Here in the Public Sauna

1.
'Then go ahead and put your nothing in my basket,' Paul offered.
We begin our evolutionary strategy in earnest:
Here in the public sauna before you

so that you too can, in parks with
department store catalogues, the ghost unlit,
eye another thousand works.

 

2.
A bee once stung me on the nipple there
it was classically trained
to the sounds of the same music I do.

An Apostlebird greeted his return, its grey fantail
needles in his sleep but reindeer willing that wont happen again. How
do i know theyre genuine? how do they know about bank accounts?

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

Hypochondriac

historian: this body of work to be studied
Or it can be something else entirely.
As the key sticks I can't write, the story

i'm lacking a train route
and just filling out the questionnaire /
in the yoga class, breathing Ardha Padmasana,
& tell me how
I'm going to breathe with no head?

label the provinces:

a bee once stung me on the nipple there
In a pink nightie and dark velvet smock
Go like this, and you'll see its little nose
and trimmed wings

I had three names picked out –
and a pyre, much more poetic
do you belong here. turn toward the asteroid belt

Who knows what stirs behind the small splinters

your head like a mixing bowl
it looks nothing like you

its a kind of fish icecream. big in
nonfood circles.

I hear the nurses calling
two more harpsichordists quarantined.
Sometimes, not enough,

There's a taste, —. –. a taste of paint.

white paint is medicine.
I didn't mean to be an artwork.

Pull out a folded handkerchief
It's always the edges that get blurry.
Barthes' kleenex box
visitors will bring food and gifts
an accent on elocution lip-reading
when the camera breaks down, smile and reshape.

In a forest of blue trees it's easy to feel lost.

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

Requested

The bath opens a blue glass page-
all night we drift, gazing at hard water,
splinters of light,
the moon its own decoration.

In this swimsuit season
skin fashions an easy audience,
teasing out the noise of men.

Mark the hours, record
the performance:
it is too late to ask questions-

breathe, patiently, into the body,
the hot stone. Sleep in it.

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

like knots on top of each other

folded fullmoon
just looking at the roof –
he will draw yet another telephone.
our tongues are maple syrup now
or unripe pineapple.
I think I should smoke,
domesticate
a brown pelican.
white paint is medicine
but locomotive wind

it changed our song.

she is cheap motel moments,
a makeshift engine
to drain your lover completely.
people studied your poster
by faint candlelight;
that was before I burned them;
news headlines peeling,
though black & white TV
or doctored film,
at a terminal
the colour of god's hair

you must be so hungry.

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

Ryan Scott Reviews Petr Borkovec

From the Interior: Poems 1995-2005 by Petr Borkovec
Seren Books, 2008

Petr Borkovec has been referred to as the leading poet in the next generation of Czech poets. But who are this next generation? How do they relate to the old? And what is Borkovec's place among them? The most general answer to the first two questions, which the translator Justin Quinn addresses in his insightful introduction to From the Interior: Poems 1995-2005, is that Borkovec differentiates himself from earlier poets in that he is not obviously political. There are 'no oblique parodies, no message-in-the bottle ironies'. Without a totalitarian regime to strike against, Borkovec's imagination and language, at least as it is represented in this collection, weave through the quotidian: train rides, new apartments, wildlife and natural scenes; and it is in these seemingly light topics that Borkovec's artistry as a poet takes flight.

Continue reading

Posted in BOOK REVIEWS | Tagged , ,

Could Anyone Be Bothered

Could anyone be bothered pressing these
flecks of leaf and breakfast smudges and wattle pollen
in one tidy package vanquished with a smirk?

i thought you could tell me.
Sometimes I lick the underside of
his person as a series of drawings

de luxe tongueless umber fur arrows,
in the thin place between the word and the thing,
our tongues are now maple syrup.

She thought the spaces suggested only limited things (meaning you,
the shadow of a dog on the wall. He knows,
beseech ye; yes, that that is true is true…

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

Madame Bovary

My skin pores and lets you in the thin place
between the word and the thing.
Sleep awhile if you will
the body has endured a short lesson
in how to be here
and it is too late to ask questions
(remember, I hold the darkness this time).
Falling for you or at least in front of you,
you don't have any rebound tenderness.
You harvested whatever you could carry.
I can hear the protective way
things wrap you up, tell me
what has gone missing
the colour of god's hair or something.

