You could wonder
dogs are said to
listen to music
loyally
though a bit blankly
to a shuffle of jazz
rock and blues and country
companionably
classically
sighing
occasionally
eyes closed
asleep at your feet
something captured
before it rains
perhaps dreaming
of wild things
of poetry
many aspirations
another walk
something to eat
Rob Schackne #1 – The Condition of Things Read More »
In China (when I lived there)
in restaurants
it was normal
a 1/4 acre of food
it all arrives
the same time
everyone got
one bite hot
before it’s cold
spins on the table
and faster
in winter
always
the hilarity
excess
and waste
of everything
plastic bags
and containers
out before
they left
gone before
you knew it
Rob Schackne #2 – Dábāo Read More »
Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang was a nomad writer and translator before finally settling in in Southern Sweden. He started writing professionally – as a journalist – at an early age of 12, mainly motivated by an innocent wish of seeing his name printed in newspaper. After writing a number of short stories for various newspapers, he published two novels in 2006.
In 2013, he got involved with Flying Islands and started translating Iman Budhi Santosa’s poems (Faces of Java) into English. He was then granted Indonesian government funding for a poetry translation project in 2015. His own collection of bilingual poems, Encounters: Never Random, was published in 2017 by Flying Islands.
He is currently teaching Creative Writing in Malmö University, Sweden and at the same time trying to get back to a poet mode. His latest works, translations of three children’s books from Danish to Indonesian, are coming in March 2021.
old fortress
under moon that blooms
gentle sea breeze
of a humid October night
husky contralto
belting the ballad out
from her throat
deep the waves
in which we swim
ears least perhaps
this is rhythm
all in the chest
where memory
is found
because of the words
all out of language
because as the singer says
this is heart’s translation
Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang Read More »
Steven Schroeder is a poet and painter who lives and works in Chicago. More at stevenschroeder.org.
A Suicide Flower
A cadre of hibiscus revolutionaries
gather in the hedges along this
busy street, lie low to creep
beneath the iron fence set up
to separate them from masses
moving at the speed of money.
Here and there a suicide flower
throws herself into the crowd,
detonates the red she has
strapped to her body,
sends a shock of useless beauty lying
exposed through a city of desire
自殺式花兒
大紅花革命部隊
沿著繁忙街道草籬
列隊擺陣，俯身
潛越鐵欄
一籬之隔
拜金眾生勞勞役役
到處自殺式花兒
一頭栽進人群
引爆自綑身上的
紅
轟烈一時，艷影徒然
慾望都市，屍橫遍地
Translated by Sou Vai Keng 蘇惠琼
from a water planet, published by Flying Island Books in 2014.
Chris Song is a poet, translator and editor based in Hong Kong. He has published four collections of poetry and many volumes of poetry in translation. Song received an “Extraordinary Mention” at Italy’s UNESCO-recognized Nosside World Poetry Prize 2013. He won the Young Artist Award at the 2017 Hong Kong Arts Development Awards, presented by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. In 2019, he won the 5th Haizi Poetry Award. Song is now Executive Director of the Hong Kong International Poetry Nights, Editor-in-Chief of Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, and associate series editor of the Association of Stories in Macao. He also serves as an Arts Advisor to the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
His flying island pocketbook, mirror me, was published in 2017.
how many flames wrapped in this
riddle? tongue drunk in
agate flesh, each and every
one a bitterness in white crystal
seeking your deep-seated
seeds. you give me drops of sweet
and leave unripe slices
will all a face’s patience be kissed up
by a to-and-fro tongue tip? I remember
you as a literature lover, blushing
like a bud’s first burst, ripening at
changing seasons, uninterruptible
by worry, each tight
against each, piled up
pent up veins, who says calm
isn’t a seclusion, inducing
your flames? at times
reality is like a storm, branches
smacking anxious windows, an unirritated
you always under silent
lights quietly counting out
each day, my patience
time and again resolving
the riddle of your flame
(translated from Chinese by Lucas Klein)
裹著多少火焰的
謎語？舌頭沉醉在
瑪瑙的肉汁，在一粒
又一粒白水晶中
苦苦尋覓你深藏的
籽實。你給我幾滴甘甜
又留下幾分乾澀
舌尖來回會吻盡
臉肌的耐心嗎？曾記
你含英咀華，紅暈
如蓓蕾初綻，季節更迭
使你成熟，煩憂
卻無從間斷，一粒
緊挨著一粒，疊起
鬱結的脈絡，誰說平淡
不是一種幽困，把你的
烈焰歸納？有時候
現實猶如風暴，用樹枝
鞭打焦慮的窗臺，安靜的
燈下總有不慍不火的你
沉默地一粒又一粒地
算著日子，我的耐心
一次又一次解開你
火焰的謎語
Chris Song “pomegranate” (trans. Lucas Klein) × Steven Schroeder “via crucis” Read More »
Born in New York, he lived in many countries until Australia finally took him in. He was a Foreign Expert EFL teacher in China for many years. He now lives in Castlemaine, Vic. where he enjoys the blue skies, fresh air and the birds. There were some extreme sports once; now he plays (mostly) respectable chess and pool. A Moonbeam’s Metamorphosis/The Parachuting Man (with Nicholas Coleman) was published in 1979 by LEFTBANK PORTFOLIOS (Melbourne). He published two poetry collections in Shanghai: Snake Wine (2006) and Where Sound Goes When It’s Done (2010). A Chance of Seasons was published by Flying Island Books in 2017.
