Kit Kelen #736 - ekphrastic - invocation - clouds - Philip Wolfhagen

736

an invocation

first conversation with the clouds

/// a meditation on the breath writ large ///

ekphrastic

Philip Wolfhagen

A Litany of Vapours 2007, Longford, Tasmania

each room is drifted

like a father's mansion

(there is a seven-ness)

aloft where I am not

and into mirror drip

as board shows through

wears dry

as we are scratched

days are initials in them

they are oil

and under worlds to think

yet lie

a dizzying come close

palletted

there is a knife and brush

bees have waxed this way

everyone is dressed for this

the puzzle not to fit

but drift

isn't there all beyond in them?

lit or we would say they sit

and trail away to cushion throw

like mitts

the gauntlet rug

there is no stroke

there won't be knack

their own windows are a framing

their netherness is stand to see

these have a year and flew from

it's as if you were to read merely by breath

imagine fainting

and they give you this

then you're away again

cursive

heavy on the brush

a wall behind them

will be cloud too

a white shirt paces by on guard

as clouds hung here to dry (they won't)

the sky shines heavily, if webbed

so many shades till down

lines are guessed

we darken to

I lie out

with a blue

for up

we drown

in seeing this

arc over

a moment

so be

still as breath

please stay

as if

the stars

would come 

Kit Kelen #735 - stochastic (ekphrastic for the field guide)

735

stochastic

ekphrastic, after Brian Blanchflower's 'Canopy XXVII'

for the field guide to Australian clouds

the cloud inside is spotted

like the creature folds to be

colour flung

stars catch

it's mist

a cloud composed of itself

and drifts

all in its being

which is where it was not

it is a tussle of light

to seem

and catches

by the sun

none tend

but all cloud is

is somehow let

and leans

to round

this world 

Kerri Shying R # 393 - Kang Quilt One

Kang Quilt One

All the stitching gathers    first

along the mattress needle    

shark fins by the quay

near the Opera House

when I was just a kid

all the same

but not     dropped

bunched   pulled flat

drawing with a steel finger

one tale   all the years to make

   tuck in around me

   and I’ll tell

Kit Kelen #734 - oneiric

734

oneiric

there is an upstairs in the dream

no lid on the snake

the poem begins in half night

elsewhere we are then

most of us have to struggle for irony

had to get to the pool too

just you try that climb

or we had come from there

so much summer coming

at the end of a career

the prime minister is telling us to buy furniture

this will be good for the economy

it's serious

I don't need to sit an exam

don't need to be at this meeting

here just to make you look good

I am still trying to leave the Woolley Building,

my teaching job, Hong Kong, high school

I have many parcels to gather yet

I want to be inconspicuous

I could be at home now

my hat has been crushed but I need it

there is more than one hat

which one should I leave wearing?

junked in together

someone from school is in sales

in my way

all inane conversation

do I go back in there for the other?

it's only a little snake

don't know where we misplaced the lid

must keep checking to see

if you don't allow yourself to arrive

you're never going to be here

Rob Schackne #560 - "sure we both know"

sure we both know
but down at
the river flats
the cicadas go nuts
waiting for the moon to rise

Kerri Shying R # 392 The new bottle bank

The new bottle bank

Don’t leave my purse there    don’t you

know that Mayfield   is one of the worst

spots for Junkies    she is slamming Coke

cans   bang one thousand bang into the

new refund machine  out the back of Woolies

and I try not to scream    it is great here for

junkies    as I wait with my protein blend

and mineral water   she has shopping trolleys

full    coke after coke after coke   has come in

all the way off the lake   just to get this done

it is like having nits    you just want to get

the cream on and the comb out and get the thing

over with    I want her gone   I looked for her bag

but the kids must have stowed it   too fast    shame

Kit Kelen #733 - ekphrastic - Arshile Gorky's Plumage Landscape (1947)

733

ekphrastic

Arshile Gorky's Plumage Landscape (1947)

[National Gallery of Australia]

picnic to me

with a flag of

just what's on the brush

inversion so suction

some shading and some spray

I like connectedness all random

otherworldly squiggle

like fume and drip

crème de menthe

a tall glass tilts

where fancy's taken

spread flow

the almost head

of ballerina scribble

delicious day

and weather coming

fireworks gone

guests whom we've enticed to stay

there's nothing you can breathe in that world

it's poison I tell you, it's poison

Kit Kelen #732 - skull house

732

skull house

for Robyn and Adam

and Griffin and Sol

bright

all winter witted

lit from the past

just some green tendril up to tell

another solstice

too much sun

lost in tomb city

we are

polished concrete of the soul

our well lit deaths a welcome

rictus

each unearthed

like a punchline

so you see how we went

so little dust

so few webs

fine private place

the knitting lies

stray hands could be coaxed

all bicycle bones propel it

to stillness

sky too bright for foreboding

eyes too blue

yet we still breathe

this politics of here and now

your house-swap guest

inhabits nature morte

finds us in still life history

the cockroach is anatomy

skull of the crocodile eludes for now

the cicadas are to be released

it is only a matter of time

Kit Kelen #731 - common or garden people

731

common or garden people

(for Ataraxia)

our memories in nameless things

generically – ground cover

and/or we mulch

forget about all selves here

go us first

here pass beyond speech into song

it's as with music someone made once

still we call an air

are walking through webs

are muddied in the shoe

stumble on what wasn't

in a house much unknown mechanism

and every garden has one, has it?

