Kit Kelen #935 child abuse (going back to Gaza)

935
child abuse
(going back to Gaza) 

 


so cute
but I can see the uniform is a little itchy

18, 19 I guess
from Haifa
no, not going home
going back to Gaza
sad, it's worry

tells me about tickets
waits till I'm safely on the bus

she watches the cameras
in English it's hard to say
the insignia, the epaulettes are a puzzle

I teach her the word 'surveillance'

Kerri Shying R # 483 everyone of us shadowing the summer

I took this misery    outside   a walk will do you good

it dragged feet   not wanting    to have blue sky

the flowers  in their pots     for competition  

on this cold day    knocked on every door

the Allen key of pain twisted here and there

everyone of us   shadowing the summer

version of ourselves   letting clothes fall

where they may   sloth     the piled-up leaves

unraked     I took  this misery  into the clean

I said    tell it to the cauliflower    your moans

unheard  by her white veins    until you’re done

Rob Schackne #713 - Are You Alright

      Are You Alright

          
          Let me walk out

          along the beach

          on sandy sticks
          a makeshift bridge

          towards the edge

          of distant waters
          to stand on stilts
          to sit in my mind

          and contemplate

          the darkening clouds

          the gathering wind

          and my companion

          who waits below

          who sings out

          are you alright

                      photo: Gilbert Garcin

Ken Trimble #43 Shadows and light

Tumbleweeds in the subway
covered by shadows and light
rainy day morning in the
Strathbogie hills
as the train moves past
photographic images dripping
of winter.

A poet writes his soul down
on a napkin with a smoke
and beer

And the shadows and light
are greeted by a young deer
laughing freely without
condition playing with her
fairy folk friends.

The old man looks defeated
seeking heavens and mercies.

The train rocks it song
pass my hometown
a place I left for words
and ideas.

And the difference I sought
is no different from the factory
heart I thought to disappear

Coffee in Carlton taste the same
as here except maybe cheaper.

Travels merge to blur
as the train crosses the river
where you smelt the stink
of the tannery crawl
up your nose.

A soaring Kwan Yin
reaches upwards trying
to catch the sky

our lady of compassion.

The Kings and Queens
of the city wait patiently
for her arrivals covered by
a multitude of shadows
and light.

Kit Kelen #934 - apotheosis - Béla's fate

934

apotheosis

Béla's fate

1944

the Americans are coming

then the radio is taken

a ghost is like a cloud

all vanishing

look up!

and look around yourself

you won't know who

you never know when spite

in the last war

so kind the American prisoners

Christmas we gave them presents

then White Terror, Red Terror

some things in life you won't opt out

in this sun the buttons shine

the buckles

death is a starched uniform

a bullet could take generations

it won't matter that you served

1944

the Germans are here

the Soviets are coming

the Arrow Cross in charge

you think overcast, even teeming

but it's autumn already

bright, crisp

no radio

but we know

the Americans are coming

the Germans have left

so many trains went with them

whole quarters emptied

now a ghetto

the Russians will be here

it was a bright clear day that one

the Arrow Cross in charge

I witness

but I don't know what

no running at the end

more like a dentist's waiting room

though nowhere to sit, no magazines

short sharp

you see the others go

I'm here surviving just to say

the river will wash us all down

looked up to a little cloud

and just a wisp away

it was a bright clear day

Rob Schackne #712 - Used Clothing

Used Clothing

Used clothing, provenance
usually less examined than
penury or need. Costs a little
lasts a lot, how many wears
did it get anyway, good looking
whoever the jacket came from
and today your feat of empathy
deadman’s pyjamas, perfected

machine wash, take in the waist
loosen the noose, shorten the leg
providence isn't the city on the hill
an article wears someone for 100 years

Ken Trimble # 42 You

The time your finger touched the key
I breathed in the light and the second time
your finger touched the key I became a space
only weirdness would understand,
it was over, it was, and I was, and you
were over, and that earth you saw
plastered on my wall, I can only sigh
for I was there, and I touched
the star that bought you to me,
and I felt my dance as night
exploded into light
and all around spoke the arc
of night and I wept for
I saw things you will never know,
and the pain I've caused
makes me dream of you, and you,
and you, and you, and you, and you,
till everything becomes
You.

