Kit Kelen #400 - in a meeting

400

in a meeting

a glance is cast

over a sigh

you won't see the finger pointing

yawn to snore

past cough

things go forward

let's roll eyes

someone has an idea

there is an embarrassed silence

when the hiccoughs come

not much of this is minuted

the ones with masks

must be contagious

I take a vow

in a meeting

I am writing a poem

I will publish later on

here, now

you're reading it

aren't you?

perhaps you're in another meeting already?

now hear this!

don't worry you're anonymous

in fact no names are given

the figures are really just for illustration

it's not as if anything's decided today

still, things go forward

some heads roll

some are on the mat

others on the ropes

a few are taken down a peg

a few are on the nose

there are roadblocks

not everything follows through

but we'll come back to that

send out for some more discussion

let's bookmark

rhubarb

we're holding our breath

in a meeting

there's no quorum for thought

some scrape through

but most lose skin

stop talking

before you embarrass yourself

here's comes the loud guffaw

some otherwise disdain

let's all roll our eyes

and cross them this time

that's for luck

shake heads

but not so they fall off

speak softly

you'll ooze calm

then others will nod limply back

and waiting for your next joke

resolution

in a meeting

leadership, decision

then someone tells the truth

(home or hard to say)

not even a gasp!

the standard procedures require no mention

best to leave the budget alone

provision will be made

it's not that no one has an opinion

but silence is a thing that's learned

at a meeting

blood boils at a much higher temperature

than it would in your office or in the air outside

from a meeting

ink emerges

something will be signed

but later on

who knows?

is there any other competent business?

it's in a meeting

I decide to throw myself under a bus

of course this is a figure of speech

in a meeting

some pass

and some amend

and many more will be rescinded

I propose a cenotaph

for those who also served

Kerri Shying R # # 190 - Descriptor

Descriptor

*For T & A

tell me that the sky    of blue azure  atop

jade  tree tops waits   be well   then give me

sight to see it    long glance back to memory

held up    to recover   green   the verdigris all on it

back before the eyes were things that hold the

eyelids up    tell me  how the world  might look

or listen  I can say the way

the whole place is

for me

* with thanks to the members of our writing group who spent time sharing their experience as unsighted writers and readers today

Rob Schackne #237 - "Look here at Roadkill"

Look here at Roadkill
where the dead men lost their phones
the cynics down at the bakery
the one good sort at the TAB
the Samaritans putting out the paper
the children at the sawmill
(are flies the comic relief)
the gutless leave their hobby farms
the teachers all dig ditches
the shops don’t make money
the bus crawls through the intersection
after the ducks parade across
and everything's orright
(I am never going back)

Glass Unbroken # 64 Claine Keily

It is hard to
remember to
chronicle the easier times
when the ponds
were full of fish
and the windows
were made of
glass unbroken

Now she chews
through her pain
and forgets
she ever tasted a life
where she
trespassed borders
with shiny bracelets
about her
ankles
and no bruises
on her knees

Kristen de Kline #60 - Not earthbound #2

Earthbound:
it's the cover of the book
that gets you in
a half torso of the man
who fell to earth

upper arms stretched high
over his face, body
splayed
across a surface (concrete? tarmac?)

an outline, blurred
etched in grey
ink tracing his limbs
like chalk ashes
at a crime scene

then there's the leaves, gliding
d
o
w
n
from the sky
caressing his body
showering him in a bed of red rose petals
as if he's walked out of a crime scene
and floated into the set of American Beauty

what's with the leaves
are they burying
his body
or kissing him
what's with the leaves

Penny Fang # 9 a view of the sky tunnel

a view of the sky tunnel 

in those days

I often walked down 

the lane beside the Holg building

through the slate wall

I could see the stray cat’s lost way

the sticking out branches that I tore off 

were a faint scent that night in my dream

in the afternoons before dark

I saw the grass growing lushly

to swallow up laughter and chatting 

at low tide,

Anglesey the other side

in between like the kitchen sink drained

the things of the otherwise bottom now seen 

dog walkers

and the joggers

whose faces I hardly see

passed by

with or without a brief greeting

their faces lost in the sunset glow

In the growing dark, only the bell 

tied to the dog’s neck jingled crisply

dodging past me

heavy breath

vigorous sniffing

Kit Kelen #399 - which silence most pure?

