Gillian Swain - 20 - you look like a butterfly

"You look like a butterfly
having issues with
metamorphosis" said
the child to the mother.
Had you not been grown
I may have thought it sweet.
Instead we have the
new adult appraising
the not so old mother.
You grin
I  limbo 
under your gaze
still full of the undecided
narrowly escape irony in your voice.
We laugh in loud colour.
The bones of a butterfly
are only in the wings.

Kit Kelen #1035 - pick up lines

1035

pick up lines

 

make a map

of the fallen

flowers have

set sea

or cheese

the home

consisting

of wake up here

strung along beaded

shell for the shore

must have ridden in

of let's draw

close and parallel

signs to confuse

we selves

strung with wire

a little bounce

the blinds

horns

and bedstead

sly of wink

have to have

voted for this

life is at any moment

cut up

collage

thrown

blown together

in a tent of colour laid

cast out of shadows

and stitched

I want to invent a game

out of all things existing

to play just where we are

the elements

exposed to us

will never be the same

Rob Schackne #801 - Wild Henry #2 "Everybody dresses"

Everybody dresses
like themselves
happy Halloween
on that note
so much pleasure
one big cartoon
no good reason except for joy
simply transformed
a table of cutlery
into a jazz band
playing up a storm
and the spoon
doing the shimmy

Kerri Shying R #540 - I need all my strength to put a sock on

commence     in sunlight try  

the coffee out in terracotta cup

adjudicating impact   on flavour

none     yet it was delicious to hold

this object    warm in both hands

I need all my strength to put a sock on

perhaps   I didn’t have to choose

tabi      all the fiddling    a morning

orchestra of understanding  hip

and tendon  metacarpals   tarsal bones

my body clears it’s throat

Tug Dumbly # 42 - Three Degrees of Okay

Three Degrees of Okay

Old farm sheds

perfect parallelograms

leaning aslant

in a frozen dance

with the wind.

Evening clouds

a slow salmon

as you breathe through

the gills of the sky.

How easy it is

for things to go right

to let slip the weight

of expectation

duck the pendulum

of pessimism

let it swing into the shadows

like a slow swooping bat.

Gillian Swain - 19 - Before you go in

Before you go in

remember to crouch

down  put your palms on the dirt

say a prayer that's not for me to know

earth will hear  she is listening  knows

your voice as your blessing murmurs into her  she will

know you.

They're only people in there

sitting on hard chairs  legs folded on timber floor

and they want you

that's why they're here

hungry for  your voice

they want to feel it  seep through skin into bone

invite mesma let it 

carry  let them ride

Before you go in

understand it's a moment

an echo

Clark Gormley #58 Cargo Trousers

pockets and pockets!
pockets galore!
hanging from your hips
they swing and rattle
with your stride
the dance partner apparel
who's guaranteed
to follow your lead

want to smuggle
some contraband?
you could fit a whole
orchestra in there!
brass in pocket
keys on the side
strings hanging
from the belt
woodwind at the rear

no need for a bag
when you can bear
it on your person
carry that weight
on your pelvis
and maintain
peak fitness
downstairs

remember
nothing arouses
like cargo trousers

Rob Schackne #800 - Wild Henry #1 "The fisherman looks"

The fisherman looks
at the town bookie
& the bookie looks
at the town butcher
& the butcher looks
at the town poet
who all look alike

yes yes it's true
they'll be as happy
as Eskimo kids
eating popsicles
but everyone knows
it’s hard to keep track

Kristen de Kline #233 - In no particular order

+
the gap between the
curtains, it lets light

in - party lines drop out -
chatter about elite school

head girl’s upper thighs
decorated with bruises

after she left [how many]
nicks in (y)our flesh, did

you slice, did it gush
run   clot   flow   drip

can I smear my hands in it
     over you?

+
where did you drop
the thousand kisses

I don't know if I'll see you (again)

when you cut     that
deep      does it hurt

that's life, they say
falling out and in of:

love

breath

words

in no particular order

Kerri Shying R #539 - Son

Son

remember  after my hysterectomy  you

were only 14   and they sent me home

after one day    to you   alone

we watched

The Human Centipede

together

bundled

on the lounge

laughing

surrounded by ice cream

caramel   biscuits   baci

bums sewn to mouths

seemed the right choice

for light entertainment

none of it seemed like it was

ever going

to end

Kit Kelen #1034 - the horse is falling apart

1034

the horse is falling apart

(some William Kentridge witnessings)

so dancing

fixed wing

if an aerial points

creak, spin

the world itself

on legs now

I climb into

a blur

to indicate time

fish march to the hook

bombs come down

by metronome set

a wind up geometry

with birds

thrown to sunshine

a caged sphinx

and a hammer falls

stars until the planets swim off

this is what the music shows

all that's sea is left

Tug Dumbly # 41 - Four Bits of Some Whole

Four Bits of Some Whole

1

Somewhere walk the world

all our unbecome selves

a half-done crop of little ghosts

a pale crying child army

we pass through

and our temperature drops

and you think ‘that was me

another me I’ll never be’.

