1 in 2

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Michael Farrell

one in two men like jelly. the hand comes to claim its

prize visavis gough & the new york poets. i freeze in my

bag. the stamp isnt one youd want or even read. cramps flower

unbeknownst. prose though apparently maupassants triumph was also his

downfall. money in

snow. setting off for the presbytery like a winky. i think it

surreal but you a suitcase. his grace stank. the tone like an

unripe pear or pineapple. leather kept you from the grave for years

but today youre here & on your knees for a change. men

are sexier than before or am i just getting out more? forced

seclusion in the north. snow in money. she ran an extension cord

from his vexation to someone with more energy. hallelujah doesnt come with

raisins. have you been to the outback lately? it looks like sydney.

the tea cooled & the coffee awesomed. we were back to back

& the space invaders werent games or gamers but coming to take

our place our cake. its a kind of fish icecream. big in

nonfood circles. googoogoo. marinetti looked to a tableclothless future

something the nazis

couldnt do. it can happen when literacys at that level. the bar

had oscar wildes name on it. the computers lyric plaint brought a

tear. i get out of my bag. its light i can hear

the unbearable rumbling of the sun. worse than santa being dragged

over

needles in his sleep but reindeer willing that wont happen again.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

albeit briefly

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Michael Farrell

i met andrew xs editor but i didnt meet andrew x. by

the time we got the hypertext working wed run out of blue.

the novel on the cover of the bonnard painting. thats a clock

you dont see every day. hypochondriac phlox. the lettuce freshened in the

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

drysdale. like a bark. the years go past in a righteous haze.

the copilots haircut delayed takeoff but the monitors obliged. happy drugbust

baby.

two more harpsichordists quarantined. it may be in quantity that we have

our hope. a squeaky sock gathers the moss. wikipedia nightmare. borrow your

own thermometer. are linebreaks sister to windbreaks? the crowd urged

caution. albeit

briefly. vegetarian aphids dont bode well for roses. & tell me how

im going to breathe with no head? the cereal typed the paper

while he talked shit to the milk. dial f for froot loop.

off ice he wasnt on the same wavelength. theres a bigger niche

than astronauts for poems like these! too disgusted to play chess. the

spacebaa was woaking but a typed a. a storm brewed. there was

little atmosphere in the room. her philosophy wasnt a negation of all

i held dear. his demands included a reading of wordsworth over the

police megaphone. a basketball flattened with disuse. are jane austen &

dr

who in cahoots? i keep meeting guys from the twelfth century. how

do i know theyre genuine? how do they know about bank accounts?

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Footing

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Nicholas Powell

My foot on the wood
and the heat surging through it
seems a bourgeois grandeur
here in the public sauna.

A long way from the hot
bitumen of home.
I am no exile, though
I doubt I belong here

in this, or most poems.
But to be a conduit of beauty,
to be somewhere
between dirt and bird,

song surging through you –
that is a pretty wish.
Even a silent song
playing in one's veins, some-

thing approaching the throb within
Beethoven, would be okay.
The sharpening of a sense
with the perishing of another.

The salt rising to the surface
of the body reminds it
of the short distance
it has crawled from the ocean,

ancient secrets embedded
in the flesh. The body
has endured a short lesson
in how to be here.

But it changed our shapes.
It changed our song.
We did a few drawings.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

The European Manner of Crossing Legs

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Sam Langer

The money spider crosses a hand.
You shut the door and open up
the secret drawer, so hefty
and loud your knees pop. We're
beginning our descent into barbarism:
sorry, it's conclusive
since the windows filled with milk
and the floor with blood and honey.

Only two to go then one more, then
we begin our evolutionary strategy in earnest.
Look up and smile; the coffee drinks the cup
and fathers eat their leftovers unbidden.
We like these airy breakfasts, anti-gravity service
puts me in the circus-mood
mentioned in the guide. White clowns in the air out
on parole. We must wear our ornamental
blinkers for landing.

