Cordite Poetry Review

Dear Dad

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Paul Mitchell

Dear Dad

Check this link … http://toldyouIdgetbackatyoupsychoanalyticallyformum.com

Love Siggy

>Notice – This memory contains paranoia and counter-transference insights
>intended only for the intrusive use of the anaclitic named above. If you
>are not the intended regression of this memory you are hereby notified that
>you must not disavow, counter-wish or take any action in reminder of it. If you
>have received this memory in ego-cathexis please nirvana us immediately.
>Objects, compulsions and other insights in this e-mail and any attachments that
>do not regress the official bricolage of the fantasy are neither given nor
>endorsed by it. Any dream-works prepared using this data is unconscious
>and not subject to hypnosis. The reality principle is recoiling for reversing the
>scopophiliance of the telepathic insight and should advise us immediately upon
>reminder of any discrepancy. Any detachment details are applicable to the
>intended projection only. Subject to consciousness, we retain copyright of all the
>transmuted memories and they must not be resisted wholly or in part, or
>supplied to any third eye without our written parapraxis. The subject
>makes no wit-work regarding the accuracy or completeness of
>the denial transmittal or to the phobia of computer viruses or data oedipus.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged paul mitchell

thoughts that wouldn’t choose to think of themselves again

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Nathan Shepherdson

0.07792208

that i didn't realise
that you didn't realise
did you realise this

0.16233767

and letting go of your hand
i realised
that you had no hand

0.25324677

i never realised
how difficult it would be
to register sleep as a colour

0.38961041

what you have to realise is
that when i said i was lying
i imagined avoiding the only vowel in truth

0.52597404

it won't take us long to realise
that where we are standing
is on one rib in a very big hole

0.62987015

there is resigned delight
when you finally realise
just how good at reverse parking death is

0.74675326

in all the years i've been coming here
no one has actually realised
that i've been coming here

0.87662338

it's about time we realised
that the poles of this earth
are stuck to either end of a giant paperclip

1.00000000

without realising it
you've been tricked into realising this all along
and i've only just realised what this is

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged nathan shepherdson

the j letter

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Michael Farrell

the deity hangs in the air taking up &
allowing all the space there note to
future note to past the page is
the poem & the poem a defence
the press will set this in what
ever fashion they like in the irish
republic my metallic voice reverberates
& shakes the ink & the rhythms
are ours like nothing we touch
we keep touching it up the japes
there are no tapes everyone thinks
of me as a black framing device

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged michael farrell

boyhood

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Michael Farrell

grown & overgrown shrink. folding bear collapses under its own weight. under
living of night putting on bling & preparing one thing then another
eating their brains up. doke is it. satans waynebow. my boyhood among
the outlaws. keep the icy river on the right the right in
the icy river. cutup texts cutup politics. everybody in the house get
qepsi. between pages of green & tourmaline not a lot of absorption.
qepsi. between pages of green & tourmaline not a lot of absorption.
riding. when a sixties stops a fifties rushes back in. in villages
failed cannibals preach against eating. in retrospect memory flooded the plain like
brumbies. in reality they were quite nice people. the height of report.
redblooded blues singer round the wrecking yard. ooh mao mmao mao. chou
redblooded blues singer round the wrecking yard. ooh mao mmao mao. chou
redblooded blues singer round the wrecking yard. ooh mao mmao mao. chou
redblooded blues singer round the wrecking yard. ooh mao mmao mao. chou
redblooded blues singer round the wrecking yard. ooh mao mmao mao. chou
enlai a dark eyed insurrectionary. poetrys big lambs with wool hanging down.
taste evil. pale glass slow stopper. bluenerved ideas woman in snowedin bungalow.
tigers. they stoop to stoop. the dead are never safe. all they
tigers. they stoop to stoop. the dead are never safe. all they
tigers. they stoop to stoop. the dead are never safe. all they
tigers. they stoop to stoop. the dead are never safe. all they
tigers. they stoop to stoop. the dead are never safe. all they
tigers. they stoop to stoop. the dead are never safe. all they
knows they feel like billy joel in a draught. howard blew me
up. cf. dont change. dear arbiter i am in a pergola rustic
with teaflowers. identify it & it disappears or hands do. a family
sentence remember to clean it. the grammys killed funk. a blue super bowl.
anyones dog can sing better & write better essays. a guilty boyhoods
passed along replete with red wig & tartan cap claw of death hammer
in the cooling wealth. boys arent gay. quince to jelly pound to
duncan. gin scotch a lawnmower. cobbling it together in an absence of
duncan. gin scotch a lawnmower. cobbling it together in an absence of
duncan. gin scotch a lawnmower. cobbling it together in an absence of
duncan. gin scotch a lawnmower. cobbling it together in an absence of
duncan. gin scotch a lawnmower. cobbling it together in an absence of
duncan. gin scotch a lawnmower. cobbling it together in an absence of
footrests paper squares. everything has been perfect now the outlaws are more
subtle & the task. ant reverie fig protection thermos ready for death.
they were the ones that led me astray i wanted to stay.
they were the ones that led me astray i wanted to stay.
they were the ones that led me astray i wanted to stay.
they were the ones that led me astray i wanted to stay.
they were the ones that led me astray i wanted to stay.
they were the ones that led me astray i wanted to stay.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged michael farrell