Kit Kelen #933 - time immemorial or to be observant

933

time immemorial

or

to be observant

makes a kind of landscape

full of promises broken and kept

I forget there's so much to remember

a flag and you can sing it too

it's like the wishlist you call Santa

or you call God to you

I always remember I have to forget

this pisses off the deity

but what is there to do?

salute

so much I have to forget

I have to remember

it's what I do

the shopping

for instance the milk and the honey

join all these dots

and you'll have a border

wadi

where the water falls

stare hard

the wall goes up

turns us into

a souvenir

then under the dust

and trash and gone

sombre music

wipe a tear

promised

I promise to remember

healing

like the wound over time

I forget

so much

in order to remember

that I have to forget

sometimes

I forget

to forget

this always leads to trouble

then I remember sometimes

it never lasts for long

but I was chosen for the task

a stretch from sleep

but the dream forgets me

God's angry

I can't remember why

wake up to myself then

I remember to remember

to forget

have to forget

what's in front of my nose now

forget myself as well

but all of this just so as to remember

on a clear day

carry me over the river

then you will see who we are /// then you will know who I am

coda

I am the happy Australian

(that's south made something, someone

from what happened to be here)

trust me I'm very good at

forgetting who was here before

forgetting where I'm from

Rob Schackne #711 - "A poem in here"

A poem in here
somewhere he said
you could be right but why do
crows sometimes fuck their dead
birds are strange he said
nothing is out of bounds
you can do it or I can do it
hell no use writing a bad one
but they’ve got the magic
they can stop your spells
then better you do it he said

Kit Kelen #932 - Yad Vashem

932

Yad Vashem

so many of mine

of my little name

so many misspellings

ways to say

so little to know

and still

in photographs

nobody is anymore

everyone is here

it's like the train

and we're choofing along

just minding our own

yes you could call it business

how full of life and love!

and bitter, in hunger and in thirst

in loss, the nameless of the picture

ambiguous as I to them

in the future they are not to know

those Nazis seem so always angry

I don't think the drugs are helping

you put your finger on the glass

and that's as close as touch

faces of the trauma

tricked, gone smiling unknown to a death

it was this anonymity

invisible it was and is

such a little name

so many

not all written down

and what do I say to them now?

I wasn't there

I didn't know

there was nothing I could do

Rob Schackne #710 - Inventory (2)

  Inventory (2)

   So many dreams
   are carried hard
   to know where
   to begin hard
   all you have
   are the words
   to paint the cracks
   which grow wilder
   laughing at what
   won't translate
   the gap is wide
   the hard heavy
   hand points away
   disregard it all
   it keeps going
   there's an appointment
   with the past
   one more poem
   another sleep

James Walton # 106 A once in a hundred years

Event. The wind has its

voice. Trees are in the freeway.

Roller derby shove, then sky

Araucana. Shifting technologies

run for explanations. Rain says

I hold you all, I hold nothing.

They’re singing Joni Mitchell.

Five women. The Concert Hall

a Ferris wheel. Holding on

O Canada. Grip for the road

a river to skate away on.

And we’re falling, into words.

There’s a moment transcribed.

Woodstock. She plays the air

in vocal trapeze. The audience

a mirror of peeping hearts, palms

half a million strong. Feathers

on the winter night. Getting back.

Traveling, traveling, traveling.

Home. Out of the city, humming

Big Yellow Taxi as we come

to the bridge a truck has gone over.

Oh, I could drink a case of you darling

and I would still be on my feet. Always

as long as a life as short as a century.  

Ken Trimble # 40 Maybe not haiku

Your eyes
went
wandering

Fingers touched
the page

Curiously erotic
sigh
over coffee

This is good
you said

Vicki Viidikas
come on down

See that
it's pure
haiku

I guess you still
like blackbirds
they remind me
of you

those hips that swing
those lips that part.

