The young man tore his stomach
along the barbed wire fence,
running fast through the canola crops,
fields of barley,
on the edge of town.
There are catheads in my eyes! he screamed.
His parents had been deported
back to Shanghai.
All the kids made fun of him
for shopping at Great Wall Supermarket.
D. G. Lloyd’s ‘Zhang Wei’ Read More »
… just like a poet,
contemporary,
to grunt and grizzle.
What can you tell
about a person
from their unhappiness?
~
We all have a cage
inside the other cage,
open
or closed,
hanging in there.
Andrew Burke’s ‘Internal Cage’ Read More »
I’m directed to an anteroom
with grimy toys, old Women’s Weeklies
and an empty chipboard bookshelf.
There’s a three-seater couch
and a two-seater couch
identically upholstered
in shiny crimson vinyl.
There are two mismatched chairs
and two fluorescent tubes
emitting a bilious, stuttering light.
Outside this space
empty beds keep vigil in darkness.
Speckled, buffed linoleum
is the flooring of choice.
There’s a locked door
with the words AIR DUCT
in a large sans serif font
blaring from its surface.
I’m left unconsoled
while his surgery takes place.
Mark Mahemof’s ‘Duct’ Read More »
building a prison beyond this prison,
with the help of many others, building,
with hands tied to the ultimate imagination of building a
prison beyond this prison, because many of us thought to do so
independently and agreed mutually beneficial, building a prison
beyond this prison maybe because productive ultimately, maybe
because engrossing, the passion of building
a prison beyond this prison while in this prison, and dark besides,
and very instructive, the character of building and of prison and
knowing more about ourselves each time
we catch ourselves building a prison
beyond this prison again even having heard now the stories of how
others had tried it and how flawed, together,
incoherent, deciding anyway we
should be building a prison beyond this prison
and reminding each other that when we are finished building a prison
beyond this prison we can rest then and dutifully, from time to time,
picking up the bodies of those who died
building a prison beyond this prison,
carrying them to the edge of that which we are building beyond
this prison and throwing them off it tenderly, tenderly saying we are
building a prison beyond this prison so that you may have something
to be thrown off and so that in building a prison beyond this prison
together it might mean we imagine there is something beyond this prison
we are building and say so to each other as we build.
(after Anne Boyer)
Anastasia Radievska’s ‘First Wall – Aleph 1’ Read More »
yes, right after the foreplay
I have to shag you
in the tall grass, in the stable
or in front of our children’s eyes
or better, in front of the mirror
to make our play more honest
so we can be sure
I feel what I feel
you feel your feelings too
yes, nature lets us look for
this divine map, and in that very moment
we give back love
in love, in a long prayer
God himself will come
bringing everything: will
like a crackling thunder. Soft
yet shocking. Yet pleasing
lo and behold, who are they
suddenly here
laying bare
still
Iman Budhi Santosa’s “Aaaaahhhhhh” Read More »
1968
I
A small boy beneath a big screen
that begins to split, somersault, explode
at the beginning of an infinite journey.
I look up.
Where was this emptiness
and where was my god
whose worship I had abandoned
for these colours splitting my eyes
and raw space invading my head?
These disembodied voices
like claws of sound
scratch at the fabric of my world
while a horde of priests and priestesses
who fail to sing in key
are praising an entity I don’t know.
One human face
at the centre of the screen
is caught in a mesh of light.
The birth of stars
in plasmas of gold and white
configure our distress
drifting in the cold night
growing, imploding foetuses
broken eggs spreading
across liquid space
and shells beneath magnets
approximate prophets undone
bearing the caskets of angels
while slowly winnowing
the wheat of the stars.
Eclectic flavours escorted by
hexagons in close formation.
Passionate details of cementing cells
untying
salacious pink seas and green skies
watching
the eclipse becoming an oculus
into a room in an upturned palace
where the mirrors silently observe us.
