Rob Schackne #1006 - Getting Home Before Daylight

                                               
Getting Home Before Daylight

  
  Fallen, whether failure or loss
  the centre never held, now
  you think your name is Legion
  
  and the numbers are many–
  dirty jackets, unscrubbed faces
  getting home before daylight  
  
  sunflowers without any sun
  scream at what isn't there
  watching the short ride
  
  fast approach the ground–
  good that you have company
  the dark one's not interested

KA Rees #5 - the end of the world

the end of the world

it's the end of september and again it seems like

the end of the world. a sustainable house in the city

is being packed up and sold, its owner moving to

a bolt hold in the country — a town with two wooden

bridges that can be burnt when the hungry hordes who

were unable, or too stupid to leave before, come looking

for food, shelter and water. i think about my children,

the neighbours and my elderly mother, what will be the

face of disaster when it finally comes.

Kit Kelen #1369 - sacred drought

1369

sacred drought

and I watered it in fears

night and morning with my tears

                                                – Blake

the drought is sacred  

so we tend

holy the cloven hoof

steak plate

and the live export

sacred the dust where the dam was

holy! holy! holy!

it has that twin cam overdraft

and you should see her fly

we will decide

so strangle a river for cotton

it makes a lovely uniform

old soldiers walk among

to grin and bear the drought

it’s not for girls but girls are there

they’ve knitted and they’ve baked

if only mud

we call on God

and all the gods we make

we have worked for this

no joking

but calves mourn mum

kangaroos slip through

sacred the dust where the dam was

holy! holy! holy!

here’s the sun

a public holiday

and we’re collecting taxes

pray for more

we pray for war

it makes us men

and gives the cenotaph a polish

then you have a town

big balls

and won’t forget to vote

let’s have a statue of the drought

a temple as to doom

holy acres

too many to say

but we must prise the trees away

sacred the dust where the dam was

holy! holy! holy!

someone must once have imagined this world

this world we fight for still

sacred the torture of chickens

and all who come by sea

push the beggars off a cliff

see queen for a VC

fire is the god of drought alive

and it must take our homes

dig!

here and here

come to the bones

we planted those

sacred the dust where the dam was

holy! holy! holy!

we all stretch coal in thin of wires

under this fierce sun

because the drought is sacred, ours  

blind with age I am

with rage

it wasn’t easy

do you think it was?

to magic up this dry

there’s no amount of legislation  

cactus rims the homestead

I wear the thorn of crowns

was once a controversy

now we know

how these boys gave their lives for it

white bread!

do you catch the petrol smell

drink to it and let us pray

here’s us

and here’s Old Father Drought

we’re kiddies sat up on his knee

sacred the dust where the dam was

holy! holy! holy!

it has a flood this holy drought

to wash the dust away

we’re swept

in one ear and out the other

the drought is something we’ll sleep off

must think past nation

here’s the vanish we’ve prepared

to sink like a sunset flag

to go the way of all empires 

Jeffree Skewes #114 Crystal ball

How many sticks

 of fire wood

do you gather

lift them onto your back

world problems

never leave

crystal ball
 is what you need

image: Crystal ball  - digital photograph / JMS

KA Rees #4 - Fly Straight

Fly straight

The night air, the sigh at the end of the day

sepia stained from the coffee

pot; charcoal ozone holds a flint.

A dint of light sinks lower

than the horizon sending a final glissade

into the southern sky. There are

moths tapping the glass, orbiting

the lamp they can’t reach,

no matter how many times they fly

straight

for it.

First line taken from Radio National – The Night Air, Sunday 6 January 2013.

Coalescence Part 1 #Claine Keily 140

I plant things in the dark as I remember the shadow of the coalface. I am desperate to find my strength, after work and the load of viruses which have taken almost everything. I should be in hospital but I want to stay here with the white cats beside me, and outside the start of a garden to water, then the stars at night if I have enough strength to drive out and be beside my horse.

Bacteria weighed against stars and animals and flowers. I do not trust the burnt out workers in hospitals, nor the drips and disinfectants to save me. I would rather die here in the dust between the new planted seedlings, the crows, and the rescued cats.

Kit Kelen #1368 - deniers and their reasons

1368

deniers and their reasons

or

let me count the types

shares in

employed by

(slaves of the machine become a part)

there’s greed

(might miss the obvious)

but so often it’s not that

although there is identification

an easy notoriety –

I’m the bastard won’t agree

mere credulity can’t count

still there’s the love of illywhack

and contrariety

rub nose in some thing you missed

more likely it’s out of a general resentment

and having once held an opinion

it’s mine

I love best their self-righteousness

that jealous white man’s entitled drive

for status of persecuted minority

of course there are lovers of coal

unreconstructed smoke nostalgists

some simply wished for a warmer world

or they resent that there’s a future

will be left behind

that’s it – they want a rising tide

just to float their boat

perhaps they failed at

science

argument

conversation

it might be just fellow feeling

they’re like the paranoid demented

who know all will be taken

dare not say death

but go to the devil

they love to be insulted

it’s oxygen for them

in mirrors they won’t see themselves

but some strange ugly shapes

this is not to say there are no fools for truth

I meet them every day

but old habits die hard

the world’s a cigar

and there are those who ache with the changes

won’t admit when wrong

the Trump-emboldened

who hate the world

and all of us

but here’s how to hear your own voice

for the sake of ‘balance’ all must be shot

then move on to the head

some would say ‘sad old fucks’

that’s harsh

others would call it an illness

that can be treated with truth

don’t buy that

they know they’re lying

shall we credit a love of absurdity?