White moon
on black canvas
come home

Well okay maybe
its not haiku

Rob Schackne #709 - "You're off your trolley"

You’re off your trolley
intriguing composition
I see the rust mmm
who are these passengers
why do they carry so much
they check the bags
the wobbly wheels
the supermarket blues
the down side is up
you delivered us the past
where are the sweets
outside the gates of Eden
how do I get home

Rob Schackne #708 - "My engines"

               My engines
               faring poorly
               in the storm
               I opened 

               the window
               but could 

               hardly see
               where things were
               when finally

               I put down
               on the sands
               I needed
               to dream
               of water
               and poetry
               and you

Kristen de Kline #214 And again ...

+
I tried writing
about postcards and light
but you find a way in
was it those neon skies
we sheltered under
when you threw your arms
around me
or the shredding of your finger
while you finely
grated the Parmigiano
whose blood is this

+
when I woke
I was saturated
in dreams
and tears   
you were screaming
in stereo:
take it back
I never meant it

+
down at Lakeside
men scrub their Webers
a kid on a too-small bicycle
knocks me off track
women in pink tracksuits
sit on their decks
drinking white wine
from plastic tumblers
waving off those dumb flies
we can't get rid of

+
you say I'm good at forgetting:
spinning limbs
flashing lights
catapulting wheels
all the things
that went wrong
in that bar
in the Cross
what did I know about love

+
you recite poems
weighed down
by heavier hearts
by darker days
splashing drops of Grange
across my laptop
feeding me Instagram photos:
fresh lobster
rusted out car bodies
starched napkins
stained with merlot
how did we get here

+
standing on that balcony
in the Honolulu hotel
you wrapped
your arms
around my torso
those arms, your
arms, they gnaw
their way
into every damn poem
I never meant it
what the hell am I on
whose blood is this
where does it end

Kit Kelen #931 - chosen

931

chosen

for special irony duties

so I am the tribe of this trope

tried out for innocent bystander

but they wouldn't have me

look into a pool

there's no reflection

I was always there

just where I am one

I am many

just where there's the sun

I shine

can't get enough of the stuff

imperishable

but not to be worshipped

a little water's nice

I was a kind of vine once

it's not every day you're chosen –

but victim either way

it's like that word 'solution'

how many states?

how bored the guards

who turn on the gas

and God yawns too

considers his choice

but it's irony wins every time

by Job!

that Moses took his tablets –

look where it's got us

you have me there

but here I am

it takes no thought, this fascination

I always slip away

you can still hear me, right?

I was the one chosen to show

the symbol of annihilation –

my flag of destiny, my hope

Rob Schackne #707 - "Sitting outside"

Sitting outside
having a beer
and a quiet smoke
looking at
the white clouds
I'm easily
daydreaming
of a translation
listening to
the guns pound
Puckapunyal
their training day
their country
it's a Thursday
the cockies screech
what the fuck
is it any wonder
transforming
a $5000 shell
into dirt we say
we need another drink

KenTrimble #39 Iberian blues

Romancing Barcelona
dancing tangos in the
Ramblas
drinking sangrias .

We had our books
our music
our love
our heroin
waltzing through
white light
dawn to dusk
and back to dawn
as we set off trying to
find Miguel.

Crossing deserts of
wonder we watched
black robed monks
bloody in prayer
carrying Christ
on their backs.

We never had much
money time
was our enemy.

We were the
children of the
blue sky
and when you
touched me I felt
a revelation go
through my bones.

We swam in oceans
sang Iberian blues
placing stones
of hope along the
way and as the journey
got closer to it's end
I could hear a man
speaking beatitudes .

I got down on
my knees
while you took
a photograph
of this crazy

and then just at that
moment she said look,
there she was, the great cathedral
Santiago de Compostela.

In we went,
the great thurible swinging
through the air
showering us with frankincense
and you looked at me
my devious angel
as if to say
how good is this.

