Anna Couani #231 Glebe Local

Glebe local

my place my home

the suburb of Glebe

part of Sydney 

a palimpsest of history 

ancient maritime paradise 

of wetlands teeming with new life

in the oyster economy

a nurturing incubator but 

degraded depopulated and polluted

with industrial waste 

by the invaders

surviving the only way they knew how 

badly stupidly

fouling their own nest

but it wasn’t home for the English

just a temporary sojourn

polluted so badly 

people near the wetlands and creeks 

were dying 

from proximity

the imaginative solution 

landfill!

and pump the poison into drains 

and out into the harbour

perfect

the harbour floor now permanently toxic

best not go there 

dispossession and pollution

a foundation for the future

dividing the suburb into north and south

Protestant and Catholic

the north a no-go area for working class Catholics

living in the Church lands run by the Anglicans

always full of contradictions

becoming diversity

a myriad small businesses

artisans and professionals side by side

there is no ‘we’ here 

not exactly Glebites but 

quintessentially Sydneyites

harbour dwellers

incubator 

home to many schools crèches and preschools

dormitory for 3 universities

60% rental

the shopping centre teeming with young people

from all over the world

artists musicians composers writers academics

all adjacent but not networked or organised 

is Glebe

place full of characters

a character in my narrative

Is this a love letter to a place

no a place is not a person

to love being here is not to love a single entity

it’s the multiplicity and 

the place is not contained within municipal boundaries

it spills out into Ultimo, Pyrmont, the Sydney CBD

and along the lines of the wetlands into Chippendale and Darlington

up into the hills of Sydney University

across Camperdown towards the hills of Annandale

and into the harbour that reaches everywhere

like a giant in a big frock with spreading skirt

but songlines have been lost, ploughed into landfill

Kerri Shying R - # 628 found a drunk guy from the student lodgings. in stubbies

that pelargonium   snitched from the Redemptorists
in Woodstock St   flourishes by the front gate
despite me being told to  get off their lawn
last time I took a slow walk up history’s curving drive
to visit  Ligouri  and Menkens  founder and builder

found a drunk guy from the student lodgings  in stubbies

he said  it’s my fucking lawn    this is my house bitch
and ran at me   until a lady from the second floor
yelled out at him to stop   those porches are all
boxed off   little caverns   we don’t walk there
anymore   the new order  seems it must be closed

Tug Dumbly - 16 Pretty Unrelated Bits

Spaghetti Western:

How the Left was Won.

Democracy’s a beautiful thing

till it’s not.

My country, wrong and wronger.

It’s getting hot.

Holocene

Anthropocene

Trumpocene.

Can you dig the seam?

Horses, hunting

foreign flings

when kings make sport

that’s the death of things. 

Rapture Bookie

takes odds on Apocalypse.

who will collect?

Humanity’s a Blooper Reel

of God’s funniest home videos,

like cold calling Christ on the cross. 

I run a canned laughter factory

with a sideline in applause tracks.

But I’m laying off today.   

Take the fight to the man:

change your name to Totes Yolo,

start a band called Pop Smear.

So much toxic masculinity

in Simon & Garfunkle –

The Boxer, I am a Rock …

Scar bro, there.

Siam, Persia,

Formosa, Cathay,
Bohemia, Burma, Bombay …

I like their old stuff better.      

Melanstalgia:

a sticky-sweet addiction

to melancholy and nostalgia.

I reconstruct you

like an anthropologist

smoothing clay to a face

of an ancient skull.

‘Oh Man’, said Manuel,

as he read the Manual

on Manual labour,

‘this langwidge is Manglish’

John Berryman reads

like a parody of himself.

The cat steams in

like the Flying Scotsman. 

Today I piss streams

of tiny brightly coloured tropical fish

into the gutters.

Kerri Shying R - 627 torn apart by crabs

I’m knitting mangroves    root by root   surviving
night and day    the inrush of the tides I’m
waterlogged I’m dry   I’m all the decades  of fringe sitting
knitting  and unwinding   telling    keeping secrets
all the worlds destined to wash up    this

kitchenette my laundry  torn apart by crabs

sluiced to sea    relying as I do on you   the moon
aiding and abetting   Sun   if they can prove it  
so many other crimes    I live between the heat the bats
 this under over     day and night    the leaves the
tips the roots the air the water   knitting    all the time

Kit Kelen #1248 - let them come home, the creatures

1248

let them come home, the creatures

their everywhere was when

and we were of the many then

never even named

another winter was

had huddled through

imagine us out like the tide

not to see

nevertheless I am telling you now

a moon

and green shoots

come grazing

song without words

far and away

so fellow snouted

wary with

and in the wilds of yonder

out like a light we too must be

and all to share our dark

sky to dim their eyes go down

so we can wonder why

frolic mud forth

sun let sink

in further dark

a dream set

and we walked in like that

crooked in the cool damp

backs to

how then

deep in damage done

and all this never knowing

not for them to

now I can say our

must mean an excess

do I bracket? shall I underline?

for stillness like a picture sat

and always more

what miseries

each fed

breath to breathe

how then we yes

and it’s our right

a gathering of twigs and sticks

a home inside the fire

crumble fallen

new script now

sense of once was after ever

you can hear the road

will we be

the Christmas risen?