Cocaine Versailles
a place where anyone can live
in a future we can’t know
and shouldn’t try to know
knowing what we know –
that no-one makes it
for when the glass breaks and we see
the vision of our death
why would we consent to be reborn?
II
All of this and more
I saw.
It was Sunday.
I should have been in Mass
to witness again the transmutation
of wine and bread into the body of Christ
but I’d seen something else
beyond understanding:
the birth of doubt
or the origin of poetry.
What was happening?
My mind was firing
expanding.
It was all meaningless
yet meant everything.
As the planets aligned
ahead of me
I looked down
at infinite space
and above.
What kept me
nailed to this place
now that everything was moving?
The glass was broken.
III
55 years ago
when I returned home
my father got a strap
and punished me
for missing Mass.
It was the last time.
Perhaps he sensed
I was lost in a space
he couldn’t and didn’t want to see.
Yet strangely as he hit me
I didn’t feel
any earthly pain.
My mind was still exploring
other dimensions
beyond the reach
of his Catechism.
Brian Purcell’s ‘2001’ Read More »
like an apple
fallen on a late summer day
buried under a shroud of
dead leaves
a horse carrying a small girl
carelessly steps on it
seeds, exposed, dry
under violent sun
two days later
rain nurtures everything
including maggots
at last reduced into a form
unrecognizable
apple is no more, until
a poet passes by
looks at the tree
up and down
thinks deep into the roots
and writes down the past that
smells of apples
rotten and forgotten
Sou Vai Keng’s ‘the past smells of something rotten’ Read More »
The air traffic controller stood at the window,
as the planes landed lazily on the Tullamarine tarmac.
He took a Nicorette lozenge to quell the urge to smoke
as the afternoon sun shone on the fuselages.
He took a moment to reflect on his past,
remembering cane toads in the back yard
and a headless, plucked chicken hanging on the
clothesline.
He could smell the sponge cake his mother baked
as the young boys played British Bulldog in the park,
while overhead a swarm of flying foxes darkened the
sky.
Schoolchildren carried bags of crackers and skyrockets
telling their friends of their trip to the ‘Ekka,’
where they ate French fries made from Tasmanian
potatoes
and how Wally Lewis gave them a free showbag,
as they petted the lambs and the calves in their pens.
He remembered the parents at the sport carnival
congratulating their children even if they ran last
and the teacher reciting the Ancient Mariner,
as the students let their imaginations carry them away,
and each child was stranded on a floating ship
waiting for the ragged souls to be saved. He
remembered
some of the names of the girls in his class: Renee
Fisher,
Robyn Wells, Patricia Campbell and Brenda Franklin,
and how they danced happily at the Maypole flag.
He can see himself still holding hands with Kim
Andrews,
as they ate fairy floss and Dagwood Dogs at the
Ipswich show.
The phone rings and he is told the Sydney to
Melbourne flight
will be delayed and he marks that down in his log
book.
It’s the kind of day when the future isn’t important
anymore,
as he floats on the cloud of a pleasant daydream.
Mickael Crane’s ‘A 1974 Brisbane kind of day’ Read More »
my journey began wide-eyed in innocence sun splaying golden light across drunken wheatfield heads intoxicating under red harvester blade as real as fireworks displacing far-off cosmos of darkness and light in shatter of colour wheeling overhead a caravanserai caught in passing of days that trip endlessly forward rain spilling down round Neolithic mound to drain in chalk fields and run on in rivulets forming underground echoes of self as real as summer scented grass crushed underfoot
Carl Walsh’s ‘First’ Read More »
I peaked years ago and was brilliant.
No one saw. They were all watching
some stupid tree fall.
*
Your fingerprints found
in the dust of a moth’s wing.
Law of Nature catches up.
*
Cat curled up like a cowpat
dust motes settle
sweetly in the sun.
*
Beanbag pollinates
a thousand eggs
strew the gutter.
*
Dawn cup of tea
mist off creek
Platypus gone
circles ring out.
Tug Dumbly’s 5 Short Tadpoems Read More »