Rob Schackne #915 - Senryu (35)

                                            






                
                     The bird is empty
                     folded in a paper bag
                     left on a bench

Kerri Shying R - # 609 - Election

Election

when you were kids
did you make others
close their eyes
say    I have an egg
make a crack
with your left hand knuckle
on the house
then unfold your hand

egg-like
down their hair along
the soft boiled
craniums shaved for lice

the squeal of the victim
delicious  fooled
how we lined up
to be next

Kit Kelen #1180 - the problem of democracy

1180

the problem of democracy

woke full of hope

handing out

for humanity, for the future

knowing what needs to be done

in my green shirt, in my green socks

shielding bright from the sun

there’s a little bird loves the glass

can’t get in and hits again

so this is where we’re up to?

blame the victims, curse roadkill

they come into vote

the massacre smirkers

lovers of progress cherish a privilege

don’t you tell me

to have an enemy just vote

then you’ll be better than

thugs who train their dogs to bite

roll laughter round, wave flags

chainsaws, dozers, backhoes

engine bigger than yours, much

eyes averted

wilful in ignorance

they do not know the past

but they vote for it again

I woke full of hope and handing out

saw the sneer, could cope with

sly undiscovered rapists

who love their puppy

know how unclean all others are

at least not like them

here’s some circumcision

cruelty has a vote

kiddyfiddlers and the oh-so-righteous

might be one in the same

the sheep and the cattle vote

a lump of coal and iron-strong silence

bent minds enter the polling place

wife beaters, tree haters

the killers of koalas

how humourless their laughter

believe in their own retribution

beginning and the end of wisdom

kind their fathers dealt

the monsters vote

the unborn will cast their lot for revenge

who’ll vote to reap as they sow?

the not-very-bright

vote for more light, again

then the whole of this world

is in on the act

the upper house must be heaven

the animals eaten, the trees cut, burned

dinosaur bones – who’s telling the truth?

and judgement!  they are full of it

won’t be judged

I have as much right as any

a frog came in to vote

and wanted more mosquitoes, flies

science now, and a storm is voting

flood and a drought

the sun comes over

it’s not a very funny joke

I vote for the freedom to burn

in my green shirt, in my green socks

shielding bright from the heavens above

here they come, build up to tear down

the prisoners of a radio

the market and the press

they have the right

to make others suffer

orders come from high in the city

the mind of sloth obeys

hold off the flood, walk through the fire

it’s a secret ballot

ignorance is an empire now

simpletons who trust a fool

follow a how-to over the cliff

just give me some hating

a bitter vote

for something brighter, cheaper, best

and bust your balls

I have read the promise

don’t believe them

all the same

won’t make any difference

how was it the Nazis got in?

artists, writers, the dancers

those who sing, those deep in thought

the shyest birds come to the place

it is the highest of our imperfect forms

hit heads on the glass again

would have wished to swim in this mirror

I have to write the numbers myself

I vote for the illusion of love

for humanity, for the future

knowing what’s to be done

it is the bubble I believe in

down to a song and gone

this old world spins  

that’s how we get over the line

how ugly, secret I am unseen

best thing thought up so far

and the only way to go on

Stuart Rawlinson #92 - Spun

The fleet-ring spins

and tilts and stops

crescendo of what

no one quite asked

Lights dim to a glow

voices grow in time

the regret is kicked

long in the grass

There is time for this

for everything that turns

the arc of truth
is a hard truth to learn 

Rob Schackne #914 - Senryu (34)

Crickets murmuring
cicadas all disappeared
what were they saying

Kit Kelen #1179 - God caught fire

1179

God caught fire

for godsbother

it was all that rubbing

and just a few sticks

it was His hot breath

back of your neck

God was fire

and fire was Good

glowed like a burning bush

the full seven days

God was on fire

some said candle and some said book

there was a conflagration of stars

once a holocaust was this

we’ve truth and fact and observation

and doubt for my favourite now

all up against hope and fear

nothing can put the bugger out

and nobody dares come near 

Rob Schackne #913 - "What the Imam said"

What the Imam said
across ignorance
across otherness
across intolerance
across hostility
across aggression
across hatred
across violence
how we've wandered
let the sun rise beautifully
bless your hearts

Jeffree Michael #64 Still Life 4 today

time old flags come down

the mind remembers this heart

calls instead for peace 

image: Still life  - hanging screen detail / recycled rice paper ink aerosol paint interfacing  JS 