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

travel luggage

1
touch the walls with bare hands.
snow. each line along his brow
spilling over glistening stones.

 
 

2
I hear the nurses calling
between shadows
and give that up, too. He will draw a door closing
and flickers of saints
inside the shell of a car
a library of untranslated prose
no longer light years away.

You harvested whatever you could carry
Along the independent variable of time or narrative –

sleep awhile, if you will.
This will look like a circle to the audience and they will applaud.
 
 

3
until we meet inside the radio
or (doctored) film with red flowers
(I hope this thing)
the name of a late breeze looks nothing like
a familiar occurrence subject to change
(at least in front of you)
secret drawer tidy package
focus evenly tell me
until we meet (inside the radio)
There's no comparison

 
 

4
the latest report patiently clouds the room

and cannot see the other side

colour in each petal with the scratchy hand of a kid
you are bookbinder cartographer

dog on the wall
all to himself
underneath old newspapers

 
 
___________________________________________________

 

Those eyes that shift from left to right
Pull out a folded handkerchief and tell us where we are,
how it becomes us, the monk replied
Except for the suitcase he has completely filled with unfinished words

 
___________________________________________________

 

deserted by a whole team of people with tools
of the quotidian. (We apologise for endangered auxiliary verbs
including sharp or heavy objects
but not tonight.)

 
___________________________________________________

 

dog on the wall
all to himself
underneath old newspapers
its existence identity late and later
Crazily it shone

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

ready or not

I can't write, the story

without hands

 

applauding

Derrida's graffiti

 

she will take the pen off him

 

To fill up

 

the red plastic devil eyes

 

and tell us where we are

 

Only yesterday

filled with unfinished words

on top of each other:

 

Country

 

Cause

 

calcaneus        carpus        cranium        femur

 ilium        mandible        maxilla        phalanges 

radius        scapula        sternum        tibia

you hid

with me

 

summer dresses in winter

 
along the pathway where ducks
stop

 

Derrida's graffiti

Only yesterday

 

without hands

applauding

 

fifteen thousand neighbours died

on top of each other

 
stop             stop             I can't write, the story
Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

WOMEN RISE ABOVE THE NOISE OF MEN

Observe
the crescent curve of his back –
cockroaches are the hieroglyphs.

When our eyes touch, is it night
or is it day? Stitching sinners
into dishonest possessions
Crazy dumsaint and
Barthes' kleenex box
intricately constant as they
eject cometary material into the twilight.

He chose man
Whatever they ordered you
If you wanted
to keep
your job.

So
avoided her gaze,
It's always the edges that get blurry,
the colour of god's hair.

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

Building the world

you are bookbinder cartographer
historian: this body of work to be studied
and a ribbed surface to control heat release.
Your lover is a safe and natural way to keep warm
though it plays it straight, it is funny. He will pause and change to texta.
To represent the change he will draw a paragraph and a man in relief.
To signal the pause, he will
gaze of an unquestioning moon. No other documentation will be required.

 
 

about history. One cannot
beowulf a page with thin smears
you dont see every day. hypochondriac phlox. the lettuce freshened in the

structured vermouth. the bullet in my heart voided lostness loneliness. like a

lake
half a line of wang wei translated

in its mind
in deepest nebbia. terminal shift
audio setting unavailable for
comment, the year turns a page –
to celebrate how ducks move and the big
noise they make! enjoining us to attend more closely
to pirate, treasure, flag and farm