Ken Trimble # 38 Dreaming Mexico Dreaming Frida

Writing and painting have no difference
you wait on a blank canvas muse,
in the mud and slime, and an idea blows on by.

Maybe you catch it, maybe you don't ,
if you do suddenly the seed becomes
the flower,

and then you are Stein in Paris,
Hemingway on a bender,
F. Scott Fitzgerald's tortured soul.

Corso's gasoline's wry pasta,
Ann Waldman's beat  lips,
Frida's hallucinogenic mind.

Swimming with lonely catfish
in a gringo river.

I want to shake you out of my brain
but I can't .

Love is like a death watch
when things sour

And I know you dream of Frida
as she was

dreaming Diego's perfect
box of hummingbirds

that last moment before
the fire.

Rob Schackne #706 - "Boys we mostly"

Boys we mostly
tied things up

to stop them 

moving away
girls found other uses
learnt to skip and leap
and chant their rhymes
we learnt to cuss
unpickable knots
the burn and lash of rope
we started climbing
we faced away
from the drops
we hung by ropes
and shouted for
take in and slack
and only slowly
did we come back
and find our rhythm

Kit Kelen #930 - state of

930

state of

equanimity and poise

constant aggression

placid content (cow kind)

paranoid neurosis/delusion

intoxicated with saying the self

state of religious euphorics

ambivalent anger

and who am I?

Nazi gangster can't-beat-em joinery

sweet innocence and so sincere

grudges make us ancient

police state

of firm decision

of victimhood

as if a whole Bible had been done to you

just so we all could be holy

and don't you dare touch my religion

I have to pass it on... it's sexy

state of perpetual mistrust, unrest

precious little precipitation

a state of touristic excitement

(we've only just arrived, who knows how long this time?)

state of having been wronged for so long by forever

so sorry for ourselves

must not apologize

state of able to do no wrong

state of heightened fear

authoritarian state with terror neither here-nor-there

but ye know not the hour

state disagreeing with itself

(call that democracy)

us them and them meet us

state of what is it they fucking want?

state of we will find the cure

state of the hope in the heart

keep in mind

sing

we are not the ones we were

we're not the same people

we are

it's only then

the ghost gives up

one day the whole of this world will vanish

then I will be true

Kerri Shying R # 482 everyone insists is a comet from the blue

ask her   did she remember picking out the earrings

for the funeral    what a question   like I  offered

her the choice of an  almond or a  pickled onion    I know

it is the long  reflection   of yourself     dressing

that stamps  the ordinary  on what

 everyone insists is a comet from the blue

that and    the searching for the iron    little bit of work

I hoped she’d see me off  in the blue silk crepe skirt

that light linen jacket   and a pale    ever so pale

green  batiste blouse   wear the opal earrings   be  a little

on the bright side       I’d do the same for her

Ken Trimble # 37 I like watching the sea.

Well I moved out
of the house
cause the kids
thought I was too
old.
They were right
I found a place
called the Hub.
I was heading to
India anyway
and this was just
short term.
The woman showed me
my room, she said,
'I don't want
any trouble',
I must have
looked bad or
mad.
She showed me
where the toilets
were,
a turd
was sitting
perhaps
a good foot
from the base
like someone had
specifically
placed it there.
I had a good look,
no, this was no
joke.
Next morning
I thanked the woman
and headed to
St.Kilda.
I think I went
there because
of the ocean,
I like watching
the sea,
it feels
clean.

Kerri Shying R # 481 each a sonar ping to tease my tongue it's salt

so hard to shake those three grains of salt   alone

on to the fish   the batter hard   a bubble   popped

cartoon of the eye      below     the butter tongue

of  velvet underwear  protects the flesh   I want

the grains   one on every  surface  solo artists

each a sonar ping   to tease my tongue  it’s salt

that holds it all together   from the first kiss

to the last   a stitch  made firm    required  by

hygiene    all the brine that slithers by    with

 birth  in tears    attendant to the stubbing

of the toes   I have salt enough    to spare

Kit Kelen #929 - why tribe?