Skirts turn Mondrian. Complimentary?
Yes, it's all free–so long as you can say
“pop it in Mum's bag,” she prising
lead shingles off a roof. Our dentist

works as a baggage-monkey now, inciting every
passenger to their teeth. But smile,
this is a road someone lives on–and that's
why we're here on this national holiday:
to celebrate how ducks move and the big
noise they make! enjoining us to attend more closely
to pirate, treasure, flag and farm
equipment plowing us untimely under
the clues, the slopes.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged ,

Basket Case

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Richard Schiffman

Every day Abba Paul plaited a new basket,
for which there were no markets in the desert,
so he burned them in a bonfire at the end of the year,
and again began his termless labors.
High roller Sisyphus was also an incurable workaholic.
One day Sisyphus met Paul, who was weaving
yet another basket. He asked if he could put his boulder
in Paul's basket. Paul replied that his baskets were not
big enough for boulders. 'Then what are they good for?'
Sisyphus wondered. 'For nothing,' Paul responded.
'They are good for nothing.'
'That's what I work for too!'Sisyphus quipped.
'Then go ahead and put your nothing in my basket,' Paul offered.
'But what should I do with my boulder?'
Sisyphus pressed. 'Why not burn it?' Paul suggested.
'Do boulders burn?' Sisyphus wondered.
'They do when they're in my basket,' Paul replied.
'But you said that my boulder won't fit in your baskets,'
Sisyphus recalled. 'That was before I burned them,'
the monk replied.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

near accidents

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Tim Wright

'oh no! it hurts!'
Richard Hell

there'll be no billy ocean
until we meet inside the radio
on albany highway
a bee once stung me on the nipple there
it was classically trained
in techniques of surprise / and exited
past a future lover thru the passenger side window
to fizz out on the cut grass
in bee-eye view
of the bicentennial memorial
lake
half a line of wang wei translated
in its mind
this thing extreme
well, this
was something new
and that night or soon
inside the shell of a car
again a soft-focus filter between us
and the drone
of the recently deceased
that might have been engine or radio hum
but when the song came on
memory clicked in
and i forgot where i was

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Trimmed Wings

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Lee Kofman

From my father I got
Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Joplin.
I found them shrunk with the cold,
dusted on his writing desk
underneath old newspapers,
bills, blunt pencils, inkless pens,
accounts of unrealised genius
and corpses of cockroaches.

He hid them – stained with coffee,
Western voices
stamped on samizdat cassettes
with Russian lettering and fake covers.
He was too shy to let me know
that once he could make love
to the sounds
of the same music
I do.

Who would think there were times
when my father
wore dancing jeans
underneath the mirrored balls
of Siberian nightclubs,
where tattooed DJs
had to swear loyalty
to the international struggle
of the working class
if they wanted
to keep
their jobs.

My father
with his trimmed beard
and trimmed wings
and sadness
that will suffice for all of us.
When you were my age
You had to write
Whatever they ordered you
If you wanted
to keep
your job.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Beans

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Carolyn van Langenberg

in the yoga class, breathing Ardha Padmasana,
my rusted shoulders don't florally grace
half lotus

green thumbs agree Dan's brittle lemon tree can't resist
superannuants bracing the Wall Street crisis
and stiff winds

crossed legs unlatch reluctant joints I bend with classmates
downward facing dogs posed hard in fiscal
inertia

sunlight strikes the red hedge, bounces with the late breeze
fresh green backs bailing out American
mortgage debt

Zhai radios from the vastness of space, 'I am proud,
Chairman Hu, people of China, mission
accomplished.'

the smell of new mown grass wafts, the village school bell rings,
a rooster crows far from my rhythmic breaths,
mind scudding

this ordinary life: cobra uncoiling is Kylie;
she meditates on mildew powdering
garden beans

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Mother and Dead Son

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Amanda Betts

(Inspired by 'A monument to war', sculpture by Kathe Kollwitz, Berlin)
 
 

i.
 

He'd hated her old handbag

and how she carried it.

He'd idle behind,

watching her shoulders

move solidly through public streets

carrying the bag

he'd given her in childhood.

 

He then learnt to walk in front,

cursing slowness

and memory

and the impossibility of being man and son,

so he chose man

and avoided her gaze,

but at night stayed awake

in ease of darkness

to hear her private singing from the bathroom:

her smooth notes skimming water

to steal under closed doors

then find him, open-eyed and loving.

 
 

ii.

 

One thousand degree fires turned solid bronze to liquid

which, bubbling and thick with resistance,

was emptied into Kollwitz's mould

then clasped shut,

left still,

for airless weeks.

