Kerri Shying R # 368 - The Barnaby

The Barnaby

egotists the hungry ghosts

struggle to live life

on an even keel  belly up

to the bars    ectoplasm dropping

up and down the urban trails  

in the hinterland with litch gates

looking down at land   chewing

on development  with dirt  stirring

water in   add sand 

the pellets

of their leavings  

it’s a garrison town

it’s a dormitory suburb 

a transit hub

our entertainment precinct  

 leaf litter  droppings  and the bowers

 painted up in tea bags

 berry inks

all the tricky trash and tatt

ghost-bright eye-spied

how we live

this place   thick with it

new rodents  and no traps

Kit Kelen #705 - almost there

705
almost there

past dented moon
cicada days
not quite out of the woods

the way still lit
branches still hold up

there isn't a handshake seals this
but onward!

all know whither
almost out of puff by now

as if towards the finishing line

and if I'd not been all along on the way

almost an echo
in twinkling of a rumble road
as all the world flies past

and if I hadn't then
you'd never know, would you?

mad race till the chariot's wrecked for good

almost on all fours

from daub to done
from inkling to idea

almost pregnant with the pause

stirred almost to action

almost in the larger life
and home hosed almost

just about all said and done
still up to old tricks

eyes almost open
as if about to speak

say my goodnights all
lit with the other world
the one that isn't
and all the others still

lost to an almost caus

Kit Kelen #704 - Two Poems - Eternal Return

704

eternal return

sometimes I'll just look at the day

possibilities already lost

ask how many creatures share this with me

unknown to even themselves

the seen-so day's

all bright beginning

how many wildernesses to my patch?

stretch into light's flow to show

some days brittle

ache to crack

so much like religion

all invisible to themselves

practise not to squander

and we not knowing why

and I just anywhere

anyone

breeze borne

that's the open window 

 

I have to go back

among the words lost

a trail of me

and what a wood!

there isn't a way I've come

but

where the plot was gone

anything just happens

still follow along for the sunshine

come to the home of cicadas

come to where the frog tells 'o'