929

why tribe?

one pile of me here

another pile there

I put on my glasses

already on

and my hat

how much magnification can I stand?

the sun burns a hole

through which we can see

I am a tourist in this skin

I am a traveller in my own blood

the thing on its head is the best way to view

one thing meant this

but God meant another

the heroes were all fists

hands of a held sword

nobody you could trust

not a thing but prophetic

I hide to be a tourist here

fool not to pass on

trumpet music

and here comes a wall

tumbling, tumbling

the medicine of pogrom centuries

once you've learned the secret

all in over our heads

the country surviving only in symbols

I will survive that too

another blast of the horn

one skin peels off and I think of a snake

consider myself as plague of locusts

when I could be myself

get together with

we could start an existence

has to have been some medieval torture

to stretch me into the shape you see

I bring with me someone lost to find

that's a very normal thing in these parts

and as for myself, for my own belongings

I come as close as words

Ken Trimble # 36 Mud

She blessed me around midnight
in the blood and excrement
under the blood moon to the invisible
sounds of dogs chained
to their wheel of barking dystopia.

Broken foot

I was in the middle  of a goddam
beauty pageant and not even that
gave me pleasure

Broken foot

He blessed me
his Californian hands holding my head
in beatific prayer  Jesus saves
he thundered as I sat between the pain
and lust, and all I thought about
was having sex one last time before
I die.

Broken foot

The man in the horror of horrors
where every lost soul beat at the door
to hell blessed me with
don't worry, everything is going
to be cool, his prayer
I dug the most.

Kristen de Kline #213 Forget the hour

Forget the hour I couldn't get out of.
The  carriage on M Train jammed.

The cowboy talking
about writing 
about nothing.

Rain falls.
Shit happens.

You toss and turn.
I turn and toss.

She walks the streets for money.
Doesn't care if it's right.
Or if it's wrong.

We talk shit to the White King.
Flirt with the Red Queen.
Run away from the Mad Hatter.

There was a sun
somewhere here.
It was dead
and black.
And the loitering clouds
they screamed
through the darkness.

Out you walked
unscathed.
Your hands
waving in the air
like a white flag.

Kit Kelen #928 - a novelty people

928

a novelty people 

 

are you a name

in the room of voices?

no one's in particular

but all around us here

a novelty people

thing of what was done

and fell asleep for a thousand years

and another thousand slept

each clings to his her own confusion

came into a poem

like this

just to be

come into our own song

a pile of shoes

could remind you of Jews

and the good fairy was the one we called God

or else you don't say

my lost family

will you help to see them in my eyes

an outline of anyone's trees

would the dead not be speaking

had death not been done to them

and one more trick

it's only by the end of the world we're allowed

wreck of a place still to be built

as a child I lived near where the wall would be

and I feel safer there

now only the wall stands up for me

what a lovely absence we make

James Walton #105 Twelve megawatts to evening

a fox so cruel

in its beautiful unmercy

where black swans

trawl beyond mine shaft warnings

a mob of grey roos

languid as a marinade

scratch at rear thighs

old gardeners resting

on a cushioning rake

the wind turbines

obelisks in need of a pharaoh

sift the sky for a language

only written in stone

at the end of the trail

all this thirsting water

the hospital helicopter

skims a stitching reverberation

on the mid-winter tide

this is a place to lie down

between shaking centuries

let something run away with me

into a chiaroscuro frame

Kit Kelen #927 - take it lying

927

take it lying 

 

there is a wall

and a well

and a tell

things with their no particular order

but sunshine is catching too

under the bed

rabbit of childhood

worn out with wars and with peace undeclared

it's only in these eyes

only these soft cloth eyes in the heart

you can see the gone all piled up here

possessions for who they were

dogs to bark are all beginning

ours is a book all for possession

after the ordeal of flight

it's only the journey's my forever

like all night waking in the dream

to know that we're not really here

must wake myself up with

these messengers

of the other world

bring light to my ears

Ken Trimble #35 What a wonderful world

There was so much beauty
walking through the redwoods
with the one you love.

