Kit Kelen #1232 - pond life - Lochhausen

1232

pond life

Lochhausen

13. v.19

all in among the waving

green and grey come

blue paler and paler

in every stillness

find a self

hear the heart

moss trail

lily in the pads

and at their steady pace

all grazing

grazing and nested

the ducks in finery

wing to fan

familial

come through the reed maze

take next steps on

peacock headed as for tail

Iridescent too  

like the paddle steamer

crossing this way

between worlds afloat

in the border

where a sky

come true

see the over beak glance

the wake and setting sail

then for the stillness of dusk

in every heart a stillness

where woods unclock

sky notes

speak of a certain time of day

take it for your season

secret

volume of woods down

train brought up

best be making tracks

waddle to wing lift

here we come

where we happen to land

a comfort when night

brings us under wing

then nobody hears

how our mothers would sing

but it’s deep in the feathers

and warm

JC Inman #9 Diver and Astronaut

Thick against pressure

Or thick against the lack

To go there, boldly, where few others

Have been so lucky

Mariana,

Sleeps so deep,

When we dived there

The innermost crevice

We found a shopping bag.

Plastic, this deep

The horror, how could someone?

A candy wrapper among

Sunken warships

Missing airplanes

Sewerage, dumped wheat, bits of LEO satellites, fallen

Rockets  and an Australian Prime Minister

?!!!

ISS

Circles on a layer

Between pull and drift

Between earth and endless

Endlessness

Beneath

Sun-synchronous low earth orbit

1400 satellites

128 million flecks of paint,

nuclear coolant cooled to ice

17 thousand man made objects

Vanguard 1

In near constant circulation

When we dive into deep space

We will find fingerprints of astronauts

Rocket scientists, governments,

Shoppers and poets.

They’ll be there on plastic

Next to our incredulity

Kit Kelen #1230 - all about me

1230

all about me

I have often been a bridge

dark tunnel too

and saw through the glass

a wilderness of one

a voice

I have called them out

showed signs and cause

and been the passion

I’ve had the fever

been mistaken too

I was an island once

had their number

wore shades for the future when

I took my head for a spin

way back

I saluted the sun every day

ate my apples twice

into the ointment I flew

and thick of argument

often missed the mark

wept slept

time out of mind

I lost my focus in the words

and found myself a zoo

I have been that tune

stuck in your head

cloud gone to blue

I come from where

the sun once shone

upstart

I was old hand too

still every morning

I wake and wonder

what have I done

and what’s to do

Kit Kelen #1231 - forgetting where I am

1231

forgetting where I am

that there is weather

set off through woods of life

through wall of self

and tolling

a churchworth

to disbelief

see as far as the shadows throw

I meant to lose my way

flower falls

so stand it up

patch sky with only seeing

forgetting how I’ve come?

won’t that make me just a little chosen?

as if for an old excuse

like someone on my side

when really it’s the gauntlet

down, run

at every chance I must decide

don’t single me out

I love to breathe

the winter mind fills up with snow

now I’m here

forget which way to go

calm find

in fast reflections

face to trust－my own

in grace by the skin of it

tops a lighter green

the needle dark

through cloud

comes the godbreak

folk of other times press

by in their prime

come from unnoticed tricks

they’re with us today

perhaps not on paper

which world are we in for, wonder?

best when I forget my own name

strange beast of another imagination

lost to the feeling

down for the count

seasons are coming

open your eyes

nested high

wheels roll

first by the breeze

then an engine

take off

blow me down

in the fumes

here to be home

is our world’s work

believe it or not

you’re there 

Clark Gormley #102 Canberra

a place of secular bell-towers

and sacred kingfishers

white administrative buildings

and black swans

foul hard-headed MPs

and fowl hardheads

tawdry bigmouths

and tawny frogmouths

where birds are simple to themselves

legislators could learn a thing or two

Tug Dumbly - Biology

Biology

A hot afternoon, and a film

from the Department of Education relic vault

snickers through the ratchet –

dividing amoebas, molecules, cells.