paint the heart mind blank

there's no writing for those

won't see the wonders

they're not reading either

much more naked

come to the door

there is no arriving here

go back to the dream before

Kerri Shying R #367 - Call my service

Call my service

phone call from

a replica town  built  in a secret location   to

take the brunt of all the   hurtling bombs

of friendship     while discussions

angry face emojis  and the press junket

scudded on the waves

off Cannes   now headquarters to the UN 

since the film industry collapsed  

the big rape-a-thon 

and all   spelled the end

of film   

politics   had long moved onto

Twitter   I sewed and lost my shirt

on cardboard beachfront house

futures   looked back to when

the answering machine

held tapes   au fond

Kerri Shying R #366 - North Korean New Year

North Korean New Year

i/

summer    still the lack of calls

from birds   sunk   in cold  the ink

of  unwise treaty each piled upon the next

blown-in  hitch hikers

 on the century

of plenty standing

on the mullock pile

of penury

ii/

when the boats stopped  so the birds

fell silent too

the rain avoided  cities

began to sail away to rim the old volcanoes

lick the lids of salt lakes

lie down  on the dessert  in the mall

stumble-bummed refusing

to get up   no move on order

would suffice

iii/

the sound that tore the lids off eyes

took every word 

blown from pages  incinerated

it’s what God wants

not even the last Trump

can pronounce

it will be the century of Asia

some pundit   who flies past

on a cow 

        broom  shed   yellow flare of death

iv/

never a pillar of salt   just the same plain ash

as the flicker  of that plush cigar

portent of it all

the band said Cubana

my last thing in mind

that music

Kit Kelen #703 - in a forest trees for every window

703

in a forest trees for every window

strewn

more than we count on

the way

around

here I am

needn't imagine the birds

cast a shadow in the dotted rain

because a sun says yet

to apprehend a rival world

mere wings required

and other jobs are upside down

just to get a beak in

to be the weather's very edge

so see the logic of next things

all the years of me are here

in the trill breeze

where you curl up close

with energy to say I am

there is above

there's this wire to earth

how anciently we rise

and call occasion to us

a tin roof to a cloud's catch

is how we can be here

and not remember how we came

in the open air

where sweet rain says a fall

all for the first time

although it must have been before

in windows of a forest fit

look after all selves

I cannot know how the banquet was built

radio static bears me away

ceremonious

these trees collect

draw up

call down

and never home themselves

won't whisper

but we lend a breeze

to live in

imagine returning

but it's not twice the same

if you were seeing it for the last time

you would say goodbye to yourself

better always not to know

lie down so you look up

Rob Schackne #538 - Some Things To Talk About (redux)

Some Things To Talk About

Nights in white satin
hey Joe where you going
give me a piece of your heart
woke up this morning
and got myself a beer
2000 light years from home
what have they done to our fair sister
we wanted the world
never reaching the end
walls are built of cannonballs
we won't get fooled again
turn out the lights
she asked me to stay
wasn't it good
with my old age
and my wisdom
when the music's over
save our sinners
the songs we sang
some things to talk about

Rob Schackne #537 - "the same story'

the same story
the crow told me
was a warning

storms come
and storms go
stay out of trouble

you know 
all the tricks
by now

don't pretend you don't

for fuck's sake
bring water
and except for

you there
dance alone
be quiet

music over
the circle done
fly away

Kerri Shying R # 365! - Exert

Exert

write something longer

for the prizes   they can’t

give out money

for something so short

 hey

how long

does it take you

to come

not long            and forever

 someone pays

for that 

every night

every where  

changing clothes

got harder  crossing lines

no bullets

hurts the same

you

tie your hands behind your back

it makes your breasts

look higher

fuller 

catch

tipsters  hashtag

instagrams of the plentimore fish

in all the seas    none of them

see me

write something longer

for the tall hearts

that stretch their necks above

what’s ordinary  look inside you

 find the pinpricks

the v shapes made by scissors

read

the words left over  the ones you want to

throw back

  small fish flying

  see

how they like it 

 what

colour are you anyway

my aunty gets a better tan

than you

write

your name

in the wet sand

at the tide line 

do it with your toe

though you know

what is rushing up

erases  all

Kit Kelen #702 - I make a garden of myself

702

I make a garden of myself

I take my bliss where blessed

and tend

a haircut's needed everywhere

I'm all blade to edit

winters I consign to fire

warm by waste

I dig

with beds made up

and lie in

so morning's at a stretch

I make a garden of you

with me

and tendril to the touch

we have a game to make

the middle

it will consist of seasons

summer is an often instance

goes on half the year

I'll make a moment

to inhabit

you can read it here

and picture all yourself

then it will be your own work too

I won't tell a single name

but take the scent in passing

nor will birds say themselves

but call

and twig and branch

so sway

all claims to my attention

all wellings-up are of the heart

some days I just evaporate

the bad smell could be me

whose snout is it to tell?

there's noone dares say

how stubbornly a garden goes

and that's to take the air

I take my bliss where blessed

and tend

life's a flash

and then you're ash

but still this world goes round

I care as much as I can too

it's because of care we're here

and here's a sun to wish for showers

and here's the flood

I wash away

I drink it down

to pond!

and with contraption bung

I make a garden of my mood

so little of all grown is food

all groan for such a rhyme

for pun

and never quite repeated

I take my bliss where blessed

and tend

I'm like the vine

as drunk to its own twirl

as well met!

and neighbours, friends!

the garden's all on cue

I have a hat for it

in fact I have a few few

there's magic of what's not here

the months away imagined

and other things float down

of course it's autumn when the moon says

and all year spring is coming

less you eat the more time there is

but meals come on like clockwork

the simplest lesson's to live now

(it's happening anyway

and while you wait)

cannot a garden be happy with that?

I tune the thing to daylight

and I tone it down to dark

cicada and fugue

there's the tale of out from under!