And then there's the beauty
of the streets; that jazz
of street kitchens who fart
and stink.

The trans in their fishnets
The junkies shooting up
while waiting in line
The old man who talks
about his imaginary
woman
The ex monk come
alcoholic who talks in
Latin  while
having his soup.

This is the beauty
of the streets of sorrow,
sadness, and violence
where desperate mystics
come and go.

Then you turn on the tv
and while your eating your
meal and drinking your
wine
you see a news report
from Yemen
and the children
whose bones are on
the outside
instead of the inside
and their little faces
look ready to burst,
like watermelons;
imagine that pia mater
those parents of bloody brain
all over your nice shirt
and still you have time for
wine.

It's all so wonderful
like that Louis Armstrong
song.

And you know
watching those
poor, starving, dying
kids, I felt
revulsion,
and yet,
I continued my meal
and drank my
wine.

I'm just like
everyone else,
the thing is,
you think,
your different.

Rob Schackne #705 - Inventory

   Inventory
    
    Ants carrying
    terrorist caravans
    backpack turtles
    and what I carry
    apart from clothes
    some dosh a comb
    my pocketknife
    right front pocket
    in the blue chute
    laptop phone
    notebook and pen
    window wipers
    another story
    military toothpick
    antacid tablets
    shirt pocket right
    reading glasses left
    a poem folded up
    in my wallet that
    a friend gave me
    called Mahakala
    what is glory
    left front pocket
    my loose change

Ken Trimble # 34 Chill

Do you remember when
you disappeared into
the mountains

We'd worry like crazy
waiting for you wondering
where the hell you were

And then there you came
smiling like you were the cat
who just got the cream

You'd been resting
by the lake
chilling with the
birds

Laughing at this
absurdity we call
world

No prayers or God
could do you
justice

I planted a tree
nearby for you
so the birds could
come.

Ken Trimble # 33 These are the days of wild things.

Oh these wild things of summer we do in a place
as strange as W Tree.
Eight years ago our farmer neighbour Fred
known as Krishna gave a flock of sheep a chance
to live their lives in peace.

No mint sauce on lamb here. Sixty five sheep
grazed in a nearby field guarded by
two alpacas Cheech & Chong and one
big brown horse, Charley.

A ceremony was held by a Tibetan lama ,
so with heat soaring six sweat soaked men
went on a round up to take them to
another paddock.

We lived in the pure land
Amitofo! Amitofo!

We cajoled them with shouts of, 'come on,
come on', waving our arms like windmills
with the sun baking our skin running through
grass up to our waist as Charley ran free
guiding them through gates and onto country
roads.

Charley this wild thing was the sheepherder
as it charged through the bush.
This was an Australia I never knew being
a city boy.

I was just a kid from Sunshine
and there ain't no horses there.

As I write  from my window I can see the
fortunate flock grazing on a disused field,
these are the days of wild things.

Rob Schackne #704 - Diddy-Wa-Diddy (after K.K. & K.T.)

Diddy-Wa-Diddy

The namelessness
recalled to heart
the fire & the stars
the vanishing

except for what
stayed in the mind
in the beginning
there was the act
there was no act
then to make the air
breathable again
all of us here

Kit Kelen #926 - a vanishing, no act

926

a vanishing

no act

wound to be

it's like an egg goes off

lit to be lost

and I myself am gone

a shell and have the beach with me

a beach and have the sea

cloud of us come

the currents

windscreen

a salt drop chase like

wrecked here

lost to our all devices

once before we were for dust

all of the crossings

and crossings out

someone was a voice

not even neither are we then

you drown in it

awkward to the touch this hope

you'll get that with being far

time has a certain weight up close

it pools

and you're humbled with here to be

all of the wrongs to come to here

and this wrong

we sleep through

you only ever knew the eyes

it's another life

we look into

will it be the namelessness

recalls me to your heart?

be creature in the eyes then

nothing but to make a world

if I had a fire I'd tell it by nights

to stars, to moon, till true