So the story goes: Glámis, the bride

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Bev Braune

So the story goes: Glámis, the bride
was a sad one when he was found by the tide
veiled seaspray, dead urchins
daughter of ambition, queen of blood
sickened by the dark fate of her deepest love
Sickened with herself. That it should come to this!
The flowering of waves on rock, her fruitless searching
for the survival, in part for the survival
in part searching, endlessly searching
and almost never finding, save for this last
sour sweep of jetsam from the seawrecked past
was the vessel of vision unevenly loaded?
At the tail end of dusk.
A siren song keening against the tempest of her mind
was she a bride still or must she seek out another
occupation – a teller of bridal tales, perhaps,
tailoring these veiled tears
Had been there before
A green Bette Davis sits under it
murmuring vain words of consolation
of sorrow, of tomorrows, of treasures lost and found and the fine
     edged abyss of bliss
The tint and glint of shimmering threads, of what could be a fair
     maidens bed never captured Glamis’ eyes–only the
     embroidered flags of Ran’s bellowing ships.
At length a white gull from afar alighted on a rock,
out of a small pale dusk at the edge of the world
and started chewing on a piece of seaweed;
she remembered this: storm-swept coastlines, her wine-coloured shorts
and sixpence worth of dulce in a small white paper bag
held in miscellaneous regard
undying grey lady gazing from the castle’s haunted windows,
     the bridal chair left unseated,
     her bloodied bare arms torn like silk caught in briars
The seagull paused, cleaning its beak on the rock, and spoke in a clear, bell-like voice.
Take up your pride girl and find your strength of spirit, all is not lost to you.
     For within you resides all you need to rise up and seek out a new love,
     a new strength to keep the species alive and to refresh the stagnating joy
     in your broken heart.

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not to mention harpur his prophetic dream of lawson exhuming

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Michael Farrell

not to mention harpur his prophetic dream of lawson exhuming
jabberwockies
stuffed and exhibited in life-like dioramas
and Henry Kendall letting the belled birds free
translating flight into words of white
with a nun, every Thursday evening
as she guts the fish for the next day’s chowder
And lotus eater by day under the harsh light of afternoon.
He recalls Macquarie, building towns like tight sonnets
where feeling ran highest.
down by the yellow stones of the playground
where lesbia harford sang her playful songs
sic homini homini homini; homo homini lupus contest
, one of them. Another was “Rain Chowder”. Another “Bun”.
The Canon thought otherwise.
Baxter is dead. Wylie, can you hear the Sound?
and for reason the number in five-fold interest discovers meaning
will this discovery upset the natural order?
give rise to a ministry given over to dead poets and dying philosophy?
or simply dust off the secrets scrawled on the inside of the
     carapace, glyphed by mystics?
Outwit linguistic nitwits choking on Dizzee Rascal tongue-fits?
in the seventh tier an angel flicked the last ‘p’ from my forehead
maleleuca, grevillea, bell-bird, kook-a
senators cheaper n swings
n rouseabouts
n shearers in blue n possums in the rafters n ducks on the pond
foxfire dandleweeds wulfing the backyard thistletesters backdusters
knack-thrist camseed blackburned down
others like doleful Brennan and the old John Shaw Neilson –
he of that changeling light in the orange tree
… listening
and meditating; one eye focused on the rain
falling from a cloudless sky onto a lake north of wentworth,
     where the emu are hunted by ghosts of travellers past
and the schools have no more history books
just interactive history wars
Oh! Where are the voices? Where are them we can bow down to?
     Where the silver tongues weaving a thatch for us to lie under,
     sheltered from the heaven’s cruel washing.

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Sing to me of the woman, plaintive Muse,

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Danijela Kambaskovic-Sawers

Sing to me of the woman, plaintive Muse,
the one with chalkdust in her shoes
Let her spin Medusa’s curly premises
and weave a syllogism of stone
Give me words not my own but the steel
and dust, and bone. Let her smile her moorish smile,
and fall over when she wears stiletto heels
And the music she plays is endless and brave.
May a thousand men fall away from her
in the squares of the city, eyeless in Gaza
wanting her embrace in their terror of her face
Make my song yours, with your faraway sorrow
she is silent about the one who matters most
whose name is the beginning and the end
of company-denying, housework-defying poetry
she unveils sorrow, weaving braids of pain from hollow words
bandaging the soul
a moored heart unhinged terrors
a new day today
perhaps the new day
would bring with it a
promise of good
instead it brought snow –
trees covered with winter’s white tears
of ancient rainbows
timbered low in sleep embraced
in enormous whisper of worship
Who smoked me out of adolescent bliss.
take the white one…the pill…the big one, tom budge
the muse intoned high
brow arched her bow finger laced
spittal dry I chose
stripped naked, upon my head the wreath of words I wove
forsaken or consumed, she’s an entity ripe with promises to be entered
samleterol, albuterol, beclomethsone
and other useful substances like
the slow metered drip
of sheep-milk scarlet cloth green revolution
mashed apricots and an infusion of bougainvillaea
blood stream clogged by petals and grand expectations
calliope, the headless torso of your son dances within the wild rapids,
     his dead fingers waving like memory wings
of unpublished poetry

