Rob Schackne #555 - "walk with me awhile"

walk with me awhile
we can listen
off-and-on
and I'll ask you
if I fell asleep
in a lavender field
a billion butterflies
go about their business
is nothing easy forever
just another journey
we lost our lines
nothing is real
your turn
the truth

Kit Kelen #722 - art of imperfection

722

art of imperfection

squeeze past

scratch, tear

eke, approximate

miss the mark

peg the square

I say the wrong thing

put it the wrong way

wrong words come out of my mouth

scribble mere marks onto paper

rub out

chase the wrong tail

mean is golden

pour over it all

patch things up best I can

I'm doing my best

I kill the thing that makes me strong

how do you think I got here?

I use the wrong colour

I make the wrong mark

here are the things that won't go together

the wrong are always partying

(the pious shake their well-coiffed heads)

I give it a hundred and one percent

that's how far awry I've gone

every voice I tried

every mask

wrong!

none of my clothes fit

thinking - it's the same

I'm the wrong body for the job

this one line has led me astray

I was a fool to follow, believe

faith kept me ...

in the cold, in the dark

a fire would have burnt the place down

flood would have washed

all the while error

was wishing me tricked

little demons all chime in - characters!

they have the run of the ship

we're all under the Plimsoll line

can't see a thing in this swim

but almost there

almost there

whose is that voice in the head?

some precious fuck

knows how it all ends

I listen to the wrong news

world is all fucked up

a fake!

I'm the biggest phony of all

sometimes I fancy I know what it is

turns out I was mistaken

egregious

rank

conspicuous

flagrant

wrong symptoms

wrong disease

wrong measure

do you think that the stairs only lead up?

follow this melody?

fuck it up

did you see me trip over?

face full in it

did you have a good laugh?

how skew my home

they're already eating it

there's the big wind waiting

my garden is a crooked thing

wrong planet

wrong star

I'm here

the time has come

beauty is all

we behold

Rob Schackne #554 - "at 3 am"

at 3 am
about the plan
everything
that will happen
everything that won't
at 6 am
another blister
deep breaths
rehearse the dawn
love is sleeping
get up

Kerri Shying R # 382 Tuesday night, rehearsal night, in Mayfield 2304.

Tuesday night, rehearsal night, in Mayfield 2304.

dusk too slow in Christmas week

the heat    and you   garage band

I know the covers  off by heart 

  welcome in your tangle  beat

 by beat 

 here he lags

 there he runs  

you keep no secrets

from me    weekly  wamping out

the music   of our home-owning

fifty-something times-gone-by

suburbia

so what

I never hear you

anywhere but home

  behind what fence

  inside what

  colourbonded

  color-coded 

land of sufficiency

I have come to take you in

with my Webster Pak

of comforts

along with carer visits   waves at shopkeeps    coffee on the footpath

please don’t

die of natural causes

go down fighting   be no

total eclipse

of the heart

Kit Kelen #721 - the waves

721

the waves

it's every boy cicada says

me

me

me

fuck me 

louder 

and louder 

and so delicious!

what bird won't go for that?

Rob Schackne #553 - "Pass a skinny Santa"

Pass a skinny Santa
a machine is playing
sax outside a store
jerky movements
knocked-up all weather
if it matters OK real estate
not playing too well
keeps winding down
the discernible riff
it's a family affair
I limp to work
one student angry
for nothing I did
another one happy to learn
what prone and supine mean
merry Christmas all

Kerri Shying R # 381 - just before Christmas, sick bay hits

just before Christmas, sick bay hits

nothing but the hot skin

walks me through today     time

all in the epidermis    sky

is waiting

blue   gone   grey  gone   black

silver dapple  star   spray

all my pillow  only one place

three

numbers

the dog  licking off the salts

only can but wait

everything

will pass   the time can right

itself   will synch 

back into you

the gears  go click   and morning

comes again the breakfast

lunch and tea

time   sunrise

too

 santa and the trees

 all waving     on the edges

 some kind of loon   maybe

 just the heat

In the ornamental garden # Claine Keily 122

The chairs are now unfolded
before the black pond smooth
the mare heavy with heat
begins to swoon
friends sit aloofly
in the ornamental garden
they speak of buying carpets
there with the gravel driveway
looped around us
I show them my scars

Kit Kelen - solstice

720

solstice

in wallaby thump

is how we tell it

we are the creatures round here

there isn't a tradition

but you will know this singing

breath

everyone looks up

to curse

after the first great heat

the fear of mosquitoes

is more than they are

yesterday was

45 to 27

in two hours

I took refuge in the mall

'it is what it is' - I took refuge there

in my wallet was the plastic

there was aircon

I took refuge in the car

later it dropped to 24

and now

not hard to get into the water

still 30

but I see every grape is gone

and they were almost there

what bird shat that?

heart black to revenge

mind, speech and body

hum, ah, aum

innumerable jewels!

everything's feathered with the rain

ants said that it was so

a dog along the barking road

I know the heat will come again

cicadas are again foretelling

I will take refuge in the aircon car

I will take refuge in the mall

I will spend up big

now rain shone

jewelled

I have a bottle for tonight

bought with good clean gold

one cannot help but wishing Christmas

nor I

nor it

will come again

least of frogs

is a window affixed

so we're the other world

how rude

this pale flesh shows

a brief

a brief

good

night

Rob Schackne #552 - A Solstice (for Stu Rawlinson)