are their hearts for ours?

cruel?  

well, set our own to catch

we live in such times

tree wrecks

in among cloud fallen

cooked in the cool damp

backs to

slept off

let them come

out like a light

we too must be

all to share our darkK 

Frances Carleton #5 - LittleOldLadiesRUs

Six and a half inches
Four and a half inches
One professes love for
Three and a half
It’s simplicity
larger is more complicated
more demanding

There’s talk of multiples
numbers conquered
24
64
72
Only 12 at 12 inches

These greying ladies
gnarly arthritic fingers
frosting eyes
Sagging…
                  well you know.
Hard to imagine them in their prime
tie dyed flower children
‘I’ve totally done double digits’

Comparing fabric blocks
coffee at the quilting circle

Rob Schackne #957 - "Out of"

          
                 Out of
                 the west
                 sun settling
                 they fly in
                 from everywhere
                 the starlings

                 murmuration
                 what a dance

                 some wait
                 joining
                 such beauty
                 I nearly
                 shit myself

Kit Kelen #1247 - first day of a death

1247

first day of a death

last of May, for Mervyn

on the gone-ness of one who was going

it’s so many years were before

and how is it I still am?

all hours sad with

in its early age still raise a glass

was there

without ever abandoning?

waves of the crisis when past

something is over

I keep up in the conversation

take the old advice

the living take care of themselves once again

(often not a pretty sight)

the taste of things is very far

how strangely time all up above

making it not make sense again

how can’t it be to come?

fare well

he never left

the world left him

we must be ghosts

though there are none

in every death’s eternity

here this all I am

never let go

say goodbye

when you are gone

and what’s the point of that?

Jeffree Michael #75 Messed up

Can't make it work
cack handed
made badly
a thing of great beauty

cacophony
will have to do
by hand or foot
words brushes

drip
splosh
splattered
messiness

you get it
of course
who didn't slide
and not just once

sang still
from under the table
the sight of prone legs
no accident

a kind of light
made bright
if only by contrast
stars have dark backgrounds

still a marvel this
walking and falling
which way's up
depends when you laugh

if by words
thought's perfection
then content
be action

a kind of spell
one casts
perhaps a key
to make it last

cough it up
toss it down
stamp all over
yodle if you must

time's a hole
fill it up
just one step

needed

image: Juggernaut, acrylic paint paper JMS

Kit Kelen #1246 - flow

1246

flow 

the random and the written 

afloat and under, pressing 

the up with often pointed 

a perpendicular horizon 

print shown through

ink over drop blot falling now 

rain smudge in leaf to leaf pressed

crowd of characters as figured 

act and know themselves 

as if for a need 

systems in each other’s care 

the tightwire and the cloud caught falling 

standing the lip service 

the knowing and the not 

darkening hunch 

and let’s say prejudice 

over ongoing 

last drinks 

last meal 

hard scribing 

tomb so stone 

bright of beginning 

the one life and another 

my time cannot be wasted 

I inhabit the one mind 

a casual performance 

such as was life 

merrily merrily merrily merrily

this much as uncertain 

the nothing we can hide 

Frances Carleton #4 - Virtually

at the lights, she
light jeans uggs squished
soggier than known
head tilted, focused
object in her right
left scratching deeply

waiting for her
      beeping traffic
      bus turning
      rolled eyes
      swooping bird
      slowed walkers
      passing cloud
      the falling rain

she is swallowed
by a virtual world

   

Rob Schackne #956 - To Bees and Bee-Talkers

To Bees and Bee-Talkers

So let be to bees and bee-talkers

their special portion of the sun
their full amount of rain
while we murmur secrets
both good and not-so-good
so let be too the joys we find
our souls and honey at the end

                        (thanks to Kate L. McNamara for the first line)

Frances Carleton #3 - A/Part

After years
exclusion, side lined
apart

I've been invited
to be a part
a member
of something bigger
than myself

to be included
after years
it’s was just me
now I say
us.

Kit Kelen #1245 - losing tracks in the mountains

1245

losing tracks in the mountains

and finding a bear

a mistranslation

to wave through the window

the trembling words

tricks of the tongue

of the fur

rest on a rock

unhoney the log

or under a ledge

from rain

a world of glass

the weather comes

and when the voices are unseen

safer to take mist for smoke

go back over this ground

all up with the worlding

still finding

my feet

if I had another life

here’s where I would go

a bear is blur

clouds are stone

to be carried

held

colour of snow

I am melting

all are less than

just one night

I scent to stain

where the mountain is me

branches are over

am I now near to the midst?

years behind finding oneself

where everyone was singing once

taunt until all one breath

and finding oneself a bear

call sunshine a little dance

smile

come out of the clock

at the top of the hour

you can call it a waltz

Tug Dumbly - Two Lifts

Two Lifts

I drew you like a breath

I tried to keep the sketch

it wasn’t mine to keep

you crumpled it

and threw it on a heap.

You grew, I shrank.

We met midway for a while

two elevators  

momentarily aligned.

Then bye bye

you go your way

I go mine.