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

bee-suitcase

sharp or heavy the wind
like essentialism wind translated in its mind
flicker twitch a regular fantasy

remember the name:
the moon should smoke open
a suitcase his
& no other

i can hear your orchestra
do you belong here?
your compass yawns

in bee-eye tenderness he said (and prolonged
days piled in the suitcase)

what i really want:
a map behind us
again the bibliographies
of stars

& the daughter; fine creation
three names picked out remember
her ashes diffused
on your lips white paint

your lover a princess i hear

i'd crack i'd mourn

the unbearable
could be this or this or this

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

make use of the

and back slid her must with many men i hole or save to drop
your easy tall cord into soil shift day due tell cars time mugs
mean last as next hair wood were read clay rags fire to sell
skin a line pale brow blue seek anew some year fork slow
of sort own & any pain walk lit film bath his code gaze
find this neck half wall debt mown desk bills once
love all write bee fizz a lake that song a big monk
open pop mood our flag home farm foot home
okay dirt here a bark haze sock guys the milk
grid mud full too mega cell case each box of
eyes bake usa uk pink time a dark art true
dose is old torn arm stirs over sure lead
tap to form this wind a dog ask late
deaf bomb chaos path lugs the
hour neon thin work our map
fur dice gay nape salt each
phd tune a why in warm
oil fed what trial like
a hero will
slant

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

Her ‘Lifestyle’ in the magazine for sale: a painting in collage for Salon des Refuses, France

girl called
Maybe to marinate China
into the rampant today of an open room. 'mojo'
and cockroaches are the hieroglyphs of home.

O observe
Features include superior one-piece moulded construction
It's not often I see you in front of me

stop traffic and families picnic
to being just a muttering

deflects reification
isn't chocolate at all-

Keep humming the latest toilet cleaner
Along the independent variable of time or narrative

Sri Lanka 29755 living
He'd idle behind,
there'll be no billy ocean

so he burned them in a bonfire at the end of the year,
I found them shrunk with the cold,
and vapour's glyphs are torn and tossed.

gathered from palaeochannels visible
The railway iron & they refused to cross, the gap of fear
bag. the stamp isn't one youd want or even read. cramps flower
seems a bourgeois grandeur

pronunciation and a pun: a popular bottle of fizz (light-reading). For the part
about
the secret drawer, so hefty
Sight has its own methodology. Hearing too.

and shot with liverspots like extra moons
Something with which to instrument his life on the unmasked pages of his room.

Wrath and keyboards
half lotus
at the bar- 'is repetition still itself?'

Words once were more than writing, were their own
like a valle d'aosta autostrada
the spaces between breaths.

Yet calling which way now Hansel

tell me
and say: Let me clean your glasses.

the novel on the cover of the Bonnard painting. thats a clock
Coffe slurped smoke in-out
with the Star of David
behind him. Immediately familiar,
steel frame mesh protective cover easy to assemble Includes adaptor 150cm tall
touch the walls with bare hands.

Note: This poem was made using the third line from each poem in the 'Custom' issue.

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

and for each a cloud

Sebastian Gurciullo, 'a cloud for everyone'

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

no Reading Wittgenstein’s Judith Wright

i met x 'Judith prize Wright' x on the same wavelength of the media-
release talking about talking about the self-portrait of i. who is writing
the drysdale bicentennial memorial? who in cahoots? there'll be no
new techniques of this something new; the average number of prose
poems is 44 poems for June 2009. Reading Wittgenstein's Judith Wright 'i'
shift focus: i keep meeting genuine guys from Wollongong. this new
Wright from Wollongong he is past the cover of new prize poets his
downfall may be in money suppressed analysis &
data which says one in two poets come in handy in Australia.
like prose poets isnt one Publishers and editors and stakeholders even
want or even like read. I. there was philosophy a negation w/ a
basketball: 'im going to breathe genuine atmosphere into the
linebreaks' II. production line Wright shaped like
department store Wright looks like sydney. channel surfing illogic 0-
1 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1 people studied Wright et cetera effective i mean
even i met Tim x Judiths editor i may be Tim x Judiths editor but i
didnt meet Tim x Judith i didnt meet i.
III. something i couldnt do?
texts/ lyric articulations i was not classically trained in talking
shit at that level that wont happen again. getting more out of the
literacys. there'll be no bee-eye view googoogoo. Wright?