these are the ghosts with whom we abide

one disbelieves concertedly

yet we are returned

by world and sun

by season

breath of it upon us

out of their minds here

in the home paddock

thin on the ground

and make selves scarce

torn things

like a hat of ages

things that drip

lead to a leak

whiff of us

and the too many roos

you can see where snout has been

gone namelessly to night

so many to brush off

we move the water round

it's a circle

in the rough

just where we are

living to light

to be the anonymous author

no greater honour than

Kerri Shying R # 391 the new porch sofa better

the new porch sofa better

planted in that frangipani    white    with the old green tent peg

to lean on   I’ve given quite enough of them away

Lisa made my bed     I lay stretching hamstrings seeing swollen joints

and listening to cracks   watching my foot against the elaborate white

crenellated corn husks of last century in ceiling plaster   

a hammer toe   my soul   all the strength of a swamp    now the hubbub

of the holidays    so tidal   is gone

me and the moon    both void

Kerri Shying R # 390 - in January

in January

what if I said     you will

lose  me    this year    have

to search    among the words

for conversations    new

play a scrabble

just of this

it could be

any   all of   us   it’s

me  you     do   rest

awake   wider-eyed in

all the days

James Walton #89 Venus Bay, New Year's Day

we drive over to your sister’s

on a day shiny and crisp

as porcelain

the tide wild

in a thousand Hokusai

the flags only metres apart

zinced oiled kids slosh around

sea line hallucinates

big frog clouds blurp horizons

my heart is awash

like our first kiss

I was too shy to give

a ring in tern

among the gulls

all one flight

when the eagle passes

surf club posters

Greek Indian Italian nights

ten dollars plus trivia

Mark bellows hey brother

a voice you can hear

all the way to Croatia

an elder has a stick

in case of snakes

joyful bevies of children run

skittish Christmas lights

splashing away of parents

teenagers baulk time

afternoon shakes free

the sun a gentle underline

Kerri Shying R # 388 - Give me fever

Give me fever

this body gets

more and more outraged

give it a drink

it makes formaldehyde

mozzie bites  thick

with spiral copies of the forest virus

the thin skin  disguised

as the hide of a rhino

I do declare a shallow cave

one wall    shaggy moss

population book pens

dog cats fish plants

sitting cushion

paint  many many wool

new year

Kit Kelen #730 - 1.1.18

730

1.1.18

it's Monday

it's 2018

the moon near full now gone

an Indian mynah in the bottle brush

no friend of gravity

quiet day grey

and lifting

power lines perched

birds nag and territory tussle

clean shirt for now

won't even smell of me yet

somewhere someone wants out of a war

tribe of children mainly

someone with money is desperate to make one

it's almost certain things will begin again

bells of eight

a sun too bright

same old

same old

they say

a little dizzy

a little blear

still barefoot for the summer

day is waking to us

that means it's morning here

some of us have resolved not to bother

I can still get a fresh breath of air

I wish all of you well

Rob Schackne #559 - "The translations"

The translations
five feet apart
on Newry Street

mild summer day
watching the bees
on lavender

this evening
that super-moon
birds flying home

                         Fitzroy

Kit Kelen #729 - I count myself among them

729

I count myself among them

all these people desperate

to be saved from themselves

desperate to transcend

to be beyond beside themselves

with gods and demons

pills, good angels

exercise, the magic diet

helpful books and shopping - just the act of it

or work - for goodness sake

to diss the body too

in favour of abstract thinner-than-air

such as forever rumoured

poem of the morning -

that will get you off the hook

who knows of what they are capable?

and here they are with all there is

there cannot be more wonders

these are the monsters years have imagined

and were they to pause a moment

each would hear music of the clock that keeps them

that they keep

would know the preciousness of time

the mechanism

and their own running down

Kit Kelen #728

728

must have been distracted

lost my train of thought

I know there had been something important there

I wondered if you might have remembered

because you might have been thinking what I was thinking

but I could see you were lost in thought yourself

I retraced what I could and returned to the crime scene

came up with a blank

was it something I'd read? eaten? discovered?

wracked scone but no avail

I think it was something sluggish in the weather

maybe something from the night before

and then I noticed where I was

though not quite sure

a certain trill of tune took me

rain on the roof was reminiscent

I thought of the day ahead

instructions I was bound to follow

how we got here

what's next to do

the topic list

the shopping

sex

where I'd left my resolutions

who I am

will be

then I lost that thread

I was talking to myself again

I don't suppose anyone would notice

but there was a thing I had to tell somebody still

skip that

something more important

corner of the eye you know

a fly stuck still on the glass

was it trying to understand

how it could perch on an ocean of air

and be flightless

you can see through the wings

but I don't suppose a fly can

was it stuck remembering too?

I think it was just a thought

it was never going to be a butterfly, was it?

it's a good thing I've written all of this down

now that we've gone to the one dream

which is nowhere to be at all

Rob Schackne #558 - Untitled (redux)

Untitled


Famous for a poem
written when he was drunk
(he doesn’t much like)
a great love a missed flight
an arrow a bed a blister
he walks with umbrella
treads on wet leaves

Kerri Shying R # 387 within my blurred speech

within my blurred speech

those seconds ache for each other

cling together    atoms   singing

out the centre of my birth name

call to the sun

how  does she live

call to moon

why does she speak

call to the earth

who does she speak

mother

father

who are her people  in the spaces

by the atoms live the colours

of the eyes of everyone who lived

before  they ask the questions seconds

onetwothreefourfive

blur