Kit Kelen #729 - I count myself among them

729

I count myself among them

all these people desperate

to be saved from themselves

desperate to transcend

to be beyond beside themselves

with gods and demons

pills, good angels

exercise, the magic diet

helpful books and shopping - just the act of it

or work - for goodness sake

to diss the body too

in favour of abstract thinner-than-air

such as forever rumoured

poem of the morning -

that will get you off the hook

who knows of what they are capable?

and here they are with all there is

there cannot be more wonders

these are the monsters years have imagined

and were they to pause a moment

each would hear music of the clock that keeps them

that they keep

would know the preciousness of time

the mechanism

and their own running down

Kit Kelen #728

728

must have been distracted

lost my train of thought

I know there had been something important there

I wondered if you might have remembered

because you might have been thinking what I was thinking

but I could see you were lost in thought yourself

I retraced what I could and returned to the crime scene

came up with a blank

was it something I'd read? eaten? discovered?

wracked scone but no avail

I think it was something sluggish in the weather

maybe something from the night before

and then I noticed where I was

though not quite sure

a certain trill of tune took me

rain on the roof was reminiscent

I thought of the day ahead

instructions I was bound to follow

how we got here

what's next to do

the topic list

the shopping

sex

where I'd left my resolutions

who I am

will be

then I lost that thread

I was talking to myself again

I don't suppose anyone would notice

but there was a thing I had to tell somebody still

skip that

something more important

corner of the eye you know

a fly stuck still on the glass

was it trying to understand

how it could perch on an ocean of air

and be flightless

you can see through the wings

but I don't suppose a fly can

was it stuck remembering too?

I think it was just a thought

it was never going to be a butterfly, was it?

it's a good thing I've written all of this down

now that we've gone to the one dream

which is nowhere to be at all

Rob Schackne #558 - Untitled (redux)

Untitled


Famous for a poem
written when he was drunk
(he doesn’t much like)
a great love a missed flight
an arrow a bed a blister
he walks with umbrella
treads on wet leaves

Kerri Shying R # 387 within my blurred speech

within my blurred speech

those seconds ache for each other

cling together    atoms   singing

out the centre of my birth name

call to the sun

how  does she live

call to moon

why does she speak

call to the earth

who does she speak

mother

father

who are her people  in the spaces

by the atoms live the colours

of the eyes of everyone who lived

before  they ask the questions seconds

onetwothreefourfive

blur

Kit Kelen #727 - first light (again) and time travel

727

first light

(again)

like a clock struck up

and here leaps puppy

play

it's all we can be to believe then

up image and away

all mine

that I see now

make off with

claim the day for next

by chariot

flagged thought

who of the past could quibble me now?

it comes for me like a last wish lost

noose of all and could commute

I'm pillow pressed to say

it's dawn

like a birth pink lipped

loved me from the beginning

dream caught out in it

I hear come like gossip

touching up the trees

spread

turn

roll

last stretch to it

receive

again

again

o heart beat home

to mean just we are here

time travel

if we went to the future

we wouldn't come back

I think that's happening now

Rob Schackne #557 - "The cat"

The cat
its rule
do you ever
go out on
a limb
tell me
a story
your body
falling down
can you
float
when you
wake up
in leather straps
all shook up

Kerri Shying R # #385 - Outside

Outside

the weather is all outside along with

cats and bags and fighting dogs the

school forty zones   the coppers

waiting       for the miscreants

to slip

the weather   is all a mess

a pile of triangles   of underwire

bras   shooken in a bag 

and dumped   too dry too

wet   too high   like my cousin

just before the end

the weather man  I’d like to get him

as a guest   at my birthday

for when I get the big

six o  and make him take a turn

at every relative

I’ve got  it’s everything

the weather

don’t get me going on the weathersheds

that’s just sex

Kit Kelen #726 - ouch with

726

ouch with

at the beginning of things

always failing again

imperfect creature I am

not even a certain shape

I don't care if you hate me

or I do care but have to not

you must admit

something is crawling up me here

something is in my throat

clamped to my leg

won't let go

it bites

they all

you do

you think it's just your dinner

I am

we are unadorned here

simpletons of style

can you see me?

that's your work

if I paint no one will see what I see

I do it in my head

Cameos # Claine Keily 123

She is not sure when
she began to measure houses
by the amount of rice they could hold
and of how many people that amount
could feed for a year