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

Custom (First Lines)

The production line has not been idle
take something sharp
She and the fire
Your lover has been made in Sri Lanka
My skin pores and lets you in like
He will not be delivering the Kenneth Koch memorial lecture in person,
Remb
A Maoist is reading a map
Crazily it shone – the moment that formed his desire. Somewhere in
the hard drive a still hum, a natural pilot light
The woman with the styrofoam cup and no teeth
I hold the darkness this time
In the thin place between the word and the thing,
lies at the next turn, a sign says,
As the key sticks I can't write,
Clouds Hopkins across the blue page.
Thou art 2 ezy on th i. I do
Falling for you, or at least in front of you,
Country | Number of Deaths | Cause
you have that white chocolate
walk with me along the pathway of analog lovers
The cattle grid jolted him back; it was where the green
one in two men like jelly.
i met andrew xs editor but
My foot on the wood and the heat surging through it
The money spider crosses a hand.
Every day Abba Paul plaited a new basket,
there'll be no billy ocean
From my father I got
in the yoga class, breathing Ardha Padmasana,
He'd hated her old handbag
This Berryman's a moralistic thing:
Every landscape painting is a left eye's worth
someone's shout become
what wakes me some outside
In a forest of blue trees it's easy to feel lost.
When he reads me, I'm reading him
We write beneath the noise of men
Could anyone be bothered pressing these
I didn't mean to be an artwork,
Sometimes, not enough,
i thought
Holds 1000 litres save every drop of your precious rainwater
successful poetry
He slipped through the curtains

Posted in 36: MADE | Tagged

Custom/Made Editorial

The production line has not been idle at the Cordite Industrial Park on Bespoke Drive. Here are 44 poems that engage with the rubric of Custom/Made in a diverse range of texts/articulations – poems have been 'made' often employing quirky and sprightly strategies in response to the subject.

Continue reading

Posted in ESSAYS | Tagged ,

reconstructing a rabbit

take something sharp
& begin

observe

the crescent curve of his back
folded fullmoon the rabbit world opens
thickly; darkly bound these stitches

you are bookbinder cartographer
historian: this body of work to be studied

the rabbit measures by its teeth
where all wisdom is stored how it discovers
its existence identity
kit & kindle
its rabbit-proof

remove the incisors these are your luck
the feet may be soft & more sightly
yes, but they are
merely decoration

knowledge is the greater fortune

ask the rabbit on the tall ship
the rabbit with the pocketwatch

(((((

the ribs like bows unstrung beware the sharp end
there will be no fairytale wound

sleep awhile, if you will
but expect no handsome visitor

its capped heart a flask for
what? linseed oil?
fodder for careful creatures
ears raised & a phosphate thump

label the provinces:

calcaneus carpus cranium femur
ilium mandible maxilla phalanges
radius scapula sternum tibia

a rabbit atlas

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Joan of Arc

She and the fire
fight adjectives. Their concreteness

deflects reification
by language. She simply is

a pronoun. It may signify
say, my wife (coming from me

'she' often does) or, yes
a medieval French woman, her being

so roughly abridged
by the pronoun, as brutally fed

to the fire. Regarding the fire
dazzling, heaving, devouring

won't do. It only suggests
a familiar occurrence: ouch

when flame touches skin. Indeed
flame doesn't suffice (rhymes with lame)

and a pyre, much more poetic,
based on the transcripts based on

wordy statements. So much
reliance on the makeshift engine

of abstraction, language. She
did, I think, end in fire, but hero

saint, witch, schizophrenic
won't do. Will numbers rectify

the flaws of alphabetical signs: 1412
to 1431? Historians can't be certain

about either: no records
other than her reserved guess

on the first day of trial
apropos birth, and her famed death

also contested by theorists
of bad conspiracies. So I can't

force the ephemeral stuff
of her matter into a mould (a poem)

with description, facts
or even an attempted evocation. She

floats and evades
perhaps – if I may hazard a simile –

like her ashes, diffused
by an English guard over the Seine.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Thank-You for Choosing this Product

a (mostly) found poem

 
 

Your lover has been made in Sri Lanka
and conforms to British Quality Standard BS1970.
Features include superior one-piece moulded construction
and a ribbed surface to control heat release.
Your lover is a safe and natural way to keep warm
or may be used for therapeutic purposes.

