Kit Kelen – #minus 1 – responding to Andrew Burke's 'Taking Flight'

imagine me made of mist

(foreshadowing a year of flying)

in the bones

do you feel it?

the void is substantial

below, behind

here, reader

I am in your hands

we're equally invisible

I am already aloft afloat

I am falling

I am in your hands

the sky is the mind

I see from the window seat

consider parts of the fleece

bright and dark

the sorter's bin

clouds are a manner of speech

wherever your feet are

that's the way

I surrender

from inside a cloud

miracle of perspex is nothing

I pile out through that camel's eye window

start my religion this way

Belgrave Ladies

women laugh, drink dark

dark ales, talk of marathons

what's past what's now what's next

The day before the beginning before the first..test

Sculpture - Lizz Murphy

sculpture

honey ant on the eye

my mascara run

Free Haiku - Yao Feng

It’s  so sweet here

but the sugar must go home

Snowing on the road

Iris Fan – Testing 123

a poem series about the colour green

Green

/ 

is our dimension
nothing but dry land beyond
embraced by green embraces us

Lies Van Gasse - test

Ik vroeg me af of je nog langskwam,
er bleef geen plaats meer in je afdruk

I wondered if you would stop by
there was no room for someone in your footprints

The best of sentences

I had a pet mongoose in Lahore
she said
and I laughed out loud
for the joy of such a sentence
in which everything was said
and nothing more was needed
but she smiled a little nervously
in my direction
and continued on
to describe a long life in
quoll and quenda sanctuaries
and bandicoot bandaging

I remained caught by this sentence
which formed
an entire memoir of itself
a sentence which even Dickens
could not have found
to better start a novel
It was the best of sentences

and while she talked I laughed again
at that old joke about plurals.
please sir can I have a mongoose
and by the way
can I have another

making sure I have conquered my fear

am I on the right track
shall I keep playing or will I  kill
danger or bravery as I push on
we shall see
I am older now and can accept most things
maybe

image test

perseverance test

TAKING FLIGHT - Andrew Burke

I step on the plane
           and turn my will
and my life
           over to the care
of the pilot

as I did five years ago
           on the theatre table
with a squad of
           surgeons sharpening
their blades.

Big moments of trust in life!

Moonlight shines off
           the starboard wing.

~

Coltrane plays
            in the clouds
adding to
            the turbulence
plane flying
            straight through
cloud white fleece -
            clashing cymbals ...

I edit on
           a Qantas napkin


ANDREW BURKE

Test entry:
I am in Collected Works Bookshop in Melbourne. Kris Hemensley is lounging on a bean bag at my feet. He speaks to me. I don't know what he is saying. It could be Are you laughing? or Are you leaving? or Are you lava? The others in the room are setting up a white screen over the shelving for Australian poets. I leave before the screening, still wondering what it was Kris said.

Test Post #2 Possible template

Jan 1, 2016

Anna Couani

Glebe shops - etching

Haiku

plastic stars lit up
the window and summer rain
opposite, Glebe shops

Project 366 - Kit Kelen - Test Post #1

starting where I am --

Boubouki Poem Drafts

Mesana Village, Paphos District Cyprus

a first impression
it looks like a country for snakes
(could be home)

there's grass would
crackle into fire

it smells like summer in November
that's how I find my hat

at first I wonder if I'm even here
I will be footsteps unheard passing

fruit of the prickly pear also prickly
all sorts of thorns

and unknown vines have tiny spines too
that must be how you get on here

muffled cock crow and a creak of hinges
tin rusts that was a roof

toothless man with stick plods by
and nothing to my kalimera

the Kronos Express cruises down the main street
I'm guessing a special delivery

what is that tiny bird swings through
under vines in a courtyard glimpse?