399

which silence most pure?

leaf fall

or word turn

snow lying

heart's distance

rain's cessation

words on the page

or eyes lost

each in each

?

first voice

was fleshed

in womb-light

it's the one dream since

Rob Schackne #236 - "I'm met in Roadkill"

I'm met in Roadkill

three-year drought, next day magic
ducks play in puddles
quacking in the rain
no soteriology
no angels and no demons
(job not bad, pay was lousy)
on my way out of there
I look back and watch
a town drying up
bull bar, another 'roo

Clock Claine Keily # 63

Now she never sleeps
and stores
every crumb
under her pillow
in the event of
an emergency

Here
no mango juice
served on trays
no one sent to college
or New York
for summer
just the clock
on her bedside table
and heat
unbearable

Kerri Shying R - # 190 - Cinnamon by Proxy

Cinnamon by Proxy

with Faye

Healing   on the internet   so swell  why see

the quack at all   when so much horse sense

percolates   in memes   why even use your body    choose

a proxy   take that heaped teaspoon of cinnamon

 now

wait for midnight   to shove it 

up their  arse  let nature’s  healing ways  

 attend

pick solid senders, hey   and there’s

another site 

for that.

Kit Kelen #398 - do you still believe?

398

do you still believe?

(on the day we learn that one fifth of the priests in two of the main Catholic teaching orders in Australia were fiddling with the kiddies for the last sixty years at least)

after all the wars they have called

after the judgement cast

and its carnage

after what they have done to the children

after their auto-da-fé

their endless crusades

confessions of the innocent coaxed

after the lies that they held up for fact

because what?

yes, there was something nobody knew

consider those who went from this world

thinking there was a better one

consider those told to go on with their suffering

because it was His inscrutable will

do you think this is ancient history now?

incurable faith

and those who've possessed it

of them, of you

might I simply ask –

do you still believe

that they're with God

and God's with them

and all's well with the world?

Béatrice Machet # 351 (Something series, next...)

# 351-Something series    (Sète 30 juillet 2016 … Carcès 16 août 2016)

Gropingly but without searching

hands slightly touch and grasp SOMETHING

a splinter of a sticking out story

Detached

a piece of reality within reach

to be fathomed instantly

This might well be a declaration of love

is-it circumstantial …

necessarily contingent …

                                                        

This scarf slipping down

could be the event from which

time is stepping back to leave us

the whole setting sun and my legs

taken to your heels

The blind crossing

danses and outdistances  

it’s in the eyes

that poems are written. 

A tâtons mais sans rien chercher

les mains effleurent et s’emparent de QUELQUE CHOSE

un éclat de l’histoire qui fait saillie

Détaché : un morceau de réel

mis à votre portée

à saisir dans l’instant

Ceci pourrait être la déclaration d’un amour

est-il circonstanciel …

nécessairement contingent… 

Cette écharpe glissée

pourrait être l’événement

à partir duquel le temps

recule pour nous laisser tout

le couchant et mes jambes

à ton cou

La traversée en aveugle

danse et distance

c’est dans les yeux

que s’écrivent les poèmes.

Rob Schackne #235 - "What we hope for"

"What we hope for"


Lived once near a
small town named Roadkill
where years ago the
fencing was taken down
and where all the
people looked well-fed...