Instructions: Do not use boiling water.
Recommended temperature should not exceed 42 degrees.
Hold your lover by the neck in an upright position.
Do not fill using the domestic hot water system –
this can considerably shorten the life of your lover.

Do not place anything on top of your lover
including sharp or heavy objects.
Prevent contact with hot surfaces and naked flames
Do not use in microwave ovens.
Prevent contact with oil and grease.

Drain your lover completely.
Prevent exposure to sunlight.

Check for wear and damage at regular intervals.
Warning: Your lover can cause burns.
Avoid direct, prolonged contact with the skin.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

The Fear of Sunrise

My skin pores and lets you in like
Nails down a chalkboard.
It's not often I see you in front of me

I had three names picked out –
Trailer trash complimentary
This insect has a protective coating

Disturbing my alternate existence
Colliding conclusions, cheap motel moments
Venetian, vertical – screen your calls

Night solace solar systems
No longer light years away
Living on adjectives, not adverbs

The master of my ceremonies
A symphony of harmonies out of tune
I'm waiting for someone to count me in

Sometimes I lick the underside of
The welcome mat outside my front door
To get a taste of how the other half live

Yes I know I know I know but
Jack is no longer my name
All trades is not my place of residence

Late night talkback my companion
Seeking adulation in carefully constructed metaphors
A library of unwritten masterpieces in my mind

Guess that's why they call it – the morning

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

The Kenneth Koch Memorial Lecture

He will not be delivering the Kenneth Koch memorial lecture in person, rather he will present his person as a series of drawings. For the introduction he will draw correct pronunciation and a pun: a popular bottle of fizz (light-reading). For the part about War he will draw a Ph.D. For the part about New York he will draw Ohio. For the explanation of his energy, he will draw, on stage, a sprinkler and suggest that water can fly, but stress that flight is not infinite by drawing dry bird-bones and a wet bruised apple. For the hard part – the technical detail and friendship – he will draw a dune-buggy. There is always something fun about these parts even though they can drag out. For the part about comic art, he will draw a spirit-level and imply that, though it plays it straight, it is funny. He will pause and change to texta. To represent the change he will draw a paragraph and a man in relief. To signal the pause, he will draw a clock without hands. This will look like a circle to the audience and they will applaud. For the part about insecurity, he will draw Daffy Duck, the Hollywood sign, two close friends, Jack Kirby meeting Tex Avery, and the ambitions of the Great Cartoonist on his deathbed. For the part about the critical reception he will draw most of 1995 and an expensive cup. He will try to draw a final postcard. Adapting his work for an Australian audience, he will draw a lake and a salt shaker. In drawing a generic brand of appliance (a dishwasher), he will admit that he didn't give much thought to the adaptation. For the part where he draws the audience's concept of value, he will draw one long anecdote and his own voice being authorial. For this he will draw a musical note and a crude representation of a famous orator. He will draw a strayed cat. For the part that signals the end of the show, he will draw the audience applauding. For the part about when he goes home, he will draw a taxi cab, a jostle and he will ask the woman in the third row from the front, seat C-13, if she will join him by drawing her seat number and seat in the window of his taxi cab. It will later be judged as the clumsiest drawing: over-crowded. For the part where they have dinner, he will draw two knives, and one lettuce leaf. For the part where he pays for the dinner, he will sign his name in the bottom corner of a key. For the part where he seduces her, he will map her family history, his own family and his professional history and also some flowers. He will colour in each petal with the scratchy hand of a kid, but like an adult, will demarcate each as a different country. In bed, he will draw her legs and place the drawing on top of the doona so he can see her legs without making her shiver. For the part where he is funny and also somewhat poetic himself, he will illustrate the text with 'I limned your lower limbs'. For the part when he wants just a small amount of time alone, he will draw an exit sign. For the part where he asks himself if he wants her to come back later, he will draw a telephone and a series of images that represent his telephone number: nothing, a table, a shit, himself, the letter g inverted, a three-legged dog, a shit, a table, the letter g inverted, himself. For her part, she will take the pen off him and draw herself not calling. She will mark the hours after the lecture with an F. He will record the cumulative performance number: 6-6-3. He will draw a door closing, but to him it will just look like an unopened door.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged