Sonny Rollins

roll on heavy roller
roll on slowly. on
roll by. i have this
knowledge. how
the pitch will play.
i know it exactly.
with my knowledge
i know the blade of
my bat knows it
how insignificant
the rolling is. is it is
known. all
variations. pitch
variations oval the
other variations to
doing with the pitch
all known. as some
jazz guy sonny
rollins i think it was
known. some guy
knows it some jazz
sonny a knows and
it. i know my bat it
grass over grass
blades imparting
all force imparting
timing. all blades
imparting it. and it
i know timing too
is dispersed the
whole field is mar
to imparting
timing to the ball
marto to the fence
all the pitch will
play. the ball to
fence rolling. like
some rolling jazz
guy sonny i think
it was known. it
was so i believe
it to be so. it was
marto be a slow
cool boundary

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Nick Whittock: Watching the Grass Grow

When it is cricket that is the matter, all forces return to the ball at the limits of the universe. The grass is still growing. It is photosynthesising, there is a flow of moisture involved here among other things (sunlight, carbon dioxide…). All of this, operating within a cricket match, can only be of concern in terms of the way it breaks up the flow of the ball and contributes to the continued production of this flow …

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Posted in FEATURES | Tagged , ,

Michael Farrell: Bat & Ball

can take anything into your vision time
  to kneel but who are you an editor
  is opposite with books & ok ideas you
   are only responsible for the images though
   what if you stood there something being
   thrown at you look arund & run
     are you thinking of what you are at this point are
     you letting things slide into your mind to rub or analyse
     later luckily theres no talking involved the pitch remains fast hard
    the games there on the other side of
    the screen make a sign so someone will
    know hit flat it works every time supposing
      you want that & dont want to mooch
      get out sustains a leg injury for reasons
      obscure there are numbers out there they
     want to be in here with the memories
     & anxieties mutated from your first play ever
     was that the word catch or is it
  raining with so much green around maybe
youre in the sea a dog runs to you
 warning you of the body in the clubhouse
you are dreaming yourself & your dad his shirt
 marked with red hes
  exposed his heart or is wounded a tennis
ball lies between the dogs paws
                                  rescued from some lonely lawn just
     grip it in your hands sometimes youve
     got to hurt to heal a lot
     can be said & written down when
    a little stretchings employed or an analogys
brought in at god knows what cost

                 you find yourself immersed in the classics only
to be told not to repeat history not
    even your own any subjects only seemingly
clean & kills like a temple knock or
   interrupted leads to a series of breakings off
because the body or the thought
   is uncommitted or taught to believing in
the fallback position perhaps knowing
               its existence is enough to hold us whether
we won the match or not wiping sweat
      off to come is to be single to be
      part of the test the span the spinoff &
      you walk back to the pavilion in a state

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Michael Farrell: there thereabouts

away putting it into the breeze hed be happy leaves
a away then chops it back picked up leaves back
not a big job a fine edge not really back beautiful
length not really forward mcgraths beautiful the
back length in the end extra pace on the a
drive back foot the batsman has to play a reality
rum drive by butcher confusing kfc & reality taking
the rum punches crystal clear water taking quite
full the opportunity saving the match quite his
right full lbw again well bowled shuffle his him
excellent right foot out of the road through him mind
hardly excellent rhythm fortunate tough one mind the
accuracy hardly varied out of the cordon with the tea
away accuracy the bowler has the advantage tea leaves

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Sultan of Swat

Why don't you read the papers?
It's all right there in the papers.
– Babe Ruth

 

Waking, wiping a cheese crust
of sleep from his eye, he
reaches for his pills.
Reading the label on the bottle:
it seems to say:
don't try too hard just
let it carry you” –
like- a river, he finishes,
the sentence and his pills.

It's prescribed like this
because mythology inadvertently
gets mixed up in the games
of chinese whispers
we play with our history.

Drunk on fairy floss and beer
the story they're telling in
Sideshow Alley is that Don Bradman,
fulfilling a promise to a
terminally ill child,
points straight back over
            Larwood's head at a spot
somewhere in centre field.
Winding up Larwood
gives it everything he's got,
to the screaming ecstasy and
spilt beer of the Chicago fans,
but even as the ball leaves his hand
Bradman's eyes are fixed upon it and,
with a flick of his wrist,
he sends it soaring out of
Wrigley Field.

Larwood, sticky with humiliation,
imagines a ball rocketing into
the soft-flesh of the batsman's
helmetless head as he walks
back to his mark.

Bradman, luxuriating in the profanities
and abuse he has evoked
watches an angry fan hurl a cup
of beer onto left field and spits
nonchalantly
just missing the fielder at short leg.

Larwood turns and Bradman, like
a brave Achaean points back
prophetically to the same spot.
The bowler runs in like a roidrage
bull charging through the streets
of Pamplona and digs it in short,
a spear jagging up sharply,
but our Achilles has wiser eyes than this
stepping backward and away,
hooking awesomely
the ball
seems to climb
to the sun.

The news story is packaged thus:
The footage of the shot
from a variety of angles,
an interview with humble Bradman,
fans saying how he's the greatest
the world has ever seen and
then the fadeout:
the small child smiling from
his hospital bed,
this miracle breaks hearts
for joy at dinner tables
nationwide.

A kid finds one of the balls out in the street.
He hides it away in a box,
and forgets about it for years
until one day, for no reason
     that he can name,
  he starts to take it out at nights
and let its elegant stitching
   take him back to the cutgrass
    summer twilight,
the purity of those
      last minutes before dark.

It is a fact:
    The Bambino grows in deed and
    stature with every passing year.

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Seoul Survivor

my saison en enfer & the get rich schemes
evaporate like colonial best intentions
or foraging all over town for Vegemite.

the prospectus of delight was a myth
similar in scope to the lone gunman theory
or the story of a bunyip nicking cattle.

& if I have faith I feel like
Mark Waugh always coming through
when the pressure seems insurmountable.

grace and poise become symbols of an
antiquarian finery like frilly cuffs
& ornamental pistols in a land

where clubbing in shorts is de rigeur if not essential.
you go on your nerve because you never
learnt any better, or anything else.

and anyway things make more sense that way,
the twelve-hour snooze after the three
day binge or saving imported cigarettes

for just the right occasion. take offs are overrated,
it's the landing where the problems occur.

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Set Free

Beside water
I find a space, read again your letter.
A pregnant wattle leans over my shoulder.

We understand
that even light is captured.

Beside water
bishops decide to quit.
A teenager buries a knife in the coarse riverbed sand.

We go
& are blessed (in our ways)
irregardless of choice, pretension or wound.
Birds call out, but not to us.

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Give It a Try

Where's the railway station, mate?
It's just around the corner wrapped
in the escarpment's arms
like a winning hand of poker.

We trudge together, stick & pack/
intersection at the end of his rage, my wander.

He's 42, the second great love
27 & out today with another guy.
Ex-wife plus kids
job & age.
Sediment          On the train
we're smothering miles,
discuss the whispered edge of being men.

The guy's intense, but gentle –
teased to the edge of atrocity.
I am convincing. He edges back
from the sovereignty of fists.

His career is a toxin, infecting each minute
with its hunger, chafe & worship.

Perhaps she's saying
“Give me space”.
Maybe her telling you beforehand was important.

(just as likely
you've stuffed it, more calluses to dress
a once open flesh….
                      but why say that on a sun-salved day?).

I peel some dead skin from a cuticle
put it on my tongue. No other communion required
as the woman in levis across the aisle
repeatedly thwacks her ticket against a thigh.

At Sutherland we shake hands –
I offer luck, some peace.
Count 10 before you step inside, mate.

His smile is built, its polish hard work.
But the weather is waiting
& it whispers rust.

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Hot Sunday hot oven
and linoleum kitchen,
red wine breath
and crumb brushed shirt front.
She is absent in easy listening land,
humming to static
as the kids play outside.

Front door slams on his heavy tread,
and her hands make fists
in the bowl full of stuffing –
parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
that she shoves up the arse
of the carcass in front of her.

Get stuffed, he says
as he comes up behind her,
guffaws awful hands round her waist.

It shits and it flaps and it runs round the yard,
but he's never realised
that this tired old joke
lost its head on the block
many years ago.

Thud
and a crunching of vertebrae.
In her mind
she sees bright blood
pumping.

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Cassie Lewis Reviews Ted Nielsen

Search Engine by Ted Nielsen
Five Islands Press, 1999

The Australia that unfurled from the 1980s onwards is ever-present in Ted Nielsen's poems. However, this is not a poetry of sentimentalism – shared icons act like familiar furniture in a strange room. New technology, with the possible futures it breeds, breathes through this book. Additionally, the author carries his leftist politics into the current conservative landscape – testing them, honing them.

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Posted in BOOK REVIEWS | Tagged ,

Soul vs Body

A soul hung, up as 'twere, in chains
Of nerves and arteries and veins …
– Andrew Marvell

Bout after bout I fight my body
over who will rule us, me or
her, and round after round sees
me thrown down, knocked out.

Physically she has the upper
fist, the flesh and blood that
gets bums on seats, while my
defence is simply the idea.

She is the temple and I am
the tenant, held like a hermit
in a strange arrangement with
the world, against my will.

Yes, I am the snail and she is
the shell and she is for sale
for giving me hell every time
she has climbed on my back.

As the audience taunts and the
bell goes again, I see certain
stars yet staunchly believe
that spiritually I cannot lose.

Life after life I fight my body
over who is the purer, me or
her and death after death we
return to the same new debate.

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Following the Game

lime cordial summers
the telly murmured three day tests
in the only room with a fan
we would end up there, collapsed
in cut-off jeans
stupefied
with the white lethargy of school holidays
we lay looselimbed and aching with the wait
Colombo's sunshine looked like chrome
the players moved sluggish
in the tropical heat
roused themselves again
and again to run
sweat
trickled down our adolescent cleavage
as we watched, sucking icecubes
the fan's face a mechanical, slow motion negation
the ball clocked gently
so much molten time
that rhythmic, momentary taste
of moving air
we wanted the burning vinyl of benchseats
boys who smelled of petrol
a cool change, quickening pulses
wanted a roar. wickets flying, limbs
taut with anticipation
total fire ban, day after day
the hot concrete
stretched like a glaring empty pitch to the Hill's Hoist
those storm clouds massed
waiting for release
the supporters' slow clap
building, poised:
thunder
a drum roll
elsewhere

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

toen | tone

look at
how still you are
with
afternoon standing
inside your legs

A#

are you fishing
or playing golf

does your toddler
remember when you were
a teenager

E#

in the distance
trucks drive past
full of cows

G#

your hand in your hair
staring
in the shores
of a storm

F#

water
over thoughts
land in
nothingness

C#

what gift
does the nothingness
offer

look at how still you are

Posted in 12: TEST MATCH | Tagged

Richard King Reviews Papertiger #02

Papertiger #02
Paul Hardacre & Brett Dionysius (eds)
Papertiger Media (2002)

A poetry journal on CDROM is apt to raise some absorbing questions about the nature and status of poetry, and in this respect the second issue of papertiger: new world poetry doesn't disappoint.

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Adam Ford Reviews Dog Lovers’ Poems

Dog Lovers’ Poems, Jeff Kennett (ed)
‘Information Australia’, 2000

This collection features over a hundred pages of poetic platitudes about dogs and their loyalty, their friendship, the cute things and the cheeky things they get up to. The anthology was compiled by ex-Premier of Victoria Jeff Kennett, who put out a call for submissions while he was working at Melbourne talkback radio station 3AW.

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Q&A with Simon Katich

Somewhere amongst Simon Katich's pads and boxes there's a long poem that the top NSW bat and vice-captain wrote on the 2001 Ashes Tour of England. But the poem's contents, like the ancient mariner's albatross, remain a mystery.

“It can't be repeated – Some of the stuff is probably best kept to what the boys heard – But I think Steve Waugh reproduced a little bit in one of his tour diaries.”

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Posted in GUNCOTTON | Tagged , , ,

David Prater Interviews Nick Whittock

Melbourne poet and raconteur Nick Whittock recently took time out from writing his inimitable cricket poems in order to face 12 questions sent down the wires by friend and fellow cricket tragic, Sam Kidman.

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Posted in INTERVIEWS | Tagged ,

Christine Davey: Old Men Forget

Flashback to December, 1984. The cricket is in majestic swing. It's the time of year when pop songs are blown off the dial by commentary disputes involving field placings, team selections and bowling changes. It's that early-summer-zone, when the sound of leather on willow is synonymous with all that is beautiful on a beautiful day. It's 1984 and we're at the M.C.G. The all-conquering West Indies are playing Australia in a Test match. For those who don't like cricket, here's a tip; we've come to the signpost in the universe when we know for certain that Henry V was referring to us:

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers …

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Paul Mitchell: The War On Cricket

A picture of a set of cricket stumps painted on a wall (by Michael Farrell)It's now becoming obvious why the Bush administration for most of 2002 delayed military action against Iraq. The President's cricket-loving friend, John Howard, convinced him to hold off so that the Australian cricket team could provide a crucial military blue-print, crushing an undermanned and injured opposition.

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Posted in FEATURES | Tagged , , ,

Pe

i wanna be robbie williams
i so almost am i wa
nna fold in dimensions hit
herto unheard of i wanna
be a cephalopoid superb c
reature with a thick thick sp
ine a bone that interrupts ca
uses blockages to launch
sheer speed substitute it for
flexibility and calls for com
munication michael bevan
has the ability to transmit
his body across old trafford
without being seen chinese
warrior i would like to fly in t
he face of finitude barely
scraping at the rooftops
expansive view of a
fragment of a second and
feel the tension in my
spikes that clark must
feel es tut mir leid s
                steve w
on a pilgrimage to gandara
with his bat tucked behind
his ear it makes me sad he
has to be superman and its
no longer ideal i want to le
arn to bowl legspin and fold the air

Posted in 11: COPYLEFT | Tagged

Hayden & Langer: Open Slat(h)er

the air is pretty
a bitten tune
scathed by the savant
with his big nails
a willow blade flashing
like an idiot the thing
has slowed now to
cremation pace single
handedly he wins the ashes
pashes the badge
we are not yet ready for his
silence castles are erected love blossoms 7
hours celebrating in the players rooms
long after the beer has washed the blood from
our teeth and the air
from the victory song

Posted in 11: COPYLEFT | Tagged

Note to the Editor

This poem is from a much briefer series
on the life of the man who invented dirigibles
whose name is French, or Hungarian
I think. Dietrich Katona?

Please capitalize all the second and eighth letters
in this section. Note that
I am using a special font here – Strontium Victorian –
and you must make certain to keep the size at 7.2
and also capitalize all the names of fish,
except if freshwater.

You might be specially interested
in the following 1,368 rondelles
of which I am including a generous selection

The sequence on the invention of dice has been suppressed pending an investigation.

***

All the place names in the Confession Poems should be deleted,
to be replaced with Xs and long dashes.

Please fact check my biography.

Wyoming is spelled “Wyoming”.

“Hypo-allergenic” has a dash.

You might be intrigued to note that I am the winner of the following international poetry competitions and prizes:

1. THE WALDO VINCENT MEMORIAL HAIKU CONTEST;
2. MS. EUNICE HALIBURTON CHAPBOOK PRIZE FOR BEST FOURTH CHAPBOOK;
3. THE UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIAS INTERNATIONAL SONNET CONTEST;
4. UNESCO PRIZE FOR BEST VEGETABLE POEM;
5. JAKES AUTOBODY BIANNUAL FIRST BOOK AWARD;
6. DR. AND MRS. RADNOTIS ONE AND ONLY TOP POEM CHOICE;
7. DATGEISTS BEST, 1970.

The following poems have appeared
in NO POSSIBLE WAY; NEW AND FAIRLY RECENT LINES;
GODSQUAWK; ERGOMATIC; SUNSHINE STATE MARGINALIA;
CORPUS GUSSY; THE TROUBADOUR LIVES!; SKELETAL AFFLATUS;
BONGO CONGO MONGO; DELIRIUM TREMENDOUS; DATGEIST;
MR. FRIENDLY; MY NAME IS PETE AND I AM BI; ONLY TWICE;
LAST PETROL STATION FOR A HUNDRED MILES; ZOOMER.

(titles capitalized because I think it looks good).

You are welcome to choose any of the poems
but I would strongly suggest you choose the following:
i am not in favor of capital punishment; burning dolls, watering cans;
elegy for a dead amnesiac; seven ways of adjusting a corset;
the years following 1798, especially 1816, 1909 and 1972;
gadzooks! Why I Smoke Such Good Cigars and NO WOMEN CAN DO
THE DANCE LIKE A MAN ENTRANCED (please note the caps).

My name should be spelled in full, including all titles.
My photo is not included, but is available upon request
from the Department of Justice.

Thank you for your interest in my work, which
means a lot to me and my seven brothers,
who live near you, and are karate experts.
Dont be shy to tell me what you think.
Praise Jesus!

And thank you once again. This is the only anthology
I have been asked to submit to.
Submit is such a funny word, isnt it?

