27: EXPERIENCE
Richard Fein: Recollections of a Geriatric Gigolo
He'd need the busy arms of an octopus, the lapping tongue of an anteater, the endurance of a trudging camel living off its hump, and the iron will of a bighorn ram hammering for hours at rival suitors, he'd need …
Posted in 27: EXPERIENCE Comments OffSJ Finn: Sweet Goodnights
From the taxi your head spills Followed by your stomach I wait, my eyes skirting Reading the watchful night Broth mist breathing, descending You pull up, groan, your wild eye happy enough Now that you're fixed to an address The …
Posted in 27: EXPERIENCE Comments OffSJ Finn: Motion
The paint has stuck on A swollen smile And then you smile Your teeth glow sticks in your ashen chimney mouth And you clearly say what you need Which is a shock as you smile again The fumes rolling across …
Posted in 27: EXPERIENCE Comments OffMichael Farrell: if you kill someone bring them back to life
'theres a riot going on: quick throw away your ciggies, & leave your house, in the wrong place; breathe & drink water &-if necessary-the milk, lie on a sunny riverbank. though you may seem useless ignoring the rubbish floating by …
Michael Farrell: the deer inside itself
inside a brown name along an objective spine the self of a deer holds like data like a sheaf of sugarcane-as if? still being put together by science. thats you looking in, seeing yourself, then trying to brush yourself away …
Auston Rotheram: Jetty
Boats lie dead on the horizon as seabirds Wheel through pallid skies and squid Work the seagrass under the wooden jetty Where fishermen with hangovers gaze Through bottle green waters at their lives And late-night disputes with wives Over undone …
Posted in 27: EXPERIENCE Comments OffSimon Patton: Mock Eden
People line up in fine afternoon sunlight outside the Shatin cinema for the movie Armageddon. In the same shopping complex I've stumbled across an exhibition of winning entries from the '1998 Art Competition for People with Mental Handicap'. Poon Tai …
Posted in 27: EXPERIENCE Comments OffAdrian Caesar: The Searcher
I saw the same young woman twice in walking boots hefting a backpack as if on some wilderness hike but she was in the suburbs with map and compass two days running I noticed her she didn't look at me …
Posted in 27: EXPERIENCE Comments OffBrendan Ryan: Factory Boys
White overalls, rubber boots and a hairnet a red surname sewn into the chest pocket – I was ready. To sacrifice sunlight for the punishing noise of steel clanging on steel, revolving guillotine blades carving lengths of cheese the pressure …
Brendan Ryan: Strategic Education Plan
Grinding your teeth as you pursue the unobtainable, the deep, tossing and turning the fear of entering a class, your voice rising in self-doubt as students walk out, their complaints minuted. You've become a teacher cornered in the staff room; …
Brendan Ryan: Washing the dishes with R.E.M.
A sense of haste helps me slide across the floorboards, stack the dishwasher, clear benches, return salt, pepper and oil to their rightful places. Nostalgia has its purposes; each song a key to an other self I fall into, or …
Brendan Ryan: Better Roads
The roads we drive on are breaking apart. Potholes riddle the surface, corrugations catch us out. Each road is a waking dream, each road is a ruin we're learning to trust. Every few weeks the council seals the damage with …
Paul Mitchell: X
after Geoff Page I like my x. Especially the equal lines that pass through her centre. They give her balance, the sense that no matter what life may throw she'll stand, with her legs firm & grounded. She …
Paul Mitchell: Masterclass
It's no use showing me poems about music; I'm tone deaf.There's nothing wrong with that one, just needs more brilliance. Yeah, you've written a shocker there. Great poem. And full of love. * Don't use tired images when you feel you …
Ouyang Yu: Happiness
A happy country does not mean its people are happy A guy who drives his 170,000-dollar Mercedes Benz Scarcely knows what to do with the in-flow of his money Instead he makes more merde money Happiness when the moon shines …
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