So now they tell me business is business, sometimes up sometimes down that’s the breaks, it’s just how it crumbles so many sayings, turnoff tropes to suppress the outrage to discount further cheap antics, the raw peeling of layer under layer of ripoff, of ruin: “Not to worry she’s dancing in heaven” we look down at this morning’s leftovers while upstairs, hammers clunk clumsily on a project going 7 years, maybe 9. Now they tell me.
How many times has it looked like the end…no way around or across? Three thousand and a half weeks Navigating sundowns, we’re still crossing over from morning wondering what the hell to learn, and how much was forgotten- Or bloody well should have been
Alloy, Usually Hardened
(response to “How Would You Like…”)
This is what you call joy
created through an amalgam
of death and rhythm
an admixture of metals
in a city nothing more
than concrete and dreams
built from frozen seconds.
Kodak Instamatic, a birthday gift
which only captured black and white.
I could tell from your face
radiant
in a way I would not see again
even on the third, fourth, fifth marriage
your finger heavy with the weight of
so many rings
that I was dancing
twirling like a clumsy ballerina
just outside the boundary of the frame.
I’m still dancing
no more graceful than I was then
caught in the suede fringe of your
famous jacket.
Just behind you, behind him
is a couple kissing
against a winter tree
no leaves, just a ghost of a tree
a ghost of love.
Alloy, Usually Hardened response to “How Would You Like…”) Read More »
Everyone’s a transplant and an amalgam– Alloy, usually hardened. Yet getting pliable and vulnerable is suggested – recommended. We know better than to require the exigent. Rebellious help is not help: just ask my friend the restauranteur. The food is fusion but the help is fission. Our way of getting through all this mixing and unmatching– is in our way.
How Would You Like… Read More »
what shall we do nest year?
for Sarah St Vincent Welch
when every month’s of Sundays
and all the moons are blue
a peach blossom wild creek
tangle with ferns
we will live in a typographical error
and go to press that way
chorus of twig and leaf to prove
the birds beginning Spring
what shall we do nest year? Read More »
Preface
The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White (1720-1793) has provided both an inspiration and a template for this lockdown blog. The following has been lifted directly from this text:
The author of the following letters takes the liberty, with all proper deference, of laying before the public his idea of parochial history, which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences as well as antiquities. He is also of the opinion that if stationary men and women would pay some attention to the districts in which they reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the objects around them, from such materials might be drawn the most complete county-histories.
Day I – Saturday the 24th of July, 2021 AD
Dear Sir
The Dame Eadith Walker Estate is within half a mile of my current accommodation. Lockdown has provided myself with the opportunity to walk the grounds of this fine estate on a daily basis. In the following days I will provide you with a description of my observations on a daily basis.
Today, a stiff breeze from the north-west at around 20mph (ref. BOM) has discouraged most birds from feeding in the open grass field on the north side. They have mostly retreated to the trees or to the southern fields on the lee side. Welcome swallows (more details to follow) and magpies are the most obvious.
Yours etc.
Sunday the 25th of July 2021 AD
Dear Sir,
The Dame Eadith Walker Estate, also known as Yaralla Estate, and now home to the Dame Eadith Walker Hospital, lies in the suburb of Concord West, in the city of Canada Bay, formerly the municipality of Concord, in the Parish of Concord, in the County of Cumberland, in the state electorate of Drummoyne, in the federal division of Reid, formerly the division of Lowe, located on a promontory on the Parramatta River between Majors Bay to the east and Yaralla Bay to the west, approximately half-way between the centres of the cities of Sydney and of Parramatta, in latitude 33.847 south and 151.087 east.
The Estate is bordered on it’s west side by Nullawarra Avenue. The avenue is lined with what I think are maple trees. At this time of year, they are totally bereft of leaves, but the branches are still holding a fair number of seed pods. There are hundreds of these pods on the ground under each of these trees. The pods are hard, sharp, dry and brown. They are a serious trip hazard and must be responsible for many sprained ankles. They’re aesthetically unpleasant and do not look appetising at all. However I’ve witnessed rainbow lorikeets tucking into them. They must have been hungry.
Yours etc.
killing my commas softly (Sarah St Vincent Welch)
enamoured of the pause
the dawdling the adding on
the lists, the enjambent
forced, I admit
less in love
with the arguments the rules
the haughtiness of editors
(not poetry editors, mind you)
my prosey report editing colleagues
holding up a falling edifice
by themselves the masses
revolting
the commas in their iron hearts
the comma the most weaponised
of all punctuation
aimed across desks as ninja stars
commas the shape of tears
raining from above
I prefer to massage a sentence
break it up gently with a timely, small
restructure to avoid the stabs
I avoid pain
in poetry my commas are shedding
like autumn falls
like rubbed eyelashes
crescents
scales
a sweep of black kohl wiped off with oil
even the ninja stars yes
the shurikens spinning
lodged in the walls
I leap to the ceiling and cling
uncut
my aspiration is to let
you find your own breath
within my lines my marks
rarely ask for you to hold
for over long
to tease you to a pant
on occasion
then rest in a space
an absence
a rythmic
letting go
killing my commas softly (Sarah St Vincent Welch) Read More »
still sleepy, reluctant/ but already we’re rising above the city/ easy still to make out the blockades below/ trouble in the streets down there/ next to us a man reads Leviticus aloud/ headline: prominent Chelsea backer is no more/ gate number announced sans flight details/ red wine or white? asks the lady with a sincerely insincere smile that works.
Travel of Questions Read More »
that wasn’t me carrying around town a big old bag of spark plugs to give more fire to
engines that aren’t even mine, that I’ll never hear or see… that wasn’t me
Answering, or rather echoing Kit Kelen’s poem #510 — edge-phobe’s (things fall off) ( The DailyKit)
[after an older version posted on 365+1 project ]
PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL
It’s no myth. Flower of Kent is an apple. It could have been a name for the Full Moon if Newton had been a poet. Poets, but not only, see attraction as the ability of falling. Thus, call it collision, gravitation, or not, living on earth one must accept that it entails the process of falling. Alive or not, “things” and people fall.
It’s no surprise. It’s always possible. The phenomenon repeats itself billion and more trillion times a day. This rule is said to be universal.
Logs fall and it’s a matter of sleeping.
Breads fall for butter’s sake.
Stones fall which weigh depend on rage rather than decay (-decline -degradation -downturn -disfavor -disgrace … won’t be studied here).
Fallen people may be lying and resting in a tomb—from the French noun tombe itself being derived from a verb: tomber. Meaning to fall. Whatever -diving -stumbling -tripping up or over is performed. Whatever -blow -bomb -imbalance or -shot is the cause. (delete as appropriate).
You fall -at -away -back -behind -below -beneath -between -by -flat -for -from -heads over heels -into -off -on -out -outside -over -prey to -short -through -to -toward -under … -within…
It might concern -hurdle -holes -traps -cracks -stools -wayside -bonds -job -hook -line -sinker -grace -love -heir -heap -line -illness -power -clutches -disuse -place -hands -eyes -clouds -trucks -laps -map -wagon -sword -ground -feet -knees -hard -times -face -bed -favor -spell -bits and -pieces … -floor …
It’s important to have it free.
Never forget: the bigger they come the harder they fall.
Provided you can read I don’t mind this to fall on deaf ears.
PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL (FLOWER OF KENT) by Béatrice Machet Read More »