What we hope for
so capable of happiness
instead the infantile rage
takes us and braces
down into the ground
the unhappiness and despair

can poetry complete the
circle we can wonder
all we want about
how our language betrays
good notes and sense
gets carried far away

ground me in love
connect me back up
connect it like electricity
all the extra apples
good men and women
some art that saves

the alien and other
the fear it won’t
get any better and
the hope it will
so tired of questions
the interrogations and sins

Kit Kelen #397 - everything in the garden sings

397

everything in the garden sings

everything in the garden sings

and so you're lulled to hum too

all around's what soil has said

see up above us how we turn

melt – tread the maze to bright

there's nothing you can take as read

from this unfurling, droop and trail

wherever you stand the centre is

a garden has to have a seat

attend some simple whiff bliss at

then far applause – here comes sky

has it ever really fallen before?

puddle reflects a rhythm of branches

all the dance adept as if

a breeze were cast by court magicians

see branch, see leaf, see tree toss crown

underneath we sway to, lost

mere hours are told away

some days you get your back into

and loll upon the heat

wait for a result like Christmas

it's while you snooze the blooms obey

or, just as likely, are borne off

by nameless lost imaginings

colour pours over each uncertain season

a scribbling of tendril up, a scratching out

which paws? and here's a leaf's touch

it bends, it stretches and it burns

the animals are mostly absent

as I myself am more indoors

who's garden?

that's the always asking

but come now to the peering in

and up to see which blue is

lilt with, take these steps of tune

like rhythm left of what was rain

so hear the garden – it's all wings

someone says 'darling, I'm home'

'can I believe it's you?'

news of the world won't make it this far

all fidelities are compost

everything in the garden sings

even the turning worm

and the one cut

belts it out for love and life,

for itself and what-the-hell, for you

because I say so

so it is

words lose themselves

just to be sung

everything rounds upon

even moons are gone in leaf

everything in the garden sings

that's how you are lulled from

you're not the only heart beats here

but you're a stillness too

Kristen de Kline - #59 - Plastic Linda from Coburg returns

you thought you'd killed her off
Plastic Linda from Coburg
you thought she'd shaken wavered trembled
     broken cog.    faulty engine.
till finally
she'd burnt, raged against the light,
       malfunctioned

maybe you'd cut a neat incision
in her delicate, veined neck
      and you couldn't remember
the cutting blood neck
only her delicacy, the bulging blue veins,
      tensing up, waiting for
your slow hand
     and you couldn't remember

Plastic Linda from Coburg breathes softly over your flesh
traces out the poems where postcards
are penned from the
      asylum,
the harbour
     breathes,
and long cream curtains
hang from rods
like a coma ...
pages of poems wavering
     hesitating
not going
     gently into dying lights or good nights  

it had been two and a half weeks
you hadn't slept eaten showered
but Plastic Linda from Coburg
lined you up in her sights,
her spinning white plastic blades
rattling, slapping the side of
     your face
her breath caressing
     your flesh
something (life? morning breaking?)
     stirring within you without you

Béatrice Machet # 350 murger poem

# 350               murger poem

To question the word fusion is to call upon heat.

To fuse means some solids end up liquids.

Then in the melting process streams are born.

And energy is flowing.

To question the word fusion is to evoke the inseparable.

The intensity of a relationship.

It’s something more serious than mere complement.

Than simple binding.

To question the word fusion is setting the fire.

A burning which doesn’t leave ashes.

Body and mind flesh and thoughts dissolved

into a current of pristine joy …

Interroger le mot fusion c’est convoquer la chaleur.

Fondre c’est du solide à faire devenir liquide.

Alors dans le mélange des courants naissent.

L’énergie circule.

Interroger le mot fusion c’est évoquer le fusionnel.

L’intense inséparable d’une relation.

Quelque chose de plus important que la notion de complément.

Que simple emboîtage.

Interroger le mot fusion c’est allumer le feu.

Une combustion qui ne laisse aucune cendre.

Corps et esprit chair et pensées dissous

en un courant de joie toujours neuve …

Rob Schackne #234 - "Hurry Up Please Its Time"

"Hurry Up Please Its Time"


This modern kiss
heart waits to beat
a poison or a pearl
I might’ve missed one
a dream I didn’t write down
pearl (did I say dream)
dream (did I say pearl)
what night never ends
modern life (you say)
sweetness it's waiting
for me (I say)

Alone # 62 Claine Keily

Once I lived near London
in a glass panelled house
where none were allowed
to speak as they entered

There amongst whispers
over the body of
a silent child
I learnt to be alone