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1. sleepless thirty days:

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Louis Armand

there was a fork sticking out of my orange
wires and random messaging
the language of television
and the synaptic schizophrenic snufflings of streetlights
where crows in bad taste laugh at death
and electric eels writhe in delight
But overlapping, overlapping, overlapping until there is only this.
Lines following what’s finished, not getting the hint –
my anxious heart is beating out a rhythm of concern
telephone poles and telephone poles and telephone poles
Neon lights pulsate penetrate my spine
which collapses under images devoid of ancient story
where once a child fathered the human
now the rain very slowly tears down the walls
and the comet pacifies desire
sold on as a ring-pull can of bully beef
bully beef, bully beef and beef jerky like
some guy with red orange eyes that haven’t closed, no, not for thirty
nights days moments
stranded on a logjam of jangling neon striations
reality quivers, maelstrom hustles and bustles under blinking,
winking lights
lights winking, blinking, slow lights, quick lights, low lights, high lights,
the Errol in him drinking, thinking blow nights, slick tights, ho bites,
fly delights
drunk never there, floods of drool falling
so i took a stab at a pear and said brutus, this isn’t right
wrong then, he said, and so what –
we were just method actors in
the fallen branch of life, craving
nectar and the slow honey of the hive
then the 30 days of sleep, which after 30 days, left me sleepless
standing, planting three matches in a box of soil
I lit one and told the other two, “this is what happens when…
as casca on stage you stab your caesar, stab his back,
     stab his chest, stab his groin, stab his lychee soft eyes

Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

The smoke cleared, crawling

Posted on December 14, 2009 by S K Kelen

The smoke cleared, crawling
jujube bears like ants in brunetti
fathom that
such a sweet revelation!
The fog’s felix culpa of disaster
And die laughing.
The law is frozen politics –
and politics melts into stale disarray
– did the dog on the news say hamburger or typhos?
either way it’ll be beautie on the mountainy
and a double-shot of apathy.
diamonds of blood spatter
etched like fossils on an anonymous sidewalk
a mouse journalist fell against, shattering
into a thousand and one sugar-coated
liberties, besmirched by incompetence
failing sweet memory, subdued by a silent forbode
corkscrewing tendencies did prevail
we went armoured with rich wine and causes, quoting scripture,
dead poets
thirsty, panting for nothing less than rapture
until overwhelmed by intellectual drunkenness.
First, a smoky haze appeared
again, ugly but essential
the air turned surly and sulphurous; donning gas masks we blinked and stared into
the looking glass
I don’t know what you were doing yesterday, mate, but you got it
all over two rooms
chirped Alice rhetorically, while I
cling to her modern day spin
Deciding that I must absolutely have the last word.
… unless
this bucket of melted action figures on the front step were delivered
to the wrong address.
he pondered perhaps he’d booted a hospital pass, thrown a grenade
against the flow of play,
but crawling from the mangle with eyes only on the big screen
she muttered
willing him to change the theme from Titanic
to For a Few Dollars More
Or any Morricone. Something wistful, like his eyes.
Something that moved her insides.

Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

the diary is a newstart fraud de art

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Liam Ferney

the diary is a newstart fraud de art
& i am just a small practitioner, strings & beans
our memories promise us the threat
of fresh massacres and stale elections
props of the sovereign nation of the self
and unending varieties of the heart. And poor perfections.
I turn and watch the sun.
The sun is a red ball. The airwaves
cut through everyone and make corrections
liquid as paper
the last thing we want is our corrections
imperfections erased, when the imperfect is the purest form
– why else would red cars receive the most tickets?
or trains devour grafittied memories without tunnels ?
while *sigh* the grant they didn’t recognise rewards invention
ah! but is the invention rewarded without strings attached?
I turned the page and found a small typo –
the cracks spread, tendrils like a spider web
the officers empty my gutter self out into despair
helpful as when but an out and none, may we say
eat the correction paper, fill my mouth with white clay
bloody my knees, ready for the performance
now I eat my heart out
and swig Tang between bites, watching
conscripted as you co-authored
what was thought to be something of importance
entitled ‘But Names Will Never Hurt You’
What is it like to be someone else?
Showtime!
But I can’t remember the word for …
wednesday in french. it was the day i renounced the nobel prize for literature
after gazing into my diary and discovering no sense of myself in it,
only the glimpse of a miasma shifting perspective in relation to the outgoing tide
I slammed my pen into red ink, or wrist tears, and wrote on
on with the stampede of paper eclipsing the shuffling breath
on with the Nefertiti bust glazing at my discontent
On! On! Never mind the cannons, Squash down the fear,
bury it deep, colon deep, seize the feather

Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

In the Gods

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Stuart Barnes

in the gods
left eardrums a whisper, the caterers want to know where to put the profiteroles –
its over forty degrees & they wont fit in the bar fridge?
but I’m distracted by the scent of Christmas ivy
It’s already stuffed with Tantalus’s tantalising morsels
disappearing down the black hole in your
They’re up there, all right, in the roof playing scrabble.
I can hear their hooves scraping against the floorboards.
molecules of ordinary blood
in skirts of expanding metal
piercing the arteries of average thought
in gods in their black hole behind the
controls of the space-ship crash landed in the
messenger wings, hermetically sealed. Crowed Hermes, “speak not.”
And in the retorts, distillations missile towed the past into present
where gods wear HERMES jeans and angels
strut runways with gel-filled busts
and three gods strapped in loose C4, with loose ideals
choreographed the night away
splendid, splendid was the cry from the ageing onlookers
and the musicians still played, the dancers danced, the First Fleet socialites
sipped absinthe with grand stares so grand even the Gods were scared
identities and futures knocked akimbo over Avalon
drunk in a shadow of summer, never recalled
always lost, like a thylacine’s take on tomorrow
these bitter dreams sleep under time
speaking through artesian bores
and spilling into the sheep
until we wear them, walk in bitter dreams
only to wake (in pastoral
habiliment, the wake still ahead, the scent of mourners
teenage boys fumble heaven breathlessly while
improbably upholstered goddesses stride the screen
the cheapest thrills are the imagined kind
and way back there
where the gods are wearing
HERMES
there’s an old lady grumbling
that they must have won
the lottery
– and so they did: now for estate planning, inheritance taxes, write-offs
A scandal, perhaps a miracle
perhaps an operatic ballet composed by a monkey-dog with the aid of a cat-swan,
‘appalling’ was the only word from the critics, an hour of booing from the gods
resulted in the storming of the stage, but on that night
earmarked for destruction

Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

Man walks into bar.

Posted on December 14, 2009 by W M Lewis

Man walks into bar.
the police blame the bar
wallpaper, small window, the low mist hangs
alcohol fumes climb the walls
where dead men run a tab
You think this is a joke
said the ambulatory anus
A haze of horizon.
Man balks. Call him ‘The Tsar’
glasses shatter in his eye
which had been full of eastern promises
but now shies away from the light
when Tsar walks into the police
and says, ‘You lookin’ for a fight?’
– bar none – the habit-wearing one replies
don’t interrupt we’re doing the sudoku
too dunkin our churros d’orge in leaves to help ya
Soz bout that. The man looks on and laughs. He’s
all talk, no action. All bark, no bite.
Heads lift from their schooners to survey the stranger
but the eyes are glassed
in a kind of, Liam Gallagher way
an upstart, only three chords roll here
another round rolls over and plays dead,
the barkeep threatens cut-off
can easy size up sordid sag of time
until The Tsar’s dog noseys in, lookin’ for a morsel
a man walks into a bar
holding up a STOP sign, idle onlookers laugh
Idiots.
In a vodka oasis, screwing with the stasis.
Still knife.
Yet life still.
yet still, Idiots! they scream, and are barred, barred, finches that fight and fly
in equal measure
one potato, two potato, three potato, four
man walks into fish and chip shop –
it’s a touch too much to blame the fish
“Easy now”, he laughs squirting vinegar and piss
it was a fin thing until that fish monger
pushed in the long thin filleting blade and skillfully,
oh so skillfully, eased the flesh away from the bone
what have we here? a voice behind him said
filleting his thoughts
teasing heart from the bony ridge
griefstricken again
careful – the floor is slick with salty tears
that show you can take a man out of a bar but not the bar
out of the man that built the bar