Variations on six innocent lines

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Lorin Ford

The way to Blake is to open the door for Chaucer

Spring the bawdy house.
That'll bring 'em on-scent. I am a woman.
Refer to them as slip-ons, Dear, not brothel-creepers.
Mirror balls. Multi-focal lenses.
Stalked by an apogee. Round midnight, would you believe.
I have a council permit.

I pose the portentous by placing vacancy beside cut lilac.

Heinz factory. Not much pay.
I might mention geometry. A trapezoid carrot with a sexual angle.
How to give orders while hinting at invitation.
Something odd about that mirror in the Ladies'.
The dark moon. The period. The full stop. Get it?
The i on the vanishing point. Dotted.

Fan-in-hand=butterfly=transience=Get it Now!

Ah, 'slave to chrysanthemums'.
I could work in the crescent moon.
Do not assume that they mean haiku as you do.
The back of the mirror. Look at that!
A master follows. Folded hands.
Nevertheless, my view to publication.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Lorin Ford

Visotsky in The Men’s Gallery

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Lee Kofman

I heard some Russian poets have been recently resurrected. Visotsky ended up being resurrected in Melbourne, in a bar called The Men's Gallery. Naturally, he asked for vodka. The young bartender with the fountain of spiky hair enquired whether he wanted Absolute or Finlandia, or maybe he was into flavored vodka: cherry or lemon or cranberry or chilly or the specialty of the house, borsch vodka that comes in individual bottles shaped like the Kremlin. Or did he want it as a shot or perhaps with ice, and if so – how many ice cubes did he prefer?

Confused, Visotsky said he had changed his mind and instead asked for Marina Vladi (the French actress, and his wife). Which one – the bartender wanted to know – the blonde one with pink suspenders, or the brunette with the beauty spot, or the Chinese, or the one with the German accent, or the one with the triangular nipples? And would you prefer her with a big arse and small boobs, or the opposite?

Visotsky, sure he is still dead, couldn't decide whether he had ended up in heaven or hell.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Lee Kofman

Sylvia in the Psych Ward

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Lee Kofman

Writes poetry about her cat
Because she has no one else to write about

Tends to stray dogs
Because humans bite

Feeds a bird
Barks at her doctor:

No more medications!
They're made of animal fat

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Lee Kofman

Suggestions for a Girls’ School Curriculum

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Lee Kofman

It should be taught how
not to choose your lovers.

Lesson number one:
beware of men who go days
without kissing you with their tongue,
saying they have intimacy problems.
Then they kiss you for hours,
wounding your lips,
wearing them out,
wearing themselves out,
still kissing you,
clutching at your lips as though
they are their mothers' nipples.

Lesson number two:
beware of men wounded by their mothers,
talking to you about it
for many many nocturnal hours
even when your head falls off your shoulders,
when the whites of your eyes leak
from underneath your shut eyelids,
when your ears dry up and flake off.

Lesson number three:
If you've already made the mistake,
introduce them to your own mother
and watch what unfolds next.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Lee Kofman

In a Shower

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Lee Kofman

Nowadays,
when I do not make love,
I often lose my body.
In a shower
my gaze slips.
I feel shy noticing
I have a pink, fleshy arse.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Lee Kofman

Every Woman Needs a Jewish Husband

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Lee Kofman

Look at my mother.
She has this talent for dismissing
hundreds of years of desire.
She lifts her hand,
dripping fat and kindness.
Shakespeare, Schmakespeare, she says.
What this Julia really needs
is to find a faithful, Jewish husband.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Lee Kofman

The Saint of Magnets

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Kate Schapira

palms magnets and names rise to plastic, letting boys know they've been there.
Confidence is turquoise and red upholds smiling, boys in uniform, grown boys,
cut-out
and glitter shapes boys hands. Empty magnets gap their amalgam mouths. Uniforms
mark a boy heavier to praise, harder to keep. Camouflage. Choking up on the bat.
'Jeremy's a nice kid, but I'd say Iraq has changed him.' A blood blister forms. 'Are
you still sure you can carry me?' asked the little boy.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Kate Schapira

Dreaming of Dead Horses

Posted on July 24, 2007 by John West

You think you have suffered
then a girl you know
her mother she says
had fifty years hard drinking
now
she hears phones ring
in loaves of bread
the woman in the next room
(a world champion wrestler)
is employed by the Russians
the cleaner's in ASIO
people
live
in her wardrobe
(“Just like in Narnia!”
her daughter laughs)
and when she goes out at night
to check on the place
all down the hallway
dead horses
are lying.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged John West

Among the Poets

Posted on July 24, 2007 by John Leonard

Orioles still sing, and the leaves fall –
Li Bo is stepping from a boat.