Kit Kelen #1178 - in a patch

1178

in a patch

the pumpkin and the poem

chased around a rhyme

all vine connecting

like roots above the ground

rolled the thing around between

took water on, took sun

and tendril delicate

drilling down

raising cup to lip

one pebble round

the other clod

seasons equally in each

and neither quite a world

took along the noted stave

by inches no one saw

both spotted, striped

pocked here and there

one open book, one heart of seed

flowers all forget

the insect of the visit

the struggle was to rise

bounce back

from a wilt, won’t we?

told themselves

till licked for light

crust of skin

and cut to quick

you can cook it all

had a swim in the thing

but which?

each truth to deal

to share

to know, to love

consume

Anna Couani #228 street noise

street noise

there is the highway that curves off up ahead

and an acrylic pour that could seem like that

all gloopy and curving lines

a window onto the main road

seen straight on, only tree branches and leaves

but audibly noisy with traffic

a piece of music that could be expanded

repeating two bars, creating four bars

applying the pentatonic scale across six strings

the sound of footsteps only sometimes drowned out

then the louder noise of a bus

small noise of a scooter

the sound of a conversation, snippets

too low to be audible

maybe in English, students walking

newly discovered instruments, by me, that is

the sheng, a Chinese hand held organ

the guitar viol, a bowed guitar

the bus plays notes

music playing from a passing car

briefly, then quiet, just for a moment

Kit Kelen #1177 - the heart of hearts says no

1177

the heart of hearts says no

boys own life death struggle

for godsbother

am I better than them

who each in their several ages

when wider was the world

kept a corpse on the lounge for pamper

Began a line with capital letters

L FT TH V   LS   T

who chained the slaves for fun to whip

who ate their fellow men

also whale sushi, consommé of albatross

grasshoppers and monkeys’ brains

conciliated a tribe of wives

who more than fancied little boys

who raped and raped and murdered too

spread death

and blamed the rats

thought up the machine gun

land mine, Zyklon B

God, the alarm clock

who ate the other animals

and tortured them in zoos

the soul-less

created truth and slow combustion

who though to dig up coal

who brought the blade against the tree

tore out the beating heart

held it to the sun

buried alive under a bridge

to appease

who slaughtered the violated beast

called it unclean to eat

blood upon them

unto death

sat up so high and mighty

who pictured a heaven

and thought up the spirit

hell nasty as you please

whom reason overtook

and left a metaphor alive

who were the first to utter

these my words

read entrails so knew

only a virgin would do

who wived a pyre

slaved pyramids

so jealous of life gone on

who beat the weaker

cowered under blows

those deep in the dark

who thirsted to know

who wore their own wove rags

and feathered up a sky with deity

thought fear beginning wisdom

took spring to heart

and smelt the folding flower out

with sticks and stones

with sabres

all regrets or none  

who made the lie

more less lovely

took an eye for an eye

who blinked and had the ghosts among

knew when to give up too

who never had the words

but clubbed together with death

that one day they would be the tribe

?

a little throne of judgement

I’ve come to

and rather crowded now

am I smarter than

atom bomb makers

physicians with leeches

and all who knew the sun went round

that earth was sudden-edged, so flat

and coming to an end

?

Kerri Shying R - # 608 - Biopsy

Biopsy

there is never
a good answer
to the question
that makes men
scrape about
inside your body

with long needles
and a knife
this wait
is too long

yet we
both wish
it would stay
this way
for ever

Kit Kelen # 1176 - the Woolstore Australian Made All Schools Botany Book 1966

1176

the Woolstore Australian Made All Schools Botany Book 1966

go back to the crooked line

to the jagged star

map of Christmas

pitter and pater were two little raindrops

a plum rolled down the hill

all these states

where did I stop to draw?

and why?

and how did the line take off?

so many countries our Commonwealth is

often the spelling is odd

you can’t hear

my dictionary began with

A baby

then we went on to beef

and Beet is a vegetable

bent is a kind of curve

things that flew

times tables

ten was a synch

             a cinch

             sinch

just add nothing

so many things invented then

not least the pom-pom mobile

(calls to the patent office

from a number with letters)

a lovely pair of Japanese slippers

I, anatomically correct

not a thing glum

but where was my best work?

from smoke as ink

we somewhere rise

radio so few tunes

way to school through the unbuilt bush

there had to be a stillness

winter made it far

sat on the heater first to arrive

only the queen could see

I knew the world

a beautiful place

the beautiful place  

for me 

Tug Dumbly - The Real Me in Velveteen

The Real Me in Velveteen 

'Becoming aims at nothing and achieves nothing’ – Nietzsche.