Something microbiological

in the old film stock itself

as it apes its subject matter

with the accrued glitch

of a thousand screenings –

dust squiggles, mosquito wrigglers

and pubes boing and frog-kick

across the ancient sea of the screen,

collide with splitting cilia and flagella.

It’s the slow whip beat of a galley ship  

to this slumped bench of the Third Form,

chained before the alter of the Bunsen.

They half sleep on sweaty arms, or smudge

a heart with a pen on a salt wrist, or etch  

a swastika in a desk with a compass,

as the parkinsoned ceiling fans

slowly wobble round, and the downed

blinds lazily clack like false teeth

in the hot sirocco leaking through

the windows, and that melting Dali clock

above the board yawns and mocks,

tocks backwards, away from Three,

to the primeval dawn of the day. 

Rob Schackne #948 - Room (Town Tanka)

No poem, no wind
but a draught in every room
I ride into town
pedalling like a fury
humming part of some old tune

Kit Kelen #1229 - I brought a box of my mother's tears with me

1229

I brought a box of my mother’s tears with me

I haven’t checked the use-by

little vials with which she was thrifty

so many yet remain

sometimes here the air is dry

even though it’s raining lightly right now

I travel with them

think of them as a little selection

although they’re all the same

you never know when you’ll be crossing a desert

though these wouldn’t save you from thirst

or anything really, except dry eyes

I’m happy to have things of mum’s

things she chose herself and loved -

cups and pictures, hats and tea

mainly books, and practical things -

cutlery, tears

I’m reluctant to have back though

stuff I gave - presents

better in general to pass them on

things she borrowed

are another category

it’s a strange thing

in that moment when I woke

because I knew

and had her face before me

I went up to the loft without thinking

and sniffed through a bag of her stuff

and put on a warm top I’d got her in China

not really meaning to get it for her

elasticy, synthetic, warm

mum adopted it

I’m wearing it now

nippy in Munich

have had to wash it a few times since

still it’s a kind of a skin to be in

when mum had gone

somehow the moment knew me

my mother’s tears were rare in life

there was something about glaucoma

then the light came on

and I spilled into the next day

I keep those tears of my mother’s

I think they were prescribed

though I know that for such things

no prescription is required

each in it’s likely-to-outlast-us-all plastic case

a fish could swallow

like soy sauce

I haven’t checked the use-by

but my hunch is these things last forever

whatever the company says

they only want to sell more

so I’ll hang onto these tears of mum’s

they’re for emergencies really

just in case

you never know

they don’t weigh anything

(like everything else I travel with)

I am reluctant to use them though

just blink a few times

I’ll be right

Jeffree Michael #73 It's ok

Can't fix this
juggle that lot
reduce the load
finish the job

make the tea
do the beds
wash them windows
cut the lawn

c'est la vie

I'm running late
dip my biscuit
forgot his name
fell asleep
yet again

can't reverse
sing in tune
button my lip
dance the tango

I speak only English
forget to pay
stay up late
read in the bath

don't ski
bored with league
contemporary art
wear daggy jeans
sometimes out

life's a struggle
at times yes trouble
take your share
tip it out

it's ok

we didn't ask
to be here anyway
here it is though
another chance
to get it right

or wrong

oh well

image : jms journal book drawing / pencil  / paper

Rob Schackne #947 - "I wouldn't"

                
                
                           I wouldn't
                           be surprised
                           all are lonely
                           I nearly went up
                           with the birds

                           feria sounds
                           from nowhere
                           the churros
                           incoming wave
                           the olives
                           chorizo & anis
                           I wonder now
                           what it was
                           skip a day

Kit Kelen #1228 - deictic: playing with the articles at hand

1228

deictic:

playing with the articles at hand

grey dark of day

rain steadies the roof

all the green world drinks

air is sweet

and best to breathe

so full so fertile this soil now

the house would put on another floor

if only a sun would shine