A Solstice

Some other part
halves equal
great shots
missing cool
hip snapping past
what you need
poetry & music baby
the painting
dance away
snap snap
tilt like that
what you want
a hit long ago
outside of everything

Kerri Shying R # 380 - the card came from Sweden ( for Chrysogynus)

the card came from Sweden

for Chrysogynus

short  time builds a firm ground

of   knowing    without  the touch

omit the face  except in thumbnails

over facebook   pictures   where you

squint   and count to find the second

from the left 

 time is topsy turvy

 making your night my day

 we speak

 adventures out through fingertips

welding

is more than done in shipyards

avid learners

find  the portal twist their bodies

flip  the time   we

torture dark fables into straws

I open up the letterbox

the queen of Sweden profile

finally

we touch

Kit Kelen #719 - it has not killed them, it has made them strong

719

it has not killed them

it has made them strong

we drive off into the heat

haze takes us

there are no further seasons

the sea pulse is a wave set like this

they have survived the 44°

they are inside now

under the tin for volume

as if they'd invented it

it can only be the truth that they're telling

and after, in the rain that's fallen

they are coming

and they have come

there's an old testament of them

they are all dogmatic of a solstice

our surrender

is delivered

in lip reading, signs

Stuart Rawlinson #88 - Eights

lucky for some

this two-storey house

a room for each

of us. Missing

stairs - we'll float

up and down

the engine turns

but never starts

bisecting lines

perfectly straight

stay the course

tracking curves

followed drone

the shallow turns

of an endless lane

churning, sickly

Rob Schackne #551 - "Slam down my brain"

Slam down my brain
nighttime in Andalucía
lift my head up

the place is unfamiliar
all the pretty dresses
giving me the eye

I'd pick up the pace
if I could find it
a million dreams won't help

solstice fun later
a lot of noise to follow
wine and wine etcetera

everything promised
everything felt
tap the mic and read

midnight comes and goes
a black cat sits there for an hour
stop and it runs away

(keep your million dreams
brave with a sense of humor
you're up next)

Stuart Rawlinson #87 - Snow Bones

Slush and mud

fill the verge

compacted flakes

vein the dirt

hoary imperfections

hedgerows

crackle

give up their

frosted views

the air has stopped

Parlick holds

its breath

the frame is set

Tiara # 121,Claine Keily

She learned
to wear a tiara
on her cheap cropped hair
to lift her own veil
to walk with the sun
in her eyes
without scowling
to love the way her thick unplucked brows
contrasted with any idea
of bridal white

She knew how to hold herself
when the girls
with identical fringes
giggled at her behind their hands
to walk past them
and take up a seat
beside a window

She was practiced in the art of
how to remain silent before men
who struck up conversation with her
and then talked only of themselves
while they appraised her
as though she were an item of furniture
or just one among many of the endless cabs
in the rank

Kerri Shying R # 379 - Hot Housing

 Hot Housing

cooling off along the butter boards
still
 the animals come curl
at night the season
 to my turkey roast

I give off fumes
I steam

the summer
tree
showers bark

I bend to that collection
the gift of life
for small things

it shields the roots
of January's growing  
up the back
where the hard west sun
makes New Year's Day
the devil

Kit Kelen #718 - sometimes too bright the eye of heaven shines

718

sometimes too bright the eye of heaven shines

fold into it

like an ache

itch through

solar on the roof now

and when you're in one

the oven runs for free

what but a breeze

encouraged between doors

how we are winter yearning

open the encyclopedia at the iceberg pages

outside every leaf says fuel

a dragonfly flew through

wings of fire and gone

one of those days

the sticks turn snake

and gather to drink

where we do

nor am I flimsy with the wishing

but here comes Christmas

baking in the beard

and we admit life's larger than

but give us our moment

this daily shine

and dust

cicada's summer in the sunny south

worldwide tinnitus!

then water is measured in tank rings and tubs

thinking's all apocalyptic

you bucket it out like a miser

it's half the night as well

blackout advised now we're under bombardment

we are the sun inside

light even a kindle

it's little wings to flame we call

gather me some complexion dimmer

squeeze it over me for a shower

everything's out of tune in this heat

I want to get on with the day out of words

and the next line calls me back

Kerri Shying R # 378 - Older

Older 

you are my solar flare   the petrol bloom

we gasp  from out the wreckage

of  that adjacent century   each the other’s

relict   relish  pickle with a sharp cheddar

a country inn a long drive meandering

the road to nowhere    the choice of climbing

fences  tearing pants  invading patches

where crops forbidden grow

Kit Kelen #717 - lit from within

717

lit from within

it's first thing see the webs lit

know

alien craft ashore

it's always while you sleep

they come

healing from the year

it's all of the one ache

darkness was here

I'm gone to

violence of seasons is such

in each

you won't believe the others

but run to the sun

run from it

like christmas

how a tree comes lit

and crowded under

all for love

it's snow suggests

but a sheet's too much

so deep in the screaming

your muffled dream

what villainy was

won't be remembered

but I am here to soothe by touch

after all the world's well lit