the last word

the last word

Tug Dumbly - Stone

Stone   

Can’t leave a rock unfisted,        

a stone alone, but must  

Gutenberg press it to skin,                       

Cuneiform its text to palm      

of clay, weigh the cooled

magma tongue of a pebble

in wallet of flesh, wombed

like a coin in a vending slot

snailed to forefinger,

sprung to sinew

of the wrist’s slingshot,   

a siege engine drawn

like Russell Crowe full cocked:

‘at my signal, unleash hell …’

Go on, have a fling,

show us what you got -

the kinetic cleanse

of a raw chucked rock,

jemmying a rainbow,

pinchin’ gravity like a fat

child’s cheek, to crack a gum,

bounce from a pond,

be gulped like a frog

in the gob of a creek.   

There’s not always grace

but can be spectacle

to the Neolithic Games,

as two bushboys lob

sandstone clods from a cliff

into a Tom Roberts afternoon.             

Bailed Up

             they sail

                         the ravine

                                         

with the poxy aim

of a Berlin bombardier      

payload floating  

to the rock bed below

and oh the rapture as those   

golden chunks of honeycomb

explode in a violent crumble

of a most sweetly satisfying nature.   

solips/tick

solips/tick

(apply liberally)

in the afterlife

there’s only Tug

didn’t notice the party was over 

that the rest of us were sleeping it off

here comes the dreamer

home to tell the forgetting

which is always where we are 

Tug Dumbly - Popular Mechanics

Popular Mechanics

A calendar of grease monkeys
cheesecaked over bonnets,
popped and glistening
as hot oily nuts,
all sultry with jacks
and pouty with spanners,
in banana-peeled overalls
and virile bandanas, dirty rags
blooming from big easy pockets.

Here’s Manuel, Mr March,
at the hood of your hatch,
dark souling your manifold.
October is Mario, wheaten mane
of a lion, dripping gold
to tease your timing chain;
November’s Juan whistles
his eye along a dipstick,
a matador primed to sword a bull,
and no question Pablo, Mr May,
will drain your sump to the dregs
and refill you real full.

I like Gordon, Mr June,
a man for the cooler months,
overalled in green, a string bean
relic of the BP Empire,
furrowed head balder
than your flat spare tyre;
concave chest over speed-hump pot
and chicaning vertebrae
clapped close to the grind.

He Charles Bronson squints
from a face hard won
as your duco’s baked-birdshit enamel;
the keroed smuts
splintered deep in his thumb
say he won't steer you wrong
or sweet-talk frilly extras;
He’s in the game for love,
not glamour.

Whenever he resurrects your car
from the dead it’s like he sucks
its wounds into his own battered
body, like a shock-absorbing Christ.
He’s no Mustang, like Mr December,
but he’s a steady finisher,
and as he brushes a fly from his
cooling tea and peels a pink slip
for your bomby Corolla, you know
your nipples have been greased.

Gillian Swain. Collective notes, Last Hurrah #68

Collective notes, last hurrah

Gillian Swain

When the moment sits with the circle

things come to completion

the story turns

voice arcs

becomes distilled

note by note

and the voices are stanzas

all alone and slip across

radius

the curl holds

and in the centre

the poem

‘How good’s the cricket?’

                  

--- With apologies to T.S. Eliot (1888–1965).  The Waste Land.  1922.

Summer is the saddest time, cracking
Gums fall on scorched land, yielding
Despair and outrage, starving
Koalas beg riders for water.
September gave us hope, covering	5
Earth in surprising snow, feeding
A soil with little life precious water.
Drought overwhelmed us, coming in from the distant outback
For showers of rain; they prayed in vain uncertainty,
And went on in sunlight, around the Circular Quay	10
And drank beer, and texted for hours.
And when we were children, staying with the great aunts,
My husband’s, they took him out to a shed,
And he was not frightened. She said, Mark,	15
Mark, hold on to the barrel, and fire
In the mountains, here we feel free.
We read, much of the night, but go east in the summer.
What are the roots that clutch, what buds shoot
Out of this black grief? Son of man,	20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken promises, where the sun beats,
And the charred trees give no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry beds plead for water. Only
There is shadow around the red rock,	25
(Note this is the Rainbow Serpent's shadow),
And I will show you something tragic from either
Your shadow at morning obliterated by smoke
Or your shadow at evening rising like fireworks;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Chrysogonus #last

after the tombstone
poetry continues
in patches of grass
in breeze, in between

in derelict gravestones
dreams and memory
taking over the poet’s pen

Kerri Shying R #- 603 - so fast becomes a prison

some part of sitting in the dawn alone round    

christmas feels ideal  I'm as unpacked   as any person   

who spends months running headlong into brick walls   

tantalising to recall the energy spent

madly building             how     protection

                                     

so fast becomes a prison

I study on the inside of my eyes             listen

your soundtrack adds    it smooths

off edges          adds in honey   to bitter juices

forced down     here     intention is to heal  

befriend           find flora          ever    grow

(The last poem on the blog 

Where everything happens oh my darlings) 

KA Rees #73 - The Art of Kintsugi

The art of Kintsugi

For my fellow 365ers

The pieces were swept up

and placed in a box. There they remained

till the dust came, the colours muted

the bone exposed, a white

gash of shin. This is how age

gets in—remembering the art of Kintsugi 

is an art of broken things, understanding

a piece that is broken and mended

is more than the unbroken whole,

watching how the last jacaranda

panicles cling to the branches

in a smoky six o’clock sky

this, the last day in December

on the last day of the decade.

Remembering the sound of bees 

in jasmine from long ago.

#Project end game

#Goodnight Bill. Goodnight Lou. Goodnight May. Goodnight.

#341 red cone- vanity

vanity

thought
you would never leave
always be there
for
me

now
I am sad
security
up in flames

red sky
day light
floating orange
pushed by grey
fuzz

left
stranded
no  one to  blame
but myself
vanity

next

Coalescence Part 5 # Claine Keily 145

Storms encroach then shrink away. The days are thick with smoke and dust. The river cowers from the embankments and blackbirds hobble about with gaping beaks. The wattles break with yellow flowers. Kangaroos move in closer, braver now, so as to drink the water in the cattle troughs close to the street. Beer cans rattle across the neighbour's garden. No one walks in the streets. The horses push their noses determinedly into the water, breaking the sludge of the surface thick with algae blooms.






I am contracted to this place for two more years.




Here I have become a witness. I speak truths to the fat eared children so as to evoke in them some dreams.

Jeffree Skewes #145 Oh pair

Without listening
hearts beat poetry
stepping through
par deux polarity
thickening clouds stir
irrigating veins and hairs
could this ever be known

had we not spoken





#gratitude
#farewell
#wewillmeetagain
#bonvoyage

Sarah St Vincent Welch #above 370 or so - Just past Solstice

just past Solstice

sweeping my neighbour’s gutter

he jokes in his old white bloke way
'You're doing the street sweepers’ job'

we both know they're not coming

it is New Year’s Eve

he is cleaning his car

got his priorities straight

cleanliness is next to godliness

after all

there’s a lot of fuel out here

in our gutters

the winds are coming

at our corner a char 

small campfire in the dust

an enigma we walk past each day

maybe guys chatting in the night

when it's too hot

we speculate

a discarded wheelchair

we don’t understand

sixty new fires sparked overnight

I eye Ganesh at my open door

washed out Hanuman beside

we have a Sacred Heart somewhere

an Ouroborus around our fingers

I carry with me

grandmothers’ rings

it seems sentimental now in this heat

they will always be strangers

we’ve packed our prescriptions

a little water

a couple of changes

Frances Carleton #77- One Last Mango

tender bruises

tongue flicks flesh

ripe and soft

warmed by the sun

as you open to me

juice stains my chin

fingers sticky

licking lips

to cleanse and taste

you all over again

I’ll revel later

in the memory

of your sweetness

as I pick

tiny hair from my teeth

Rob Schackne #1047 - "This is serious" (redux) - To All My Sister and Brother Poets…Fare Well, Fare Forward!

Friday, July 1, 2016

Rob Schackne #1 - "This is serious"

"This is serious"

This is serious. It knocks
At places I don't usually visit
Let it in. The machinery of the brain
I go deeper into my own nature.

The rain asks me to sleep
Dreams then ask me to come
With her. We'll fly. Let it happen
I'm serious. Nature is a machine.

Daytime so different. See it
Missing the components. But
That isn't really where we'll go
Let all the good air through.

Let it happen. We let nature go
Let the rain that's so indifferent
Supersede what is missing
Wet with tears again.

Kit Kelen #1460 - farewell my lovelies - a poem for the last day

1460
farewell my lovelies

the last day
the fond farewell
the ‘friends, this has been…’

who’s counting?
I’m well slept for it
see some ache recede

‘the end of days’

(a body is always reporting back
and takes the messages as well)

still, worry I left the water on

and having not heard from some
this many a year
shall assume what I damn well please

last day
still no rains
but call the leaf to green

the smoke again
you stand through it
can’t see the fire from here

but you can feel the sunset claws

did we wake the world?
were we aware?

can you spare the time?
fancy meeting you here
and often

a little lime?

it makes the end bitter  

no need to keep up now

slough skin of words

here we are

this is it

a year runs out

we live in the wrong age

someone else should be in charge

we are making an example

being made of

one worries it will all be gone

today is the last day

time to shut down the system

call quits

poetry was the answer!

how many in a piece of string?

and what a ride it has been

archive me, won’t you?
and I’ll search for you

so many questions left

is batshit really crazy?
is it just a thing we say?

head only hurts if you think

it may seem like the end for many
but we survive for now
and will

the last day is a quotidian thing
here we are again, hard at it

we are always surviving something

they’ll never scrub the place clean
but paint the world so it can’t be graffiti-ed
light it so well no one hits up
special blues

then one day had to be the last

how many even notice such things?