More recently some of his poems have appeared in The Anthill, Oz Burp (Five) zine, Ariel Chart, The Blue Nib Magazine, Bluepepper, The Rye Whiskey Review, Pink Cover Zine, The Raw Art Review, OutlawPoetry, HUSK, the Sappho Lives! Anthology (2019, 2020), Taking Shape (Newcastle Poetry at the Pub Anthology, 2018, 2019, 2020), and the Messages From The Embers bushfire anthology (Black Quill Press, 2020).
When he’s not writing, he likes taking photographs. He listens to the Grateful Dead. Some days he thinks there is nothing easy about the Tao.
Some recent poems…
My strength ebbs away
like a grip on the tide
dangerous invitations
I counted most important
rucking forever, battling
sunrises and sunsets
past the moments
I might’ve stopped
working up the plate rack
what was I thinking
small animals press
a hundred times their weight
now watch me blow
ants have no problem
cats vault fences
I used to measure
now measure other things
Some carry everything
even their survival
dragged till sundown
just imagine it
all the food in the world
and the pockets of nothing
eating bitterness
hold yours tight
never let me go
imagine the pillow
beneath your head
the limited supply
deal with it they said
can’t eat any more
have another bite
imagine Big Got
clean clothes well fed
his children wait
the pie in the sky
sits at the rainbow
gets on the next bus
The violence of noise
music as a place to think
the wind is howling
call it peace
cleaning my igloo
the desperate times
that are returned to
their prepositions
or call it protest
against a war
I cannot fracture
however gently
revisiting the light
During an altercation
in a bar one night
she saved my ass
my back was turned
he came up with a knife
she hit him with a bottle
she was from the mountains
they believe in hard things
it was then I fell in love
big arms and shoulders
every inch of her 6 foot tall
it was such a simple thing
when we were leaving
she stomped hard on his hand
after that the graceful years
Lord she was so tender
her feet were lovely &
she loved me very well.
Head sounds like a drum when it’s scratched
Left ear still sore after a blow 25 years ago
A throat that lost its whisper song and shout
A lonely whisker creeps to just below the eye
The neck that shook the bridge for days is weak
The old chest looks full but the heart is hollow
Old comrades say that vitamins will put it right
(A pity the right side doesn’t quite match the left)
Broken leg the pelvis spine back my knees and feet
Sore from a million steps in the wrong direction
A cough that alerts the dog who begins to bark
The doctors say there will be no more fighting
I climb the stairs slowly to my small apartment
Grateful that my eyes can still see you waving
While you hang the wind in your white clothes.
Kerri Shying is a poet of Wiradjuri and Chinese family, publishing across many journals and anthologies.
She is the author of a bilingual pocketbook of poems “sing out when you want me”,2017, Flying Island Press, “Elevensies”, 2018 Puncher and Wattman and “Knitting Mangrove Roots”2019, Flying Island Press.
Kerri held the Varuna Dr Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship for 2019 for her current collection ‘Know Your Country” 2020, Puncher and Wattman, and was shortlisted in 2017 for both the Helen Ann Bell Prize and the Noel Rowe Award.
Kerri has been convenor of Write Up for 5 years, a free arts/writing group for people living with disability.
She lives with disability in Newcastle, NSW with her famous dog Max Spangly.
Kerri is a nominee in https://theaspireawards.com.au 2020, an activity of the Human Rights Commission, for disability activism in the arts.