 

Bronze settled, quietened and cooled

to this:

 

a grown man

enfolded in his mother's full embrace

 

his head angled backwards,

smooth neck reflecting the sky,

long legs spilling effortlessly

to the angry earth.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Book Learning

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Bonny Cassidy

This Berryman's a moralistic thing:
its jacket has been lit, man rolled back to ma
and shot with liverspots like extra moons
or doctored film of UFOs –

blinked, I think, by a student in the bath
who, before Returns, checked the title page with '??°a marche?
Oui' (knowing a book so used would not reply);

and who, for all his troubles, failed
to notice a label still stuck fast across the blurb
and faded to its price code, W. O. E.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

On Reading Mr Wittgenstein’s Lion

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Sue Stanford

Every landscape painting is a left eye's worth
of a stereoscopic image. There's no comparison.

Sight has its own methodology. Hearing too.
If a picture could talk we could not understand it.

This, though black & white TV returned me better
than colour to where 'a hand can approximate

any shape'. Where the blessed say 'Oh yes'
about their pain. Let's have every image in sharp

focus evenly across the canvas 'just for now'.
Stanley Spenser, an old favourite. An old fart.

'Art' is what remains after a trip to Raspberry
Creek. It can be 'bolted to the asphalt' &

deserted by a whole team of people with tools
who walk away, leaving an eerie absence.

Recursive absence too. As in ekphrasis. Or a
'poem' upon a book of poetry. It can be a sign

saying: Go this way. As in a weathercock.
Or clock stopped 20:07. 'I step to the cliff edge-'

Or it can be something else entirely.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

locales

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Christopher Brown

someone's shout become
an accent on elocution lip-reading
at the bar – 'is repetition still itself?'

gazing at the décor a glass too tall
for its short straw if faces trickle in
a peck on the cheek in duplicate

and all slide and the anodized
salvers shine like some pleasant hangover
from last century – way an ultra-violet

lit songlist catalogues nostalgia as a genre
self-portrait in the third person – smile
while the sunken lounge swallows me

then up and go with the flow gyrating down
light to guide us down our only sprung dance-floor
you left i was lost guitar in his minefield

of effect pedals this way to
those rare tickets illicit lure of the cubicle
unspoken like here they know your order: two news

a regular fantasy inched closer to a view to
fissure in a cymbal rim or tympanum the law
packed lips of gum their feel it a figure of speech

and a fait accompli historically the encore
applaud a first shadow each to follow
late and later forgot time and danced on

into the death throes of a last, a final heroic outro.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

‘dream destinations’

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Christopher Brown

what wakes me some outside
blast of glass waste banking up
like a valle d'aosta autostrada

in deepest nebbia. terminal shift
audio setting unavailable for
comment, the year turns a page –

cities edged maple lemon nearly
all green thought flattery by this
the fade of the swimsuit season, a

bridge where a subject seated
might fork out (through the nose?)
for his own caricature

here on the water successive
symmetries reliant on reflection
as if ideas settle to focus slow within

shade a certain shade of blue
below us a deckchair, constellation
of tin cans aglow in the shallow

we arrived your 'forests'
of statuary dogs and lions ghosts
where fire relocates the royals

and some time later metro it back
to the hotel-of-the-same-name
hundred channels none that matters

sort re-shuffle the postcards
voice like a field of unreturned
calls to remind me if when? this all

falls together we'll be (seriously) overdue.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Blue Trees

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Cameron Lowe

after Stephen Haley's Forest (2008)

 
 

In a forest of blue trees it's easy to feel lost.
Yet calling which way now Hansel

would be purely rhetorical; if a path leads
out of these trees it begins & ends with ourselves.

Ask instead-in this age of reality–
why shouldn't office chairs adorn a forest floor?

Confused now with appearances
fall back on familiars:

trees shaped like trees, the idea of water
spilling over glistening stones,

stars suspended beneath the ceiling
by nothing more than our faith in art.

Here, to seek concrete answers
is to target a singular truth in the arc of night.

Beyond the forest's glass cage a computer
hums its music of making & the god

of images-who never wholly sleeps-projects
anew the waiting world: a forest is beautiful,

the blue light announces, a forest
could be this, or this, or this.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Poem Reviews Poet

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Bill Rush

When he reads me, I'm reading him,
each line along his brow,
the spaces between breaths.

He's a mystery.
Those eyes that shift from left to right
hide as much as they reveal.

Someone imagined him,
gave him grammar of demeanour,
used his pale skin as metaphor.