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Single-parented most of the time, it’s a wonder

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
Single-parented most of the time, it’s a wonder
the ash trees come out of the forest, look around, heavy scene,
where I think it impossible to get lost
or make enough sense to pretend
how a child has to abort a missing parent
And the beer tasted perfect, like something he’d always dreamed of.
The swill, his faceless mother on a raft dropped into an icy vault
swallowed again and again, emerges in unnoticed tears
neither parent present at the same time, mostly alone
my foot falls on a bygone path
overgrown the bearded tree stump limping in the liquid air
complains as I molest its solitary watch.
In the clearing I found three boxes of
gas stained photographs
courage lost the matches fell
your smile cremated
colour seeps, morphing history into dank monsters to haunt the vaulted halls
             of my memory
searching stained sepias for the culprits, some likeness, some honour to this story
a story with so many unpredictable twist and turns, creating
in which i realise we are all single we are all parents
	abandoned like coral spawn to the elementals
of water, wind, earth, fire in the maternal hearth
	in a heart icier than the abyssal depths
	no way to trawl or dragnet love
There is no blood in a stone
no reassurance in these memories
so pick a corn crop
the right rock
an enviable predicament
feel free to go off the deep end (but take me with you)
note – notice
      notice – please read
      please place your shoes neatly
      at end of jetty
we are reviewing your multi-policy
for pike with three chickens coming home to roost.
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

Run! Run! Run run run run! For a safe climate!

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
Run! Run! Run run run run! For a safe climate!
take the trolley! & that box of something! tony abbott youre so cute i could
           skin you alive with a hammer.
Nothing can hold it together.
The skin of true conservatism flapping uselessly in the winds of change
Remember Flying Circus.
That first orgasm flooding lost fields.
Swim! Swim! Swim swim swim! For a safe primate!
And stop! Stop! Stop! To catch your breath.
Be the last to find a hardwood chair
save them all from the fire next time
Abbott! Abbott Abbott Abbott! You know you want him! Want him gagged
           and bound across your knee with Bronwyn Bishop watching!
           Bronwyn! Bronwyn and Julie!
Now our fledgling poem incriminates
but surely the Bishop cannot judge
when the Abbott, coming on a cloud
weighted down – his holiness – carries a malevolent grudge
born out of years in government and
self fisting love, the kind of self love that corrupts
egos erect, the humans jerk, while nature laughs at these pitiful inhabitants
	scolds, scolds, scolds with terrible whips
disheartened by such self indulgent wasting of potential.
The light at the heart of the world
just went out.
without leaving a note
to say 'grow your own tobacco'
built a boat built a boat of human skin to float along a coast to a place where the rivers flow in
Ah! it sounds like Mosquito Coast – in search of a new way of living on this earth.
          Remember what happened?
Dead ahead.
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

The scissors hissed.

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Fiona Wright

The scissors hissed.
it had a calming effect on deirdre, taking her back to her spool-a-day youth
the children in dirty blue tunics
Mrs Craft, knitted out of wool
the wiry hairs pulled out long and thick
Fear is in his fingerprints.
Finger and thumb deep in the eyes, he thought of Gloucester
there, in the metallic silence after the snip, there, in the silence of flowers
breathing at home
the leopards kissed,
then kissed again, loins stirring like a people liberated
until Saturn, snip snip, took over the golden age
where Heraclitus didn’t make the cut
as they pierced the flesh and broke in two
unscrewed blades to never snip again nor snipe
the snipers sniped, the scissors scissed.
So that’s final, it seems. But the story’s not ended —
another pair of scissors snip, in a cave where three women weave, a thread
spun from the first conscious breath
but whose thread woven on the shuttle of a mouth?
Mouth, wipe, and cut. Cut splashed with mouth, footsteps echoing through
the chamber, to the lips, trips and falls.
Snip, snip, snip and i felt the p[ain
and more pointedly, the question: why is it a pair of scissors,
when half of it is not a scissor on its own?
in theory perhaps it is; scissor and scissor as in soul and mate
looked upon by jealous gods, scissors split becomes just a blade that
can thrust and scrape
but cannot snip and clip, trim the bits with a clickity click
Yet torn and spineless, I know there is only one longing between us all
and that is to ride like a rebooted de Groot and open all events with fire and
gusto before the cling wrap men
smother the stars
Cut the moon with the scissors, into bite size pieces for the leopards.
Will wool chunks be enough
to plug their mad chortling?
There was a rumour that the plug had been pulled on
Evolution still-in-progress
so snip the human race into sterility and then