I hope the poems on the death of tubercular infants
do not offend you. My sisters had this disease
and it is based on actual experience “recollected
in solitude” but you know how it goes.
Okay, I may have made some of it up.
But the pus on the collar is actually true.
I saw that.

I think the name may be Dieter Kazner.
Ill get back to you on that.

By the way, did you have a chance to check my poetry
web site: www.allfatgirlsconstantly.com?
It is not a sex site, dont worry. He he.

I am very interested in the photographs of your wife
on you site. Is she really that size?

Thank you again and send me a reply in six to seven hours
so I can tell the people I live with all about it.
I hope I wont have to put my disappointment hat
on today.

Yours, cheers, all the best, thank you, felicitations, signing off for now, have a good week-end, and much appreciated,

Des Katboy
 
PS This is a nom de plume. My real name is different. It is Desmond Kattman Jr., but what do you think of Katboy? It makes me think of cats. It gets lots of “lovely ladies” interested at open mics.

Posted in 11: COPYLEFT | Tagged

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

All a man needs, all a man ever really gets,
is one chance: the one good clean shot
at the royal cunt between the eyes, the spot

that can take a mind off getting in your way
and make an opponent an afterthought
on the road to sweet acquisition, power

you don't even think of stopping. Minutes
from the border between Big Government
and The Get Away, the car handles well,

the box of shells jumping about like corn
popping on the bucket seat. Reaching over,
I feel my choice weapon, a Derringer.

I could go into details, but you're a faggot
and wouldnt appreciate the design's sincerity.
The history behind this piece of craftsmanship,

one of America's true glories, reads like a Who's
Who of what's extinct, from Buffalo to LA.
By the time you read this, I'll either be shit

for worms, or getting a BJ from a Mex skank,
fingering her pucker, sucking on a Corona,
fully enjoying my ill-gotten bank anti-deposit.

Escape has that nice divergence to it, pure
as poetry: you either do or you don't, are Major
or Minor, or a flower that bloomed unthanked,

odds I'll throw for any day. Risk is the trade,
where all the best deals are actually made. Consider,
I could still be a security guard right this instant,

jut as surely as you sit there and eyeball words,
like any armchair lifer who never plays big time.
Fuck information highways and virtual reality,

all that CNN-Time hype that lulls us to desks.
I am not virtual or informative to anyone
right now, here at this gateway where life is good.

I'm happening, honey, like a rape or flood,
with my own inner mythology. I rise and take on
the fluidity and force of a wild god, what goes

with me goes, and what remains is golden gravy
for the little guy who got gigantic with big plans.
Wild Turkey beads my lips like spunk juice,

Marlboro's cancer agents rush down my throat,
as I snake Virginia smoke from movie-star nostrils.
Catch me before I cool: a celebrity in the forming,

like something a satellite might see lights billions
from here, a nebula bursting like a crab from a shell:
Edward Huntly Dade's the name, to be exact. Never

forget, just because I grew up in a trailer, doesn't mean
I think ketchup is a food group; I'm smart, is all.
I can see them up ahead, the vehicles tight like wagons

circled against a Navaho wave, the daylight of their beams
red in the dust and sun, igniting the tips of their carbines.
I'm in range. Not much left to say or do, but just the same,

it gut-catches, the national anthem before the World Series.
I'm not alarmed. I've got three great things going for me,
each one my Daddy's bequest: alcohol, tobacco and firearms.

Posted in 11: COPYLEFT | Tagged

AJ Weberman & the Trashcan

in 1971
on MacDougal Street
New York
a 25 year old
          unkempt with wispy hair
shouted out the front
of Bob Dylan's house:

FREE BOB DYLAN!

members of a group called DLF
          (Dylan Liberation Front)
were upset that Bob
was too apathetic & rich.
they were amazed
that he had furniture
electric lamps & a bed
for sleep. (not just to write protest
songs on).

according to a friend of Dylan
AJ Weberman was
the kind of person
“if you saw on a subway you would
change seats”
he went through Dylan's rubbish & was
known to be the first garbologist
in pop history.

Dylan chased him &
punched him in the face &
          said
“what can you tell about me
from leftovers?”

i want AJ Weberman to come
& study my bins
he'd find soy cartons, too much pasta & a quotation

from the lips of Christopher Walken on TV
“i got a fever & the only prescription is
cowbells.
more cowbells.”
weird but trashy.

Posted in 11: COPYLEFT | Tagged