The nurses want you dead.
It would be more convenient,
but you are not interested in dying.
Your brother thinks
you’d be happier dead
but I don’t know
if anyone’s laughing
in the grave.
Your wife won’t let you die
loyal to a fault, they say.
I watch you fall away
like an old house in the storm.
Your eyes are so blank today.
Which part of the you is you?
‘Good Bye’ by Richard James Allen Read More »
‘I don’t want to die
without you knowing who I am’.
That’s what you once said to me, Mum.
Parents are a puzzle to be handed on.
‘I won’t always have you, I haven’t got you now’,
I think to look at my daughter and son.
They’ll come to sing this self-same song:
Parents are a puzzle to be handed on.
Like old boardgames
with some piece gone – Scrabble, Cluedo,
Monopoly, Mahjong –
Parents are a puzzle to be handed on.
I know a part of the song you sung,
but will never cease trying to learn that song,
a madrigal roundelay, long and long
my children will riddle at when I’m gone
some spilling mystery that refills as it runs,
sings ‘bless all our sweet sun-buttered skulls..
Parents are a puzzle to be handed on
Parents are a puzzle to be handed on’.
‘Parents are a Puzzle to be Handed On’ by Tug Dumbly Read More »
I want to move on
from the middle of this nowhere
to other eyes, hands, lips.
But I also want to stay,
muddy the waters,
make it seem like there is more
there.
Make you wonder
where I was last weekend,
who I did last night; search
my body for hints,
look to it for validation
of your relevance. Dig deep
for the foundation of us.
‘Unresolved’ by Irina Frolova Read More »
along the lake’s edge our burnt limbs scratch at the sky rapping in the wind − gentle ratapan, a screek a soft scrunching of paper
as it passed through us we could only receive it − dreaming of water arms upraised in frozen dance amid the whirlwind of fire
our spectral voices sing the conflagration mimic the crackling as the wind brings the burnt reek the acrid recall of pain
waves unburied our song our creaking cacophony roots deep in midden sand falls from shell, bone, graveyards old feasts uncovered, old fires
fishing boats glide past seabirds, on indifferent trails we cry from the dunes our terrible scribble is crazing the ruffled water
the wash slaps our dune our every wounding, a sound the lake whispers back its silky repetition
new growth creeps forward our song is nearly over twine us in green strength
broomstick orchestra by Jane Skelton Read More »
why is it the Buddha – far from the madding crowd on the hill – sits lounges an air of serenity, over a lotus throne while Jesus has his blood shed on a Good Friday cross?
I'll go upstairs with you and we'll see the gilt-decked Buddha projecting dazzling gold in a world of fireworks
you served the Buddha with incense and prayer I didn't stoop to words of long life or good luck
one always ends up hitting the wall Bodishattvas climb down at last the rail on which she leans overlooks inequalities among the world's mountains
(translated by Kit Kelen)
《大兴华寺》
为什么菩萨 都供奉在远离尘嚣的山上 端坐于莲花宝座，神态安详 而不像耶稣，表情痉挛 在十字架上流血受难
我陪你拾阶而上 终于看到菩萨身披黄金 在俗世的烟火中 射出耀眼的金光
你向菩萨奉香祈愿 我却没有俯身 也没有念念有词 祈望长寿与吉祥
我只想走进围栏 把菩萨请下宝座 与她一起凭栏远眺 这人间不平的群山
When the sea rises to eye level tears become redundant
every day a baker’s dozen or more
the red list has 20,000 names 20,000 is a random number unbounded, like e or Pi though more finite
0 is usually taken for granted understandably like the sound of nomatic flocks passenger pigeons aggregating flapping, filling the sky in thickened clouds warbling, dropping, disappearing leaving a silence so profound it hurt the ears until we got used to it
our ear drums morphed attuned to the sound of the engine the clack of a keypad
we filled the gap with gun shot, cash registers the slide of plastic, the squeal of pigs heading for slaughter lathes, hammerings efficient death is noisy business
a noise we cling to in order to hide the increasing silence of billions of missing mammalsbirdsreptilesamphibians the cardinality of the empty set
Magdalena Ball – Precarious Inscruitable Read More »
Imagine silence and solitude firm as bread.
Imagine hunger cutting first slice, first breath.
Imagine silence answering each syllable back.
Imagine, alone, around, yourself the only sound.
from Richard Tipping’s “Instant History” Read More »
Between the wooden slats of the boardwalk distant lights of houses blur in a diffraction of amber like Venus through drizzle or in the curve of waves fanning from shore
from “Riversalt” by Lou Smith Read More »
the colonists always pack old spectres and memory, mad apparition, peers through cracks in day
we scatter into, our words ascending across air… and once that’s out, silence
fllas like love, but permanent, empires lying dormant (unstuffed toys) we’ll kiss the photographs flat when gone
while wrong-headed statues promise nothing yet to the gods new foregrounds arrive, unrecognizable
from Dan Disney’s “Mannequins Guide to Utopias” Read More »
The bay’s silk curtain is blue milk, draped from the opposite shore the sea pricked out in boats their white sails dancing upon its pleats through the spyglass he scanned the coves, the inlets, their crescent smiles and across to Eden a Stink, the whale bones lying about covered by feeding crows
Framed in a high window he might look like a wandering ghost his skin freckled, weathered his eyes pink-rimmed, lips dry, salt-glistered a struggle climbing up seabirds caterwauling round his head he grasped his broad-leafed hat lest the wind snatch it for the ocean and show his thinning pate
Toward the spindrift-blurred horizon, something in him yearning always had, since boyhood he’d built a port, a place with his rules and his own currency though all was against him − the weather! lack of labour, the laws! Not his fault his ventures have collapsed suddenly, he was bored
Sea eagles were circling an aeronaut, he might fly away but could only climb down a servant came forth with his carriage helped him up, awkwardly he glanced at himself in his mirror slicked down his balding crown he, who felt himself a personage was he still comme il faut?
Along the ship-wrecked coast hidden vessels drift beneath the waves octopuses’ gardens huddle in the weed-furred rotting hulls in deep green whale-strong swells he made for the Pacific Islands dragging his submerged selves plotting a republic, a land grab sailed to his secret death
The scorched tower still stands its headland now fire-razed, scalped of scrub tourists potter about pause before the signage − warped, melted and will it be replaced? the tower’s cordoned off − they ignore pose, in its emptiness watch the waves slam vermilion rock below treacherous cliffs
Wind mouths the lone tower tourists speculate − these sandstone blocks carried miles, from Sydney by bullock train, at enormous cost who was Benjamin Boyd? a colonial Christopher Skase? but more, a blackbirder wrought death, disease on his captured men indifferent to their fate
Matting the headland now green and juicy growth − wattle, myrtles spring out of charcoal ground fire has revealed the middens, the shells crumbling to ashy earth signs of those whose place it was, and is the romance is fading listen − other voices are speaking a new naming begins
from “What the river told me” by Jane Skelton Read More »