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One heatwave day he throws me a sack/marked RetSenAdUn …

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Peter Lach-Newinsky

One heatwave day he throws me a sack/marked RetSenAdUn …
which i unsurprisingly discombobulated
threw back
next time ask before you heave your god-sent
thunderbolts — Atli’s constant war with Loki’s beasts — now Skiðblaðnir’s
ditched for some shallow skip, Harold Hard Counsel’s legacy
sweeping bleached forests
— cos I’ve seen it all before and won’t
be drawn
I dream a dream within a dream.
By Bukowski’s beard I will not what I will not.
I drops it into the yawning crack outside the swimming pool
Trees hum the portents; sorry Dad,
I will mourn my brothers
gone into that dark school
where, of late, slow monsters come,
their breath like coca cola
beyond the black stump
where nothing thrives but the wasted –
dash those monsters and be damned all cretins of the RetSenAdUn…
with torch and pitchfork burn the abberant
faux-couriers on their sweating demon-cycles who dare intercept
us, the couriers, the gainsayers,
the modern visigoths, (naysayers of the future)
wherever they may reside
and in Regensburg, we took a turn about the stable
which turned, and turned about us, in turn
huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, like a butterfly
and stings like a beeeeeeeeee
I beat the flames, watch the letters blacken, fall away in thready patches,
then fling the rest to sate the flames and flee.
Spit on hot irony – it will sizzle hiss and spat sear on the flame of satire
to choose A). Death by asphyxiation

Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

And you were that paradox,

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
And you were that paradox,
but finally wednesday arrived. it was time for the coffee festival youd organised.
Who said ‘waiting is unpleasurable?’
Not Nietzsche! And doesn’t coffee solve all paradoxes?
(Except those concocted by Kafka.)
I scratch my head and turn myself inside out.
Pure beauty is holographic,
therefore my imperfections make me unique
bean ssssshhhhht crushed completely
by such imperfectly executed anticipation:
flawed, flawed as paradoxes can be, the imperfect imperfection – a treat
digested space and welcomed your absence
folded time into a neat little napkin, placed it next to the half filled coffee cup,
        and the creamed cheesecake on the white plate
I wanted to shout ‘Cheque’s in the mayo!’ but
you had mustard my courage and tongued my cheek
as I walked into the street of no path and you
you were that mysterious Cat
	alive and dead at once, for once
	i wondered alound instead of alone
	about
	the meaning of your pain
i took another draught of morning’s black friend, and turned the page of Pet Semetary
but my mind was thinking about you, your hands in the light
like tomato sandwiches, left outside overnight
to mould in the purple garden
tensed like water
        supporting air
a furry concave meniscus, rippling …
Eating commas and bonbons. saccharine
smouldering and gurgling for pardon
i felt i knew how this was going to end, even before i had forgotten your name
        for the third time
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

Napoleon’s plunder

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
Napoleon's plunder
including a few concepts that enabled couch surfing at home
of Baylen’s bane did Bonaparte cry “Dupont give me back my Legions”
He was a small man, but with big legions
who envied Caesar and Charlemagne their regions
addicted as he was to real estate reality television
and the thought that the sword was mightier than the word.
Tapestries,
were not the sort of beauty his military eye caressed.
nor maps mere geography beneath his grasp
but conquered at last by Josephine undressed —
The 1812 invader
the father of a civil code, freedom of religion, destruction of elitism
	a codes with strong echoes did ya know?
me when I arrived, saddle-sore and frozen, starving for my own, alas
	there is more treachery than wolves
in the embrace of a long-dead French autocrat.
Ah, those days! The guillotine, a gentler, kinder
wolf made by man, yes Man,
	plundering stiff necks and starched brows; disposing of innocence and guilt alike
	as if they were rough confetti at a peasant wedding
which fell to the earth, and were the earthenware of our lives.
but i don't want to follow that craft anymore
- the flags of Austerlitz fall in bloodied folds across the savage years
pleasantries aside
we've another long cold night ahead
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

