-conditioned palaces of luxury hotels. The 'proud display of life' was a phrase from the Bible that came vividly to me when I re-read those Christmas Letters, in their entirety, with the benefit of retrospection. Sometimes, people allow themselves to become saturated by this kind of pride.  Please understand! I love Christmas hampers, filled with good things. But I find as the years pass that the commercialism of the values which are now pre-ordered and gift-wrapped and presented to us as 'traditional' are not ones which appeal to me at all. A few years ago, we gently intimated to this family that we would like to NOT be included in the vast mail-out of their annual Christmas Letters.  We loved them as people, we greatly admired their many escalating achievements, but they were no longer the people we used to know. The way they had commodified the sacred holiday and turned it into an opportunity for self-promotion was alienating. And they were not alone, in this. The whole world turns into a noisy festival of join-the-dots emotion, plastic sentimentality, and push button euphoria, an annual orgy of conspicuous consumption, resulting in a kind of global, community-induced coma.  Summing up, I reject the flurry of emojis currently available to us, to try to express what the ceasing of these Christmas Letters  means to me. The genuine compassion I feel today, for that family whose festive epistles we at last unsubscribed from, is my own version of the true Christmas spirit.

Robert Verdon, #427, dream of Jane Citizen

I heard voices in my dream

el pueblo unido jamas sera vencido

equal quality or equal lack of quality?

votes alone do not bring butter or guns

jackboots and kittens do not mix

thoughts whirl like windscreen glass

tomorrow they may be snowflakes

 

later dreams were Leonard Cohen poems

and raindrops on plexiglass

then I was a dust mote

dancing on a banjo head …

Kerri Shying R - # 184 - The Sisyphus of the Scrapheap

The Sisyphus of the scrapheap

The Sisyphus of the scrapheap I push

my little barrow    push    push   wheel

the daily squeal uphill  it is in fact all one level

once you get up the four punishing steps

at the front door you see the art think hey

this has potential    like all the other Sisypheans

pushing pushing on the handles  hey those blisters

what do you put on them   I dig the splinters out with hairpins

paw paw that’s the best    I had a tube round here

the real paw paw    always one in every crowd

today   oh and how many times have I written this   said

this   thought that word   how many times for you

think it once   it ricochets inside the hollow bone the skull

today    just full of empty promises  right right

wrong  the barrow   now full of the stuff to put

back   the stuff to throw away   the stuff to

give away    has me flat out   the proverbial

lizard drinking   on my flat hill   the polished boards of

the house of making your own bed then laying on it

reading    this is the Sisyphus of the scrapheap

I push my little barrow   push push push

wheel