Speaking – Uncle Ray Kelly snr
what i’m doing today wishing i was with the bronze winged pigeon cousin
she’d make me laugh the hairless cats the dachshund made of ball bags pickled
grey pink asked her once if an animal with hair arrived at their place would they shave it
she made that face that went back years crossed the generations we are the arms
the legs the bodies mouths speaking gumar spilling laughter hiding feathers
this half moon golden stuck
by mist along the nest side
of the yucca tree night
calls winter one quilt
nestling animals grown indoor
in weeks
books and porridge
talk to me from behind
say its time for fire
we’re waiting on
the other side
suffering the climate doesn’t lend itself to real hard scour for the poor see the bastards
loll about in board shorts growing veggies like the climate eggs them on a failure to participate is no great thing
the ferals like the old blokes say some in every town back out where the dairy farmers were before the soy
the nuts the milk that went the way of lard
I’ve been running round all week on the chase for how much heroin it takes to kill a normal person just try coming out with that and they say decency is dead
I wish it was you
before you get the wrong end of the stick in my own defence I have to say love is consensual the underclass could mind their business too
I’m knitting mangroves root by root surviving night and day the inrush of the tides i’m waterlogged I’m dry I’m all the decades of fringe sitting knitting and unwinding telling keeping secrets all the words destined to wash up this
kitchenette my laundry torn apart by crabs
sluiced to sea relying as I do on you the moon aiding and abetting sun if they can prove it so many other crimes I live between the heat the bats this under over day and night the leaves the tips the roots the air the water knitting all the time
you can disguise the way
your past stinks
fake a shallow grave just
halve the normal depth so your decoy
fuckwittery can be inserted
as a gravel bed to divert a nose from
sin guilt shame
your belief that
others ought not look your
way
again
you
take the corpse of something small a
crime of less significance classic
is the body of a dog
to hide the remnants
of a man
let the finding of the one account for the stench of that it pains you to explain admit account for nothing
who digs deeper anyway
Kerri Shying – part two.. Read More »
Kerri Shying is a poet of Wiradjuri and Chinese family, publishing across many journals and anthologies.
She is the author of a bilingual pocketbook of poems “sing out when you want me”,2017, Flying Island Press, “Elevensies”, 2018 Puncher and Wattman and “Knitting Mangrove Roots”2019, Flying Island Press.
Kerri held the Varuna Dr Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship for 2019 for her current collection ‘Know Your Country” 2020, Puncher and Wattman, and was shortlisted in 2017 for both the Helen Ann Bell Prize and the Noel Rowe Award.
Kerri has been convenor of Write Up for 5 years, a free arts/writing group for people living with disability.
She lives with disability in Newcastle, NSW with her famous dog Max Spangly.
Kerri is a nominee in https://theaspireawards.com.au 2020, an activity of the Human Rights Commission, for disability activism in the arts.
Here’s some Elevensies from “Knitting Mangrove Roots”
saw his hands stimming over lies and thought it’s good you’ll be gone soon those buckled bulbs for fingernails the giveaway of a heart about to blow the eloquence of illness
far surpassed the itchy dogs that fell limping from his mouth
nothing he said worth a dollar on the open market no exchange rate for who’d pay some stories ought to die those names for things rubbed out in the sand the beginning it was the word
why can't you whisper it to me has it got to be this shout from one day to the next every sinew pulled up hard each movement effort to caress what ails the
buttress on a falling wall with sticks
is how i see my mind these days one more pill in the phalanx that wheels across the week this skirmish or another there is no battle just a little less nothing can be won
someone mentioned relativism in a tv show and i thought that’s about as café as the conversations get if you aren’t working maybe if you are pissed you get a chat to live
in the revolving door of commerce
the life social that’s the glitter the edible gold in your champagne stand here and watch the yearly immigration like koels the cab doors slamming at 2am we raise them then they go
cream blossoms take a drench beside the house the lotus pond refills a season grows we have no thought to name the fifth among the too cold too warm
here where people of the just-enough-land
pride themselves on common ground this anomaly unsettles like the lady doctor speaking in the house today answer best to turn your back and go the other way
three o’ clock all i’ve had is one cup of coffee soy milk i try to imagine eating the fridge is full so full the door fights back listen to my tongue stinging a rebuke go on eat your tea
beside my heart i hear the acidness of hollow
space pause if i have grown to like the gnaw my juice on flesh my spine a pinion to the bed go now hear the lettuce see the ham all wrapped in calico boil rice at least it’s the anxiety of pain i tell myself you don’t have to make a meal of it
drought is in our faces now the sea the blue distraction no help from the dusted wind i hear the back door slamming like a drummer why not rub it in where did we think
the topsoil of the country would stay
not a drink to wet it down roots so far forgotten they are frailer than a thought death lasts longer the whole place is on the move still we can’t modify a thing until our nostrils cake
Some covid-19 poems; us lot had to isolate more and for longer but had more experience of isolation. Maybe we did better?
jam your hands in your pockets of your suit at the lights
I wanna see your arse-peach tight against woollen superfine
business men come back with the right slits shroud hips
zoom has let me down I'm ready for the show
whether 8am or midnight lately have been calling for attention where none is due no bus to catch and still the call to regimen a stump jump plough persistent hooks the tender lobe skin skull bindings
lacking that flying buttress others
strain against demands that ping in on the minute insistent spruikers human potential what a movement what a trip to nowhere sells you a police hat and cuffs says here arrest yourself
quaking in our boots by the billboards gather too much too late wickedness and words that change directions like the swallows of that facebook viral video
we all sought to marvel lost to hard work holding out for images seated in the deckchairs with one hand full of helium balloons fantasy of forward upward sky-high imaginings of riches
what's deserved is never what we get yesterday I swapped a metal headband and a floral garland for three large lemons at a table up the street they were out of lemonade I fresh out of coin the true transaction that we met