where does she stop

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
where does she stop
greenland?
Or winter at Reykjahlið?
I know an African who fell in love with Greenland
it was a sort of interim love …
my head pressed beneath her locker room door
Travelling long-distance.
For a season, the cross-fjord ferry pumped out Fela Kuti
in the name of global village,
we become zen circle, complete and interlinked.
Where can she stop, if the circle remains unbroken -
Day after day in endless circularity …
and then
the butcher bird, with its melodious song, heralds a short pause
here, before she begins
to feed on lizards and other meat
in a crunch of breaking leaves
satisfied and replete
the Jul buk sated, disguises to hide the rogues
bookmarked spines torn astray
does she stay, does she go?
hither – to and fro?
She fades into the sand and fern-fall path
soft leaf-slip, sharp-edged flint-fall to the downward slide
dressed in her vinaigrette shirt and honeyed shorts
with a vihuela strumming gently from the playa,
        the vin du pays cooling to love temperature, he knew
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in arid cities we have read as syntax flooded streets

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
in arid cities we have read as syntax flooded streets
while the light falls, heavy as the shadow of a hoop;
in darkness we are left as the shadows of our meat
and our lives drift in, and out, in perpetual loop.
paraphrased stet Melways 2B – unshakespearean but will’d most cheerfully
as she walks across the the torn squares of the map
eating the remainder as she strives to keep the site secret
even from her self
as a thought unadmitted to consciousness, lest the thought result
in self fulfillment, she regains the frayed edges of her purpose into a
          tormented bouquet; tormentil and orange blossom would not reek so
          well as flowers picked from woodland sun pied where strayed from the path.
Cairn not for the unrepentant appetite, I remain lost in the floods
grasping at the rhimed slicked canyoned walls, travelogued by her desire.
her roaming, relentless, restless, dancing, bruised and bleeding weary feet
          pound the streets with the rhythm of her heart beat
as if she was really Jesus
on a tiny trip. Must leave
the urge to die in unchartered
hope –
	itself a collaboration of demons –
	that swims away, clothes left on the shore, 1 sock eternally missing, 1
                clock eternally ticking
	away away away we go on the wave, in the wave, of the wave
	little fishes taught to feed opportunistically
while the film of the world swims at our eyes
and burns
and lies, like a lullaby
assiduously arranging
the photographs of possible locations for use in a number of scenes,
        as yet unimagined by a sleeping committee of directors
bottom feeders all
        their limited perspective
        undiminished
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It helps to have a pedigree

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
It helps to have a pedigree
though some pumpkins live perfectly swell lives without them
to grow through litigious lines of aesthetic concepts
only to suffer the indignity of Halloween
when I was mistaken for my mutt
and didn’t bitch much. Kafka was still a puppy
and a grey-jowled Tolstoy gnawed his microchip
Chekhov’s bite was worse than his bark (he is, of course, a lap dog!)
When Adam delved and Eva span, who was then the lit’ry man?
one on either foot, well-healed despite the limp
it’s better still to have a degree
and better still to have integrity that will not submit to such tradition
the way Dickens hated America locked in his room
the way the public eye narrows and twitches in its burrow
the ways of the world (despite all the bitchin’!)
still give weight to the papered trail
who needs paper toys, when money buries away all the cares of that world
and the caves speak of the sea
and Spooks is back on the BBC.
when the masses bay for blood-
       a seat in Lords protects the back
       the way a Commons post cannot -
       so how much for a pedigree?
       Do tell me, sir, I’ll write a cheque right now.
Let’s barter, then.
       And decide together.
i’ll take russia, you japan, he can have africa, and she the amercias,
       the cousins can divide up europe, so that leaves the rest to good old uncle george
a testament to faith
       this covenant of chosen
       whose righteousness steals
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

at the moonlight splayed, shot on the dirt floor, silver and soft.

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
at the moonlight splayed, shot on the dirt floor, silver and soft.
we were shooting the les murray biopic & it was all going cheaply to plan
	(for cannes)
plenty of slow pans and montages – a bit short on action scenes
and I, like a lost hitchhiker, watching
all my lovers proving to be props in some
macabre film, in black and white. A sliver of light in the loft, three drops, hatching
noir thought-bubbles above John Howard’s latex scalp
he daydreams of ship building, of being a people smuggler
or something else, nothing to do with people, their syntax and derision:
a matter of semantics and position position position.
the fleshy innocent wolf morphed into mist
all the cue cards lost in a tumble
wrapped in the travellers towel, the make-up artist’s breasts pressed against 	his head
and he ordered three ships sailing by but cardboard was cheaper to come by
a trickle of red stained its beauty where the beast lay dead
still there were those who believed that once more it could raise its ugly head
from its place in the dirt ; shot & bleeding it lay still , one paw ambling 	through its guts
	(now on the outside) ; the redness lost in the B&W concocktion (thankfully) ;
fade to white; cut; print.
Why does the devil wear his trousers inside out? we ask.
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

Listen, o poet, to this marvel of the night.