‘Nothing is Real’ – Lennon.

We are all Velveteen Rabbits now

on the road to becoming real,

like a Bing and Bob movie,

and the real you doesn’t suicide

drink drug and try and screw

every wooden leg not strapped

to a thigh, doesn’t rip people off,

short change, sabotage, act with

malice and jealousy

and premeditated cruelty

and postmeditated cuntfullness,

doesn’t resent and fume and fester

and gossip and badmouth

and backstab and be sulphurically

licked out by the victories

of others and feel a curdled warmth

from their shitslips, doesn’t

reflexively lie and habitually

sidestep consequence and

responsibility and doesn’t pretty much

just grease piston number one. 

No, the real you doesn’t do that,

and prisons are fed from arsehole

to breakfast with unreal thems

just looking to be real,

all the theys who acted so far out

of character it’s just not fucken funny

your honour, and housing towers snicker

and groan with neglected geniuses

sucking goon and noodles    

and office blocks are stapled to the gills

with dissatisfied pissant ciphers

of other lives, would be Houdini

shitjam escape artists and makers

and consumers of some bullshit

artisan life sitting in little traffic jam

tins of tense flesh, mere negative

avatars copping the beating for their

real true selves, dummies taking the

blows for the freedom machines

romping in slow mo through the

lush meadows of some parallel

paradise with their own personal

string soundtracks, the real

thems put out to stud under

the heavy glistening pelt of another life,

because this life simply wasn’t them.

The real me is in a spiritual gulag

locked like Christ under the Vatican,

an exalted thing of apotheosis

and apogee, but just trapped, you see.

No that me you think you see

is not the real me, is not now

and never has been me,

and the real me is also someone

I’ve never yet seen, but if you

see the real me say hello

because ‘I’ve been to paradise

but I’ve never been to me’.

Jeffree Michael #63 Rotationem

Like a brother or sister
Satsang
begins

timeless and again
where have you been
my long lost friend

you must know
fear or faith
brings me here to hear

but still you sing
to me
escapee a refugee

your words rolling
beads for counting
nearer each breath

ecstasy
like questions you say
make the world go around

so many on one-side
the tumbling begins
the little blue sphere she spins

before jumping off
their last tractions
rotate our world

the day begins

Anna Couani #227 Russian doll

Russian doll

the Russian doll

the baby granddaughter 

a sentient being

already with a reactive core

within

being in the here and now

self possessed but on the alert

this is mindfulness 

totally in the now

aware of the body

as in yoga

feel the muscles in your quadriceps

feel them flex as you jump 

in your elastic contraption

try to isolate the hand and fingers

look along your arm to your fingertips 

bend the knees slowly forward

then slowly twist

ah, she turned over

Rob Schackne #912 - "It's pathetic"

It’s pathetic
she asks what
we should do
I say little well
make it matter
or at least don’t
be a horse’s ass
disappear with grace
leave some clues behind
& mostly don’t fret it
(but a fair question
while the wine flowed
in a Chinese restaurant
the best I could do)

Kit Kelen #1175 - tank landing

1175

tank landing

alien landings, the new tanks are

a lot of push, rotation

and thank you friends

for being here

each tank collects a sky

makes roof means

and glitter sun as travelled far

the dry won’t touch the sides now

tanks taller than I am

and hope the gutters catch to fall

we make more south and shelter so

think now of what we’ll grow

the green our ever up

each source suggests a maze

for those so minded

soon and in time to be

a conjuring

of rains long since

call bath

call washing up

call tea

Anna Couani #226 headlights

202

a reflection of car headlights on a shiny white wall

boxes packed on top of each other in a window display

tip from a friend 

find associations through yoga

make notes

create poems

my meditation is interrupted by the cat

bouncing on the bed attacking my toes

up early 

ready for breakfast 

ready to eat before the morning sleep

unlike us

ready to eat before the day’s activities

looking forward to the day

friends coming to work together

other friends coming to discuss

searching for some snippets of time in the day

on other days

to insert some extra thing

creating a timetable 

just like being ‘at work’

snippets for pieces of work

that could be completed

continued

small deadlines looming

now that the door is open

to other possibilities

flashing eyes

watching

the cat stalks up and down beside the bed

waiting for a sign

then sitting patiently

purring

but watching

any movement of our limbs

under the blanket

there’s something under there

something mysterious to attack

but the illusion is shattered

when our feet are exposed

light is the alert 

the herald of the morning

boxes 

lots of them

all ideas ready to be unpacked