For a long time now
she had noticed
the winter coming

When the performance was staged
beside the swimming pool
she remembered her youth
days spent rubbing in
suntan oil
while hotel guests
and children frolicked

This is how it goes here
the drummers drum
the dancers dance
and all here have
in their own way
a life lived in twenty minute cameos

Kit Kelen #725 - I can see out

725

I can see out

here's how

I'm not telling

you won't know where to read

light falls to me

it can be yours too

I have gathered time here

nothing was given

they cloud up a sky for us

my night is darker

but I see out

I see further back in the stars

and dreams do

there isn't a road to run away

you think of the unseen safely out

little squeals attest

you think I'm a shark to swim

put up your net all around

you salt me

hang me out

all along I could see a way

it's how I'm here

I may not be brave enough for a name

you think I'm locked up in a little forever

but I can see you

and I can see out

Kerri Shying R # 384 - Boxing Day ( for Milly)

Boxing Day ( for Milly)

I planted the frangipani

where I could see

imaginary grandchildren

 climbing

where I want to drink coffee

and write 

while Max  the dog

sat guard  out on the footpath

on his chain

keeping a miniature eye

on Brownie  up the road

Kit Kelen #724 - time and the island

724

time and the island

can you know me?

of course I must lie about who I am

read into that as far as you can

you who are all around to do

go anywhere you like

but here

you can go anywhere but here

I am stuck, as it were, between pages

can you know me?

of course I must lie to be who I am

do you like 'as it were'

I believe that is a turn of phrase

you wouldn't want to be here, to come here

to the island

but time is slow

an hour is a season

they say it has a name

but I doubt that

anyway, I won't tell

I'm in a curl of words between

of course I am translated

I translate myself

it's how I'm here

if you have just a moment

you're wondering

it's brave of us to be here

a first page always is

you'll hope that I am healing here

(grant you that much kindness)

I can damage myself however

however is a funny word

a horn each way

like Janus wants an end in April

will you think to do that?

are we on the same page?

think all kinds of things of me

in your imagination

I'm some kind of fish

and I can swim away

I want you to know how I came

Rob Schackne #556 - "How we got here"

How we got here
call it amazing light
starlight this life
truth or paradise
the desert was hot today
you sound like it's a bad thing
aren't we all dissenters
look   we're lost   it's found
the desert is cold at night
it could've followed us
wait   another baby's crying
I think this is far enough

Stuart Rawlinson #89 - The Storm

the smell of rain on a cool breeze

clouds betray a horizon of mountains

noiseless flickers in the rivulets

one Mississippi

two Mississippi
fourteen miles away

Kerri Shying R # 383 - Slight

Slight

gently redirected

to the small pool

this Christmas  is my time

for letting go  the reigns

  my sleigh runners

  slicing on the grass

  a decoration

 only

Kit Kelen #723 - three christmas poems

723

three christmas poems

1

Christmas is a long way off

and summer is too much

the picture everywhere unfinished

so that it takes the eye

everyone arrives

the uncle ghosts

and mum and dad

nod all agreed

the new world's

under the Christmas tree

you'd go exploring there

next winter's fire

stacked by the drive

like new car smell

it isn't a single idea

cicada is a shell behind

and welcome to some other world

by means of merest agitation

broke through that sticky web

and blowfly rattling up down

all along the big glass slider

is wanting out as well

2

2000 years born Jesus

hello cruel world

2000 years of mother Mary

her birth howl

with angels on

because that bearded boy

sang swan

and she was pure as snow

*

liver's turned to paté

who's a fat goose now?

3

mixed message

he reigns forever

in a mind of kings

a little kindness

saves who sings

except we are at war

he is before the word's beginning

leaves us all for laughter

each of us is called to christmas

it is all flesh

and satiation

hard working man

and brave

a gift is of

the otherworldly

someone's to burn later

and crusading

here's a dove

lord of lords

and thank the host

fish so let's

walk water

three kings come

to womanly Jesus

he hangs out with

mothering God

with all of kindness come

if you believe

angels have wings

a little kindness

saves who sings

lamb and lion

zombie riser

he is fish and word

the one who is rain fallen

prayed for

and land sighted too

he is the all before it was

an alphabet gives chase

here in my gumtree underworld

I am the vanished vanquished of it

is it double Sunday

at cicada pitch?

make mine an upside down day

with infant pauper king

he does all kinds

of heaven things

a little kindness

saves who sings

*

coda

it's Monday

remember to put out the bin

and

what will we do to undo what we've done

now that our Christmas is come?