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
Listen, o poet, to this marvel of the night.
	ert-pksh-ert-pksh-ert-pksh: berlin with its pockets full of vomit
a narrow orderly line after a fashion
which is to shock, not enlighten
when God said kill the boy, please explain
Listen, o poet, to this marvel of day:
That a kiss may soften Medusa’s heart
only to concretize the words deferred
this is adaptation. this is a schedule of tides
this is the space we long for in the middle of the day.
In the long bright plain of the day, far from the night and the dangerous sea
you were watching the clock when it stopped
melting onto a leafless branch.
Listen to the stars dropping
and the frost, filling the rock with crystals
finds a voice and sings poet oh! glorious poet
your song of death, lovlier than the moon’s cold light
fracture’s unloved this emptied heart
Hear the moon and crackle of the stars as they light the night
the poet is hunkered down, scribbling, drowning words in blue ink, he writes
         so loud he cannot hear sounds
and remembers too late the prickle, the slow licking of flame
the sun’s tongue on the clouds
this silky soft and furry possum – all pink and grey and bushy-tailed -
         is in fact the living shape of heavy breathing late hour lust,
         the sort that jangles the phone and destroys your mind.
a mind destroyed from too much thinking;
         too many broken thoughts and discarded poems
listen … listen … the horsehair brush loaded with white pauses above the lit candle …
         whisper … whisper… the sound of your name just turns me on
Listen, o listener, to this wonder wrought by starlight.
         A poet spills his seed, and in the tree, the watching owl laughs contentedly.
         For it is enough, at least, for tonight.
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

When he enters the town

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Noëlle Janaczewska

When he enters the town –
and notices that mcdonalds has burned to the ground
he weeps – wouldn’t you? – weeps and hungers
he remembers the men standing in a circle of painted cloth
now they live in separate little gray boxes
“When was the last time you had a happy meal?”
When was the last time you were even happy?
Inquiring minds want to know
when he enters the next town, what
chance is there for any meal, let alone
ears to hear, minds to mind his mysterious
quest
for that easy to please, unremarkable self
he left behind some time, some town like
fallowed fields laid to rest
this season done feast beheld
wrapped to go again
Curtains are drawn, the sound of his roar the only sound
in that boxed man’s town
a whispered anguished sigh
dream broke spare a dime?
mourning the golden arches with withdrawing aches and shakes, he
rifles the cashier and ditches that family wagon, screaming in the drive-thru
But that was yesterday.
Now he hears whispers and a full on rumour that in the next town
they’re marketing a brand new meal – even happier, even healthier –
it’s a fair hike but he staggers on
maybe this time the little toy
will come with instructions written in Esperanto
the market place is silent –
its cold square space threatening
with the refrigerator on hiatus,
he embraces the Esky
full of beer and peyote tequila_the trees’ grin stretch the branches to breaking,
the red rocks start barking, the thistles into nests of spitting snakes
a scene ripe for a Deliverance plot, for location scouts,
mouthing blessings to them all the burger king plots his course
And realises, with a start, that he has been here before.

Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

The valley of his youth is going slowly bald

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Frances Horne

The valley of his youth is going slowly bald
El valle de su juventud va lentamente calvo
A sad fate in any language
for, the sky opens up and loosens river slicks
whereas the breasts of his love could belong to the moon
and god knows she was one frigid chick!
the names. and the prohibitions.
Those unspoken words that talk volumes through a suggestive glance.
So, what if an empty gesture was now his only friend
The trough of youth sending up smoke signals
like the mist rising off the river while the mountain hides in the air
of hot-geysered hubris, dam this landscape of testosterone and
stubbled grass, where cattle break turned table legs in bunny sockets
while elephants rest in empty back pockets, and in their shoes
a lather of lust and essential sweat, black floods
as you see a host of compensations
signed upon the wall
reservations old men made
warhooped-angry cries
the battle lines drawn, young men cry “fuck it”
girls and women rid their hair themselves in screwed anticipation
devoid, as he himself, of the living image, pictured now in memory.
And so all are hairless
the little fields of the valley floor have climbed its sides
as broadacre paddocks that burn under a hard sun.
Cattle hooves cut deep ridges into ground
where wallabies once played invisible games and
possums swung in branches while owls swept by
on powerful wings and tiny bats danced against the moon.
so you see, the landscape is a toupee –
to cover thus the valley of his youth
And it doesn’t matter if it’s going bald

Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

he was a beautiful thief in the night

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
he was a beautiful thief in the night
with a handbag full of greek syntax there was nothing he couldnt do right
or wrong – or up or down, or east or west, nothing
nothing could steal syllables he’d tucked into the tiny pockets
and he lent from those he stole a dream
Medea’s dream: a dream of might, eye sockets,
	dry and pale.
When the scooter stalled, letters clattered loose over stone
bottlenecked, in the participles of success
his beauty blinded. His swagger, lost in the night.
And how the night edits!
He steps into the gaps between the words, curls around a comma
like a tadpole, for language swims our blood and
and curdles our silent scream
	this thief in the night
all father land and mother tongue
pebbled the night ’scape
	stoned jar slaked no thirst like this
	ransomed meter run
Touched my life and broke my heart
with his quicksilver tongue that strung fairy lights into the night sky as he
        seduced and stole the moon and slipped her pale light into his pocket
        just to illume you
or so he said. The fairy lights paled in the morning and the moon was gone altogether
and not only that, a fierce storm was rolling in – it looked like rotten weather
so he hoist her sails and in he plunged
pity he got caught -beauty should be free
He turned her blood, her life's stream, into a black sea that with it's rage rose like a tsunami
the hurt – it feels so real
if I could warm that hurt and make it subside…
which I cannot, because a thief is a thief!
         a criminal, accountable for vexations he has caused
ah! yes ! he mused, love is a thief… yet none complain of its robbery…
         now if i were to steal the priest's golden cup and give its contents
         by deception to the unbelievers
still my cup runneth over to thievery's side spoiling for tales with a slick sleight of hand
brilliant dramatic monologue … some guys get the order wrong so many times.
         … dam that golden fleece.
A poet? He's the guy who writes the insides of Hallmark cards.
         Wish you were here. Not.
Aaaah, yes, the morning after diatribe…
         well now, girl…you knew the risk to diss a thief.

I know a poet writes with feeling. 
         but Re Yolly’s comment. 
         Forgive my youth but who is Yolly wishing not to be there?? 
         The thief???
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

Joined to his guilt by bonds of matrimony

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Jeff Klooger

Joined to his guilt by bonds of matrimony
with a dog he called homily he left for the 24 hour vets
But he could still reclaim the black open road
Any time he cared to. Yet, these sweats,
and cheap dates with the lonely trees
the one night stand, that f$%#@*& vet nurse with Tourettes!
the wand and schedule of tides.
He needed to stay grounded, to focus
twin rings of compromised gold
a tarnished infinity
and trust wintered into dead leaves.
He fingered the gilt band
mindful it was choking, imprisoning his intrinsic self
but snug too, a fatal perfect fit
this mated pair of mismatched offal
discordant heart beats, this duo of fools bound by bonds tighter than rules
he turned to the band and “Up the fucking tempo boys!”
he asked politely
and the little dog barked
just for fun. Meanwhile,
Jesus has gone on strike – his crucifix in tow
And the golden band looks more and more like a collar.
“Does that chafe?” the vet asked, sympathetically.
And for a brief moment, he was young again.

Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged

Whose guts garland the dogs of Troy / Not Patroclus’

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Cordite Poetry Review 
Whose guts garland the dogs of Troy / Not Patroclus'
shoesize but close enough & a vixen to boot
I’d sent them tighter pics the definition would have been the bind
focus on the blood, not the teeth
while Garmr, loosened from Hel’s gates, prowls beyond its page
think scent, not blood
always a dead giveaway
O what a naughty boy
his pleasures, his pleasures. How they cleaved an ache so raw
and shelved it Priam’s eyes
turned inward, grief chewing
Patroclus, the one most loyal to Achilles
yet, he stayed on the shores, amidst the stink of a thousand men of grief,
         when Achilles would have walked away, Patroclus donned the armour
         of the nymph son, will there ever be such as he, Patroclus the keystone,
         just a boy the death of princes and the fall of troy
whose aforementioned dogs wore guts as garlands
as Helen polished her nails while the men
did what they always do
and the crickets
being the insects that they were,
turned their backs and rubbed their legs and foretold doom and blood
         and a win for the Saints
Posted in 38: POST-EPIC | Tagged