2

She said 'my heart’s a beanbag

people crash into for a while

before getting up and moving on

rested, unscathed

dumb to the dent

they leave behind.

But you,’ she said ‘you I like.

You’ll never fully disappoint me.

You’re like something good

that constantly fails to arrive'.

3

Tightly bound the bloody bud

of my heart

a cupped candle in all these hands

and I have been loved

more than I have loved

and I have been forgiven

more than I have forgiven

and I have been so lucky to know

there’s no healing the whole

of our unknowing.

 4

What is this thing you say you seek?

this shy creature

creeping round the perimeter

this hart nosing blind

this animal gently scrabbling

behind a board

in the dawn kitchen

you get too close

and it stops.

It just stops

like a mouse

like a cricket

like a heart

like a clock

it just stops.

Even the fridge holds its breath

at that floorboard creak …

what is this thing you say you seek?

Gillian Swain - #18 - after the cups

Long drive home takes moments they
could do me for neg driving I'm
still with you  in that room  don't
want to leave  time between
getting back  too far from now
too far  too far

Rob Schackne #799 - "The greatest small things"

          The greatest small things
          waiting to accumulate
          words of passion, or error

          The madness of language
          carves from the same block
          some strange new shape

          You say what goes around
          comes around, a fallacy
          we repeat until the heat fades

          Try kindness, or peace
          those were the moments of grace
          that tried to oppose nature

          Emerson would put it:
          Dream delivers us to dream,
          and there is no end to illusion.

Tug Dumbly # 40 - All the Parks

All the Parks

Little German trench mortar

squats in the geraniums

of the Deloraine RSL, Tasmania,

a century since you burped a shell,

this long snooze suits you well,

snuggled little keepsake, greyly 

dozing amongst generations

of flaming flowers, keeping 

company a wee obelisk of the

district’s dear dead dairy farmers.

In Berry lies another of your kind,

under palms in a park, sleeping

the seasons by, near a wall of

fading names that won’t keep

open their eyes. And I think of all

the cannons in all the parks in all

the towns in all the world, all the

25 pounders and Ack Acks

clambered on by kids, dripping

sweet pigeon shit and icecream.

Kit Kelen #1033 - whelmed over

1033

whelmed over 

 

bowled

held

and just this moment in

a breath

frozen

wilted

here's the weather

sweep of words

to which we're lost

starved

stuffed

called to the conversation

hug bears

take treetops

swing

wing

slide

with just what's here

the any order of it

can you hear the song of it?

neither seeing where we are

nor where the way is leading

your touch

as easy

nod

a simple flower to its sun

and all eyes up to be

James Walton #126 woof woof woof

at 3am dogs bark

for the bone of moon

words spinning

jacks out of the boxes

that coil beneath the bony lid

of the sleepless too

reach out

you can touch them

some are untied knots

daisy chains of Mondays

so wide that bitter swell

the surprising taste

of second street laneways

kitchens light awake

but no doors open

to the moth of sentence

a batter of intrusion

the slipped anchor scrapes

there was a dancing pony

one made of naphthalene

a cajole of wakefulness

one last wear

a lover’s parting gift

the last cold night of Spring

Jeff Skewes #51 djembe fola lesson

dun dun du
counting one two three
in 4/4 8/12 easy huh

dexterity rains on Fola
djembe big jam
slap tone bass we folla

mispronouncing lix
misspelling ancient song lions

African dance began it all

we tried so hard to stay on time but
double clutched far too soon
meshing mental gears it's carnage

gu gu gaku
gu dun dun
sublimity in some hands

us galloping in galoshes
rupture any chance of metronomy
in this deafening chamber of singles

still master's svelte rapid fire
never looked easier
her consummate contra chops so countered

carrying everyone into the elephant's groove
while we drumming underwater
in lead gloves dancing on the moon

smile

image j skewes water colour pencil journal entry

Gillian Swain - #17 - maybe this is the place to start telling the story

yes perhaps it is in the morning of silence
that we find ourselves lost
and in the 
mourning of silence  the
longing for noise  the sound of presence

maybe this is the place to start telling the story

companions populate our rooms
even when absent
some bodies and beings still one
it's getting emptier here
involuntary decluttering

Clark Gormley #57 Walking Home Tonight

walking home
tonight past
Wickham Park
at dusk I
couldn't help
but hear the
call of the
channel bill
a banshee
screaming while
strumming the
guiro at
the back of
her throat with
a wooden
stick

a koel
then started
arguing
monoto-
nously to
point out that
she was not
the only
parasite
bird who could
make a damn
racket

then hearing
the kick drum
providing
a throbbing
techno-beat
coming from
the Lass O'
Gowrie I
suppose at
a volume
that I could
just about
feel in my
chest from two
blocks away

I at once
appreci-
ated the
beguiling
sounds of na-
ture

Kit Kelen #1032 - get

1032

get 

 

go get

get up

from the get go

get up and at

get around

get stuffed

get off

get out of it

get over the thing

get out of the way

get right at

get into

get off your spotty

get over yourself

get along little dawgie

get off me

get it up

get me off

get down

get dirty

get gone with

get to know

get it on

garn

get it

go on

get

Tug Dumbly # 39 - A Mad Stampede of Tongues

A Mad Stampede of Tongues

You get so sick

of having to put things into words

to conceptualise, make concrete

or concrete as words can be

as they pour forth

into the rough formwork

of sentences

so much nicer, don’t you think

just to let thoughts roam freerange

so much more natural and humane

to let ideas peck and scratch

about the yard of the mind

kick over an old corn cob

take a dust bath

graze the Dandelions

softly crop the mental acres unconstrained

by the electric fence

of paragraph and sentence

all that barbed wired

of bloody utterance?