His form I'd say, is more or less
traditional, though marred by adjectival
spots he won't get rid of.

I give him marks at least
for genuine attention.
Low-shelved,
I wish I'd written him.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

FORWARD!

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Les Wicks

We write beneath the noise of men
in our choice of cell.
Wrath and keyboards
perpetuity
and fashions of cruelty.

Lies are by nature brittle
(I hope this thing)
written on your lips.
white paint is medicine.

Welfare on wheels
huskies turn on the air-conditioning.
Team Sky is winning 3-0.

Chasms of pepper
every vehicle is a princess.
I hear the nurses calling
this new aristocrat
in his cotton rags stuck
in the roaring library of fire.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Cuneiform

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Howard Firkin

Could anyone be bothered pressing these
in clay? Or scratching them in polished stone?
Words once were more than writing, were their own
accomplishment – you didn't read at ease,
you read at work, you dragged them from a field.
Then words were stooked, hand-tied, and lined in rows.
You harvested whatever you could carry.
But now, each day's another dictionary,
a library of untranslated prose.
We weigh the chaff and think we're talking yield.

I don't believe there's anything to say
that someone reading this in 3010
might think was truly worth the waste of clay
except, “I was alive like you. Back then.”

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Small Man with a White Shirt and Black Trousers in the Museum der Bildenen Künste, Leipzig

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Ryan Scott

I didn't mean to be an artwork,
going about my business on the platz.
Coffee slurped smoke in-out
shirt tail wedged down one last time.
Okay, okay, white shirt into back trousers,
But he could've chosen one of the other drones.

Who knows what stirs behind the small splinters
and wood grain? It's just easier to thank yourselves,
that you didn't end up like me. All your fears
in one tidy package vanquished with a smirk
and sideways step to the next exhibit.
And I'm easy to store.

If I dropped on your foot,
you'd know. If I fell, I'd crack. Like
to see a picture do that. Maybe
the critics would mourn. But what I really
want is for someone to touch the indurate bulge
that is my hair and pretend to put it in place.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Making new

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Zoe Deleuil

Sometimes, not enough,
I'd really look at you
and say: Let me clean your glasses.
You'd take them off.
Blink. Hand them over.
Pull out a folded handkerchief
from your trouser pocket
and give that up, too.

It's always the edges that get blurry.
I'd work on those the longest, teasing out
flecks of leaf and breakfast smudges and wattle pollen
until the glass was clear. Like making them new
again. You'd put them on – just as slowly
as you took them off – look around
at your familiar world and say:
There's no doubt about you.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