I go a little way uphill
at the edge of the village

come to an oak much older than me
that's where I'll seek advice

*


1 

πεζός για μια πρώτη εντύπωση

μοιάζει με τόπο φιλόξενο για φίδια
(θα μπορούσε να ‘ναι πατρίδα)

χορτάρι που θα
 κροτάλιζε στη φωτιά

 μυρίζει καλοκαίρι Νοέμβριο μήνα
 κι έτσι βρίσκω το καπέλο μου

 στην αρχή διερωτώμαι αν βρίσκομαι καν εδώ
 θα ‘μαι βήματα περαστικά που κανείς δε θ’ ακούσει 

καρποί ακανθώδους φραγκοσυκιάς κι αυτοί ακανθώδεις 
κάθε λογής αγκάθια 

κι άγνωστα αμπέλια με αγκαθάκια επίσης
έτσι μάλλον επιβιώνει κανείς εδώ 

υπόκωφο κικίρισμα και τρίξιμο από μεντεσέδες
σκουριασμένο μέταλλο που ‘ταν κάποτε σκεπή 

φαφούτης άντρας με μπαστούνι περνά κούτσα-κούτσα 
και στην καλημέρα μου τίποτε 

το Kronos Express διασχίζει βιαστικά τον κύριο δρόμο 
ειδική διανομή νομίζω

τι ‘ναι αυτό το μικρό πουλί τραμπαλίζεται
κάτω από κληματόφυλλα σε κλεφτή ματιά μιας αυλής;

ανηφορίζω λίγο 
προς την άκρη του χωριού 

φτάνω σε οξιά πολύ μεγαλύτερη από μένα
απ’ αυτήν θα ζητήσω συμβουλή


Greek translation by Petros Panaou 

How to contribute to the project

• set up a gmail account if you don't have one
• respond to the email invitation that you were sent
• make a contribution by clicking on the new post button
• it is a good idea to remove the formatting of your text if you are pasting from Word. That is done by selecting all and clicking on the Tx button in the posting window
• if you write your text in plain text, pasting is fine
• if you have unusual spacing in a poem or other text, it is better to upload it as an image (jpeg) or attached file (pdf)

Introduction to Project 366

PROJECT 366

Project 366 is a poem-centric collaboration of artists and writers taking place daily throughout 2016, starting on January 1st. Nine of us are involved at this point – Lies van Gasse, Andrew Burke, Iris Fan Xing, Kevin Brophy, Yao Feng (Yao Jingming), Anna Couani, Mikaela Castleldine, Loene Furler and myself, Kit Kelen. We are poets and painters and photographers and whatever else we care to be. There are and will be ways for others to get involved in this daily art-practice collaboration.

And why are we doing this? Because poetry is a process, art is a process. Poetry and art happen because we do it, because we make the effort to make it. So the object of this project is not to create finished art objects on a daily basis; it's to get work on the way every day. Project 366 is to encourage the everyday business of artmaking for those who work – however they work – with word and image. Some people will post only pictures, some people will post only poems or short prose pieces. Some people will alternate among the various forms of their practice. And some may evolve new practices over the course of the year.

There are no set topics or themes for the project but participants add a short draft work daily so that the possibility is always there for response and for a conversation in the work. The project will be blogged daily and republished to other social media, for instance facebook.

Project participants have their own keys and make their own posts each day. English is the language-in-common of the project and translation of other-than-English works will likewise happen on a daily basis.

If you have any questions about the project or how it might work for you, please e-mail or fb message Kit Kelen (KitKelen@gmail.com).

Before we begin, here's some encouragement in the form of a challenge in the form of a poem from Norwegian poet, Olav Hauge:

A POEM A DAY

I will write a poem a day.

every day.

That should be quite easy.

Browning managed it, although

he rhymed and

beat time

with bushy eyebrows.

So, one poem a day.

Something strikes you,

something happens,

something stands out.

– I get up. It's getting light.

I have good intentions.

And see the bullfinch rising from the cherry tree,

stealing my buds.

 

 

 

http://project365plus.blogspot.com.au/