Edward Thomas tends to brood, but
Ho Xuan Hong has done with that.

Emily Dickinson leaves punctuation, society,
Alone; what are they – to love?

Ap Gwilym is off to see someone –
Sappho scintillates, while Catullus coruscates.

Rilke tweaks his verbs to turn
The point around; nouns need not apply.

Graves is in love magnificently,
But you wonder what the woman thinks.

And Vallejo has all the answers,
But only tells you the half of it.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged John Leonard

The Australian Males Rules American Football Dream

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Joel Magarey

I'm running. I have the ball. I hold it close to my
chest. It's mine. I think I know what it is. I think I
know where I'm running. I think I'm running
towards the touchline. Tall long-haired women
wearing make-up and dresses with padded
shoulders launch themselves into the air, trying
to tackle me. I put my head down and they
bounce off me. I push them in the face and they
fall backwards. They crumple into clouds of dirt
and grass. They sit up and call at my back. I
cannot hear what they say. I'm running. I'm
holding the ball to my chest. I think I know what
it is. I think I'm running towards the touchline.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Joel Magarey

Infidelity

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Joel Magarey

Your call like a trainwhistle sets me running;
I will weep no more by waters.

And there, on the other side, I will reach down
to pick up a handful of sand from the riverbed.
The gum branches rustling behind my back
and then quiet.

A crow re-announcing the silence.

There, I will be walking, coming home again –
the men all gone, the centrebeam cracked,
the wood used up so long ago
it hardly seems I left in this lifetime.
And although you stayed on,
and worked, still you too know why.
Here, take back the condolences you sent.
Of course you were free to do as you wanted.
Now go. I've come to close up.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Joel Magarey

The Woman of Rome

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Jennifer Compton

La Romana. By Alberto Moravia.
I read it at 13 snugged up in bed
in my aunt's house in Kilbirnie –
having rejected my own home in
Rongotai. For the usual reasons.

One hand on my mons veneris
eyebrows approaching hairline
at the spendthrift and amoral
atmosphere, the recklessness,
Europe! Not knowing yet that

I am reading in translation –
there are other languages.
But panting towards the source.
And my father arrives. Like a prince.
Offering me a packet of scorched almonds.

I accept them – like a princess –
like one who will one day be a queen
turn back towards the appalling book.
Scorched almonds are marvellous but
La Romana has my complete attention.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Jennifer Compton

In the Wee Hours

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Jane Williams

Otherwise faithfuls whisper wrong names into the ears of lovers
who keep breathing but do not stir
do not give the impression they heard a word out of place

A child wakes sits bolt upright in bed but still asleep
and screams run for your lives the house is on fire

A woman dreaming of the cliff edge of her marriage
clings with renewed hope to her side of the bed

Insomniacs try to run out of things to count

A grandmother of six plugs herself into her own theme music
runs a hot scented bath introduces herself to herself

as the Queen of Sheba slipping cat like between lives

Drug induced sleepers dream dreams they won't remember
but will go about their day all day
checking their pockets certain they've lost their keys

A father watches the clock tick over curfew tries not to remember
what he got up to at that age calls his daughter's name to
come / heel / stay as if this could ever bring her home

And the body becomes just that as the soul struggles to equal
the simple sum of subtracting a dead weight from a live one

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Jane Williams

all the cats and blind puppies

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Eric Yoshiaki Dando

all the cats and blind puppies
who thought they were tragic
went out gagging on ropes,
burned beyond recognition
wrapped in plastic

some of them died accidentally in traffic

most of my drug buddies
are coming close to spastic

we just can't communicate

(except with magic)

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Eric Yoshiaki Dando

micro

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Eric Yoshiaki Dando

she's so fast
it burns up my sandals
the sun hits the glass
like a million billion candles

twisted
frosted
insect
lady

and the sun
melts the plastic
clean
from my handles

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Eric Yoshiaki Dando

Barking Mad

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Ellie Francis-Brophy

And finally with little one, first
stuffed-up nose for the year,
struggling to stay asleep, tucked in behind her.
It reveals itself.
The meaning of the 'awful past'.
A sudden downpour, hard for air to get through.
The slap across her face that leaves her jaw clicking.
O clouds unfold! Waters broke, a warmth running down her spine.
For it's about her stupid empathy being exploited. About her
youthful gullibility being disarmed and
savaged and made to account for things it didn't
cause or start or, even, ever consider.
How she was wrong-footed, dumb-headed
for a man who ran at her with a machete, an idle hammer, a mobile phone
a man who tried to have her arrested for sedition,
sentenced for his thefts with her signature.
How her believing in standing up for the underdog
lacked serious assessment of that dog's training and character.
How she's never been very interested in domestic animals.