What I Thought

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Zoey Dawson

i thought
you could
tell me
the colour of god's hair or something

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

hard rubbish collection

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Sebastian Gurciullo

Holds 1000 litres save every drop of your precious rainwater perfect for the family home or holiday house marine grade PVC bladder clip together zinc-plated tubular steel frame mesh protective cover easy to assemble Includes adaptor 150cm tall 120cm diameter 6 assorted wooden designs to choose from: Farm, Railway, Docks, Building Blocks, Airport and Marble Run Packed in a strong cardboard drum set includes flat sheet, fitted sheet with 35cm wall and 2 pillowcases available in assorted colours available in assorted colours Size: 50 x 80cm towel weight 600gsm available in assorted colours Size: 68 x 130cm towel weight 600gsm available in assorted colours size: 40 x 60cm LCD display digital tuning for AM/FM radio alarm clock emergency siren and blinking high sensitivity 360° telescopic antenna generate power to charge electronics device such as mobile phone by external adaptor built-in speaker convert your kitchen and garden waste into a clean-smelling material used in the garden as a soil conditioner or surface mulch compost returns nutrients to the soil, improves soil structure and helps you do your bit for the environment 220 litres made of recyclable materials easy to assemble access material from 4 doors composting instructions included Size: 65 x 65 x 75cm for efficient recycling of rainwater for your garden Includes 2 universal down pipe adaptors and flow control tap will fit various round or rectangular down pipes supplied with fitting instructions reduces watering use by up to 4 times ideal for potted and garden plants helps prevent soil drying out easily attaches to your washing machine to recycle your grey water onto your garden kink-resistant moulded cuff popular water-saving device 900W power 6 speed settings turbo function auto-clean function 2L capacity blender and food processor with safety lock Includes a wide range of accessories 1.7L capacity 360° swivel base water level indicator safety locking lid overheat protection 3-metre power cord electronic control timer reheat/defrost/cancel button function automatic switch-off detachable crumb collector tray Stainless steel 3mm encapsulated base glass lid with vent hold dishwasher-safe compatible with electric, gas or ceramic stoves 3 clear, rectangular pyrex containers with plastic blue lids container capacity: 6 cups microwave, dishwasher, freezer and oven proof available in assorted designs easy to transfer from your shopping trolley directly into the boot of your car this bag is easily and securely attached to the shopping trolley with velcro fasteners available in blue, black and red set of 4 round food storage containers with clip-lock lids containers nest for easy storage airtight and leak-proof suitable for hot or cold items ideal for picnics or barbecues set includes: 1 x 1.8L, 1 x 1L, 1 x 0.65L and 1 x 0.35L choose from: Round Cake, Springform Pan, 12-Cup Muffin Tray, Square Cake, Loaf Pan or Biscuit Tray choose from a Junior Mechanic, Beauty Set or Tool Set All Sets Come In A storage case includes 2x AA batteries 5-piece hand painted wooden dolls available in 4 designs which include a Fireman, Policeman, Nurse and Teacher 3 vehicles to choose from: Helicopter, Car, and Locomotive wind them up with the key and watch them go transparent case to see the working gears includes 26 demo songs, games and sound effects available in 2 assorted colours happy Learning Keyboard comes with 4 learning modes 3 x AA batteries included includes 4 magnetic pattern shapes and a drawing pen choose from Ballet, Dressing Up, Doll's House or On the move 4 assorted wooden trucks to choose from with different shapes, cabins and loads made in Germany 12 different cars to choose from scale: 1:36 – 1:43 pull back motor opening doors each book contains 5 puzzles titles include: Ready to Roll, Playful Ponies, Fun on the Farm, and Fairies Forever Choose from Pick Up Sticks, Marbles, Dominoes, Checkers, and Kidz Cardz all packed in a colour tin with lid 2 action figures per set 16 sets to choose from 22 piece tea set includes kettle, sugar pot, milk jug, tea cups, saucers, spoons, imitation toast, plate, knife and tray 30 piece dishdrainer set includes plastic glasses, mugs, saucers, plates, spoons, knives, forks, water jug and dishdrainer prices are correct at time of uploading and are subject to change while stocks last despite our careful planning, we apologise if selected items may sell out on the first day due to unexpected high demand.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Moving Statue

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Dianne Cikusa

successful poetry
began
with the Star of David

his caricature stood
in the middle
of a fountainhead,
darting
between shadows
and flickers of saints,

stitching sinners
into dishonest possessions

Patches of light would
perambulate the fringes
of stealth and supposition

No one knows quite how many
bare-chested men
have been dismissed
in lieu
of pragmatic identification

They are there somewhere,
dancing among
short-term bravery,
casting
glances at sideways origin

mama wiped a clean gash
The faces
of her ghost-pale sons
idling between
bundles of frightened daughters

[snickering bookstore]

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Bedside manner

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Zoe Deleuil

He slipped through the curtains
on a Friday night, and pulled them tight
behind him. Immediately familiar,
he peeled back the sheet and slid his hands
into her prickly armpits, rested his head on her back,
pressed her belly, tucked a stethoscope
under the cotton smock, lifted her bra
to get close to her heart.

You don't have any rebound tenderness,
he said, and you're not guarding,
but you've had nothing to eat,
you must be so hungry. And as his warm hands
went here and there, he told her of eating rock oysters
alone at a Sydney restaurant, a whole plate
all to himself.

Posted in 35: CUSTOM | Tagged

Seamus Barker Reviews Kate Middleton

Posted on June 29, 2009 by Seamus Barker

Fire Season: New Poems by Kate Middleton
Giramondo Publishing, 2009

Fire Season is Kate Middleton's first book of poetry, after numerous publications in journals and newspapers in Australia, England and the US. Middleton has trained as a librettist, and we see a classical influence permeating this book, with narrative voices discovered for literary figures from Penelope, to Leda, Desdemona, and even the Minotaur's previously undiscovered, equally bullish, sister. Middleton's technique of inhabiting specifically located moments of time and place extends from classical to popular culture, including poems written 'with' Lauren Bacall, Lana Turner, and Judy Garland.

Continue reading →

Posted in BOOK REVIEWS | Tagged ,