I was like your parents
always at home
if you cared to call
‘treat me like your private hotel’

not for praise or blame
but it was sweet
we’ve sung together
must do it again sometime

if we can help the fire and fled
then can’t we help each other?

those whom we live to impress
are all gone

this is not the last word
but
break staff, bury
drown my book

a pretty pass things come to
here at Tether’s End

the only way to find the next door
is open a window and out

we are the vanguard of the species
waiting to be read

here’s one skin left
go on

remember please quietly close the door
if they have not woken yet
we must not stir them now

KA Rees #72 - Year of the Horse

Year of the Horse

Intrepid adventurer in the seventh

position at Buddha’s side

caught the sign of dare devil devil

may care all rivers

run through your fingers freedom rings glitter

on your hide

you do not speak but shout

the ride the rushing on

the river song, energy from

the sun, all

shimmer—fire in the hearth at night.

December 31, 2019

I sit in one of the dives
On Katoomba Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the political hopes expire
On a low dishonest decade:
Waves of smoke and fear
Circulate over the hazy
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obscuring our private lives;
The unmistakable odour of fire
Offends the December night.

Careful research can
Prove the whole offence
From Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin
Until now  a science driven mad.
What happened in Madrid
The great crime of delay
A psychopathic ideology.
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil and deceit is done
Will rise in anger and revolt.

Exiled Thunberg knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy and Science,
And what pretend dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic population;
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The air conditioning must always hum,
All the media conspire
To make this seem obvious
The fake prosperous future;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a burning wood.

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The ignorant lie in the brain
Of the average person-in-the-street
And the lie of corporate power
Whose buildings grope the sky:
This goes far beyond the State
And no one exists alone;
Climate allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love the Earth or die.


With apologies to W. H Auden and ‘September 1, 1939’

Kit Kelen #1459 - choosing not to see

1459

choosing not to see

a swim for it

it’s often in the mirror so

Dark Ages!

thinking day a cave

a face erased

no either feet

a wisp of blow-me-down

bearded with wisdom

so told

in the all-beyond of borders

how I’ve fenced me in

all around, just things

and I, a motion, among

note only the extremities

other elephants in the room expire

something must be done

time is brittle till

do it anyway

climbed into the highest branches

but couldn’t bear

don’t look

o Gorgon’s head

and tell it on a mountain too

in clouds have called to touch

I bury the head so it’s mine

a continent discovered

a waving field of grain

to loot, it wasn’t there

not me

and tails you bet they dance

hearts of the savages, scones the same

a good look

I chose not to see

the emperor’s new car

grass greener where this Jones kept up

where I have filed myself away

under just these few… possibilities

raise a beaker to thee, eyes tight

a blind man in the buff goes better

ignoring the forecast as well

how far down in the bottle we are

around an idiom

pathology reports by

say nothing meant by it

hide under a bed in dreams

talk pillow peekaboo                                   

it always was a choice and darkly

shut up shop

and can’t see me

can’t look

was the short straw mine?

still all aglow with spark within

a fuse lit to begin

KA Rees #71 - Native Pastures

Native Pastures

The under-storey is a compass

of leaves, variegated

browns caramel joss sticks

of dried grasses in kicked-up

passes, windrows of trampled loam lie

as combs

of exposed soil.

Year long grazing of cattle

and sheep has changed

the soil profile. Bruce Pascoe

wrote in Dark Emu

European explorers chose not to see

the evidence of Indigenous cultivation

even thought they wrote in their diaries

of grasses in fields like gardens.

They spoke of accidental beauty, accidental

gardening, wondering why fertile plains

were devoid of trees.

In this dry continent grass

perennials can act as annuals in dry

years and perennials in wet.

Annuals bloom till the frost sits still across the spine

of earth, then they fold across it, returning

again to the soil their smaller tighter leaves, die back—

cast to the ground

to bloom again. Lilies, daisies, sedges,

grow next to Kangaroo and Spear Grass, Poa, rushes

and Red Grass. A native pasture will see out

changes to the seasons and stresses of the weather

it was known by those who cultivated it.

Rob Schackne #1046 - Crazed Glass

           Crazed Glass

                                        What are you looking at? Fuck off!
                                          - An old saying

            The window happened

         then the seat beside it

         waxed paper to glass

         whether street or hills

         the moment it was clear

         they might see inside it

         frosted, cleaved, opaque

         both ends, the crazed

         glass will remember

         the rainbow prisms

         (but prison happens)

         the stay-side says

         mirror the way back in

         the go-side says

         keep the window open

         the seam each one works

         what can you believe

         of the hooded glass in

         the directions of self

         the shards of pain

         bullets and the rocks

         the sharp broken pieces

         you don’t expect

         the cave-house window

         was feathery, mixed 

         with the colours of air

         this fancy modern glass

         bevelled as an ice ring

         translucent as a popsicle

         I've found the cracks

         I didn't see before

         seven years lean

         and a new coat of paint