And finally with little one, double
doses of vitamin C,
pockets padded with cough lollies and tissues, twirling ahead of her,
She can see how it happened.
Like a Pilger expose, the inverted pyramid
that silenced her ambitions.
Who she was, when she was like this, over and again,
A seasonal problem? Always October to December.
Why she was the way she was and
what of that poisonous cock with a tail, and other shadows like him.
Those lost years, her toxic shock syndrome.
She is that woman who married in secret, in blue
And divorced in town, in red.
Without cowering, forgetting to eat or wishing to forget
She remembers it all.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Ellie Francis-Brophy

Madonna and Child

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Ed Wright

At the beach a young mother,
after a moment's absent-mindedness,
chases her young son up the line of wet sand
where the bluebottles are drying to harmlessness.

When she reaches him
paddling on the edge of death without concern
she seizes him tight with fear-tangled love.

He is secretly happy for the attention
Yet sullen at her interference in his unknown plans
and stamps his pudgy feet.
Her tyrannical love has happened
a thousand times already
and he knows how to make it again –
just a few short steps, repeated, virtually anywhere.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Ed Wright

‘a shooting star’

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Ed Wright

a shooting star
a flashing sword
a nibbled ear
a young man in a torpedo at dawn
preparing to die
his letter to his parents written
he nibbles the memory one last time
of the soft skin behind his sweetheart's ears,
shivers at how she trembled under his tongue
when she gave herself
the night of their unknown marriage,
then hits the switch,
like a man who has fully lived,
rigid with impossible passion,
he shouts Banzai
holds her face dissolving
and shoots forward to meet his death.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Ed Wright

Wanton Boys

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Ed Wright

In the park on a sunny day while we're waiting
for my mother to get a word in edgeways with Mrs Jones
my brother and I are frying ants with a magnifying glass
And calling it scientific.

I am secretly pretending they are Mrs Collins' cats
because she hates me,I don't know why,
and I hate her for picking on me in class, but not the cats
Only it's the best way I can think of to make her cry.

Once I spent three hours on a beanbag just thinking,
I timed it, no TV or nothing, but my family never leaves me alone.
My mother's always shouting, Edmund, clean your room.
But she doesn't live in it, so why.

I've got a crush
on my friend's sister who sits in her living room
pretending to be a mushroom, because in my house
imagination has pretty much been banned,

but let's get back to the ants.
something about this is making me vaguely uneasy,
Yet the thrill of the science and the sizzle,
my hand on the throttle of destiny, is very clear indeed.

When I grow up, I want to be God or close to him
but I'm keeping it a secret.
Since my brother still wants to be an astronaut
And if he keeps beating me at monopoly,
When we both know he is cheating
I'll be sending an asteroid to blow him up.

Sometimes, being the younger one sucks.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Ed Wright

Caracol (Snail)

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Dianne Cikusa

menacing Persons, left behind
the shadow
of their passive insensitivity

[crushed housing]

Regards, city-siders
we accept
your delirious ovation,
and neatly recite
leatherbound policy
on behalf of
those greased morsels
who never owned a voice
to publicise the anguish
of patented choice; glazed
will and self-raising skin

domestic squeals
permeated by human erotica

[de-beaked] performance
making quiet outcry-
splitting hairs
in barbed cages,
but ne'er on heartless heads

God gave them half
a chance to speak,
until world
made them swallow
such lethal doses
of cosmetic flaws;
spirits,
drowning in accessories

lined stomachs
are spilling dignity;

I know you're green:
it's those
vegetables
went down the wrong way,
carnivorous lust in reflux

– I'm rambling
to protect my swollen testament

gather my thoughts,
before you squash them carelessly

So haven't we all
recoiled
from the covert stench
of superior dialogue, cut and
pasted in social gridlock

Though we meant not
to gauge a relished reaction,
merely to mirror
the deafening mannerisms
that were hushing up pink faces

[Too late] now that
rigor mortis
got us
tongue-tied
under the table, blissfully
Drinking a toast
to
pretty conversational pieces
that would never
disturb the ecology,
(assuming we all politely agreed)

Here's a good pinch

of snickering laxatives, yet
to be administered by watering-can

lucky lady sat on a
cat with sixty-nine lives

The humble bee,
he sits on his own sting
steaming weapons too easily
evaporating his focus;

And didn't you know-
by avoiding death,
you were graciously killing people.

Posted in 28: INNOCENCE | Tagged Dianne Cikusa

Issue Launches.Submissions Windows.

Issue Launches.
Submissions Windows.