I make the echoes and I hum

until the words must come

the symphony's unfinished

nights - notice how the stars grow here

and dew from nowhere fallen

is there a colour of this truth?

and mine among foretelling

but every end is here

like the nowhere ladder hidden

I won't remember when

but plan to make mine in this place

with the garden all about me

Rob Schackne #536 - How Does The Song Go?

How Does The Song Go?

Farewell China
farewell Tiananmen
farewell Tibet
farewell the dancing aunties
farewell a million poets
farewell Shanghai 
farewell Panopticon
farewell Yunnan
farewell the bits of air

farewell the promises
farewell the idlers
farewell I can't stay
farewell my lovers
farewell all we didn't say

Kit Kelen #701 - I must go into hiding

701

I must go into hiding

I take the blindfold trail

hands tied -- all my strength to balance

no one will know my plan

the more I say

the more secret I am

there's nakedness in where I've gone

let's call it Secret Valley

something's hidden in my head -- its heart

and soul adorns the body

so

I'm well under words by now

the weather's all over my head

there's been too much of me altogether

I've made too much noise

tuck me under some old idea

I'll think it up again

stockwhip and blanket

I am given this time to rust

none of my ink's invisible

there's no punishment, reward

but that we live it now

there's no go-round again

I must go to the great below

no beyond of that

helicopter hum above

of they're all after us

but they'll never find me

not in so many words

I fold into a moment, gone

in all the stars of this sky's catch

I must have been the bubble burst

I won't be comprehended

the way we fade is memory

less less of me to be

yet still always poised to strike

will you come with me there?

Rob Schackne #535 - "A hundred" (3)

A hundred
dinosaur eggs
found in a field 
knock off for lunch
sausage and bread
lie down to sleep
a farmer writes
a little poem
bring it home
I wanted to
they argue

Kit Kelen #700 - come to rest

700

come to rest

we're rounded with it

like ghosts through glass

beyond ourselves

dropped into this chair

for ponder

then the dream took on

trees taken aback

survivors higher

it's the future with us

who can predict?

a sky

we're well washed again

so culpable for all

a sun will shine

straight through us

breeze drops

that same sun declines

moon droops over its stumbling prey

we can have ice cream

whenever we want

we won't have to weep for them

shouldn't should

all that was shines through us now

without that light what would be seen?

what will they know of how we enabled?

of what we merely let?

we ourselves ask who we are

ours are the names to forget

so day set out

with its cloak of words

sacred it is to simply be

tasked with just this here

the all to do

as we have been

build and the rest will come

Rob Schackne #534 - "per Kavanagh" (2)

per Kavanagh
no peasantry
of class or land
quality of bone
intelligence or race
personally screwed
something else
runs from all light
and writes laws
of majestic equality
peasantry of darkness
the city and the night
it's not your planet

KitKelen #699 - aubade for the first of summer

699

aubade for first of summer

at Markwell via Bulahdelah

dawn chatter all the smallest join

bright objects they must be

kicking screaming

brought to light

is it a chorus or gossip or nag?

a kind of setting fire?

and I, the exegete

of all, of these

'who are you?' most ask

it's only each own glory sings

so old scores are settled

fresh empires change hands

conquer, crumble

invisible triumph of light's firstness

they are simply tuning

one tells a Bible's worth

another is all news

wisdom of the GPS

and note the latest fashion

the story of my life

come down in this last shower

often softened with the sun

they have sung it all

mountains are in them

and skies as far from here as dreamt

here's how you do that double flip

takes snakes by surprise

and hover for the hell of it

and swoop and dip and dive

as night was frogloud coming

past dusk's cicada haze

so open a window

day comes in

and I

in that forever linger

pray the rain

into it swim

who've kipped the hours under roof

have privilege to hear all now

I like to see these peasants toiling

tilling my good air

to have such bliss begins becomes us

as given for a song

it's voice from another room summons me

and that's how I join in

the Christmas hunt for the missing thong