simply not making sense?

still, it’s a terrible darkness they spread

all condemning and soon be gone

why merely hate the young

when you can blame the unborn?

get your revenge in ahead of the game

but surely I hyperbolize?

it’s just to show that they don’t give a fuck

can stand apart from the fuss

the simple joy of humbug’s much

or they say fake these days

true conservatives would save the world

your denier believes

nothing to see here

opinions are all wronged by fact

they could have chosen to understand –

they won’t

rain falls again

sun shines

that’s proof

some will say anything –

‘China invented it’

and who invented fire?

because of Planet B

the godless among them

most puzzling of all

no learning to the uncreated

what’s inaccessible to change?

only a rhetorical question  

necessary

and they are reminders

how fleabitten history always was

how mothholed the future

how firm every bettering resolve

against the joy of mock

the cancer’s your imagination

they’ve run out of paint

they’re in this corner

we know who they are

come out

fists up

but the bell won’t ring

a holocaust?

what's that?

KA Rees #3 - On Fattening the Spiders

On Fattening the Spiders

The house spiders need to be fed.

The flies are not yet

numerous, they blunder

through gaps in doors and windows;

haven’t got buzz about them yet.

What they lack in speed

they make up for in cunning. 

The swatter comes down 

to the left. Cha. Right. Cha. 

Left again, Cha-

cha-cha.

Stuart Rawlinson #105 - Barber

waiting

          for time 

to be cut 

          off

with thinning hair

brittle bleached sticks

           a slow shift

like tectonic plates

           still creep

along the mantle

Kit Kelen #1367 - cervsiam et circenses - beer and circuses - or who gives a fuck about footy?

1367

cervisiam et circenses

(beer and circuses)

or

who gives a fuck about footy?

a new blasphemy for our times

a tickle in the scrum and kick

holy!

high tackle

change the sacred line-up

roll through rough and tumble

holy!

this soil on which

no holden cars

but roos aplenty

how dismally we’re failed with work

pianos to the tip

here’s a better world

where all are muscle

able, straight

can black be ever white?

team of CEO youngsters

all salaries uncapped

and doff to them

splash advertising

drink it in

after all there’s drought

it’s holy

some of us are actually on fire

even as we speak

shout, more like

do some dislocation, tear ears

gouge, leave love bites

bench

speak to the boys about

while the joint is sinking

poets, artists starve

a bet? you bet!

after market

it’s just before the weather always

imagine how it is in heaven?

that god who cannot speak

baits breath

and all of this is so foretelling

was that a forward pass?

pick a code

ping pong some say

and suck it up

punch the ball

bend willingly they tell in bed

where you come to admire

women have knitted for this

in a bin of sin it’s cold

have you noticed how the house is burning

permafrost’s let loose

how waves sweep over our heads

a comet falls

spill entrails

read

it’s always cops versus the robbers

they fill up my screen with such hopes

love it when the coach says ‘ladies’, ‘girls’

the young in one another’s arms

who doesn’t love the puppy leap?

and nothing to see here

how wry

dry humping love

is there music to it?

yes! anthem as to war

here come the sacred players

all opinion at

and

holy! holy! holy!

as are the stumps

so this ball, pitch

who took the drugs?

who brawled, who raped?

brought into disrepute?

the sacred values of the club

such as codgers keep

where in their beer

all weep

we know about booze and violence

the triumph over mind and art

ball shaped for a bucket and kick

how grand was your final?

someone loses

and after match

best, fairest

those defeated take on wife

or someone’s

almost always win

on the home ground

they camp out at the gates

swags enduring temperature

here, drink this

choke down a pie  

we’re lied to

robbed of

for instance, future

not even our own extinction would rouse

but that is far

there are many to go

still missiles point

so catch

and pass

and piss it in

all at the whim of madmen

born with certain colours to wave

and you, weren’t you (?), always sure

who do you barrack for?

meanwhile, in a forest somewhere

further from you

(how many football pitches an hour?

[the ball out of shape is the measure of all])

someone is up the last tree

almost equally speechless

but who gives a fuck?

under this pitch

black as

let’s dinosaur dig

there might be coal

or medieval hell

we’ll simply have to check

thicken the sky

till we dig there too

manage your anger

temper a grief

spoilers like me

so fucking correct

to think of the others

but, honestly, I don’t very much

handle my own weaknesses

legions to decimate

but footy – to watch – what is it good for?

I play a game of touch

with others of my ilk

the only thing of which I’m certain

this must be better than a war

to live in a crowd of shouting

it’s all with mother’s milk