Lizz Murphy #377 & Michele Elliot SKYLINES 3

Remembering the moonlight   drawing on sea blanket

Michele Elliot

 

I travel

for the skies

draw stars

Lizz Murphy 

 

Rob Schackne #798 - "Is it my local sky"

Is it my local sky
it's all one example
watching the tankers
a Chinese white dolphin
counting the rascals
bearing witness
upon the surface
they've studied mirth
& the rigours of laughter
but exopsychology
no interest in my field
they're out of their minds

Kit Kelen #1031 - even moonless

1031

even moonless

even clouded

it’s a sky of trees

in the lower reaches

you can smell it first thing

branches, song leaning

as if it could be painted, shot

when no one ever touches

gods vibrating

all for far

as if the world turned here

right now

each leaf pointing

as if in trumpet tin

arcs, all asides, odd angles

you think you know the tune

but it’s different every time

as if these words held this one up

all of it yet dark

as if no one were here

when actually it’s Christmas crowded

everyone’s wishing too

as if in a window framed

as if the light would yet catch

where just this one star shone

Tug Dumbly # 38 - All the Times I Should Have Died

All the Times I Should Have Died

Four drunk young men

sooling down Bulli Pass

early Sunday morning

in a Morris Minor ute

two in the front

two in the back

when suddenly the one

beside the driver contorts

his bean pole frame

in the tiny cab squats up

on the seat pulls down

his daks and presses his

arse cheeks against

the rear window to chuck

a browneye fair in the face

of his mates in the tray

and any traffic following

all of them howling

tears of mad mirth

ripped back at right angles

across the cheek

like streamers in the wind

by the bucketing velocity

and the sheer joy of idiocy

as they wind screaming

like a bright red bullet

fired by the homicidal god of piss

down the mountain

with that little eleven hundred

wound howling to the max

gearstick thrashing the whole

thing clattering like a cage

of shopping trolleys

swerving side to side

bodies in the back thrown

like sacks of dead weight

hungry for the gorge

lurching screeching

into the curves with the

epileptic judder of a sideshow ride

or shot-to-shit Battle of Britain

Hurricane barely controllable

spewing smoke and oil

clipping trees trying

to make it back to base ...

though here that’s really not the case.

Just four young lairs

in a little red clown car

sheering a mountain, off their face

heirs to it all, ripping and tearing

the air to the future.

Rob Schackne #797 - "How fast you see"

           How fast you see
           five birds fly overhead
           remember I couldn’t
           (this solid air)
           love all there is
           two circle back around
           not very far to go
           a feather and a hand
           the clouds roll in

Kit Kelen #1030 - mulberry time

1030

mulberry time

the season in a day

as a moon to its fullness

so this tree

in its cloud of bird

appoints the hour

all feast

Kerri Shying R # 538 cuckoos by the score take the falling calls of Koels

met the others at the coal face   went home to

living in a   human body  dump site  

activated  by the beeps   of the electrics

calling as the chirps of baby birds   from the trees

coming summer   come the  rip offs

cuckoos by the score  take the falling calls of Koels

as warning  what’s on offer   take that

tour  around the summit    of your hindsight

commence    the slow  climb down    more

people fall   descending     than looking up

clear the ground beneath your feet     to see

Kristen de Kline #232 How many kisses

how many kisses
a million blown to

smithereens, another
slap on the cheek

it's all fleeting - you say
how we measure loss

and longing, five X's
on the back of a postcard

you say - it's all relative
what the hell went down

your hands,
I miss them

how many kisses does it take
how deep does it go

it hurts you know

blowing (not) in the
breeze, shadowing me

on the last mile home
stars in the skies, one

hundred lights in the bar,
waltzing: I'm not counting

what does it take

Rob Schackne #796 - "The children chant"

         
                                                                                                                     The children chant
         green & blue makes purple
         not everyone’s taste
         the spread of trees

         the spread of heaven
         where the going's good
         how is it my mistake
         the day wanders by
         an afterthought of colour

Kerri Shying R # 537 - Urbanistan

Urbanistan

we stopped off

at the corner shop  the grocery

at Carro    for the seedlings

made a pact about

them languishing

unplanted     forever

as if the porch had stood in

for Nauru 

when you left   exhausted

by another medication  change

  how many in  so few years

  is this  

I limped in 

took their pots

at least    I dumped

their roots  soil

on soil

the bureau says   sending rain

 

the small rosemary  that

replaces  the one

 I got when I moved in

 it lost sight of how to be

 a plant  

 when propagating

the mother died when

I gave

the child away