Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Evangelia Pappadopoulos

It is hard and true my father smokes/drinks/works so hard and we’ve
seen his kidneys in the rich light of his bloody body seen his skin peeled
and pinned have said goodbye once have passed him the pills that keep
him together keeps him with us sweet white liquid mixed in milk I used
to splice his pornos so they’d get stuck in the video come home later than
me as confused about what is good what is high conduct appropriate
feminine masculine man father husband keeping the whore the virgin
separate I am Athena head-born to you don’t die dad don’t die you’ve not
seen what I can do this is the last minute the last choice chooses to
burn drown come Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean oci da katso na skaso laughs
he laughs at things still gets giddy and awed I am a different joy sober
contentment home family sits beside his wife watching sit com sit com
oddity sit still straight where I can see you old man old old bald sick
terminal man your grave is dug sit so we can measure and commiserate
wouldn’t hurt you to exercise If my dad could talk really really talk as
well as he taught his girl he’d say fuck that fuck you oci da katso na skaso
the heart will beat till he unplugs it with his own trembling hand
trembles with cold fear thin thin blood and laughter

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

Inclusiveness, Dunedin

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Philip Salom

for Ivan Klima

They tell you: all the seasons in a day

Mist overnight: in early morning like a silver lid.
To someone unused to it mist seems to pass
right through the body, by which I mean
the mind.
By night I’ll stand by the scenic
lookout and mist will climb up from the ground.
Now the air is shiny and soon clear,
across at the point the albatross are circling
and seals roll in the kelp like workers
at belts and pulleys under water, the shadows
shifting, evanescent machines.
The seals are free
and yet are not, the underwater holds them
anthropomorphised: I see and so does Klima
the charm we put there, the sensuous rolling
but the water closing over …
Samisdat is
unforgettable, his books were typed out one
by one and passed around. Passed on
in secret makes them intimate, the words
like shadows, on paper so thin under the finger
-tips they seem to enter you all that is
essential.
Klima wants to take
a photo but the seals have moved off
the rockface and the light is fading fast
into the mid-day rain. In ten more minutes
it is sleet.
Yes, what they say, is happening.
In the city I walk alone in sudden warmth
the streets are grey and piecemeal
the slopes as dull as England. Two men lean out
an upper level of an incomplete building
and hammer away at tin. It’s high, dangerous,
surreal above the shopfronts like a great box
of lollies wrapped in cellophane.
I am walking past
the church when the rain is sudden, heavy,
and I rush in, imagining the gloomy day-pews.
But an organist is hidden head-down in Bach’s
A Minor fugue, the earth is being thrown about.
And starts, stops, hesitates in practising what
Bach knew. The pipes are full, unstopped, the chords
shake me then go silent, the air like dry land,
all life gone. Then huge, again, unrushed, the
growling bass and the high keys like everyworld
at once.
If only Klima were here, but he is
speaking to another group remembering
the past, his country’s ‘counter revolution’
and passing hand to hand like touching echoes
his ironic first editions and soon
everyone asking what he’ll write about
now the communists have gone… and only
some will see how such presumption
angers him.
At the scenic lookout
the stillness moves right in. The bay is losing
brush-strokes, blue and green: Toss Woolaston/
loose and rough Cezanne. I stare at the swell,
wanting it to surge against me like the Bach.
But it fades. Everything is changing. The mist
climbs up from the valley, sealing off
the open ground. The night. The dark

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

audition

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Joanne Burns

cheap crisp and pocket size
recorded sounds of nature on
compact disc or tape mountain
stream waterfall river desert
snowfall rainforest swamp; birdcall
crocodile stallion snake and – the
eternal crystal spring: slip them
into your ears quicker than you can zip
up those jeans hey here’s a new one
tropical sunsets shit how must
a sunset sound the brochure’s
advertising krakatoa meets
mururoa love songs, with kakadu
mining melodies to be released in the fall;
meditational inspirational recreational
invocational soon sons of jimi hendrix
start recording acid rain through
one auditory canal and out the other ears
sprout coral cactus thin little needles
of pine the head’s awash
with sand and tumbleweed birds that
swim underneath reefs fish riding horses
through mountains crocodiles eating
snow

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

Jesus and the Sparrows

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Seamus Heaney

from the eighth century Irish

When Jesus, son of living God,
Was still a child, five years of age,
He played in twelve small water puddles
That he blessed and fenced around with clay.

And Jesus made twelve little bird-shapes –
The ones called passeres;
Out of the smooth clay he modelled
Twelve sparrows on a Sabbath day.

Then comes a Jew who cautions Jesus,
Son of the almighty God,
And takes him by the hand to Joseph,
To have him chide his foster child.

“Give your son a scolding, Joseph,
Caution him for his misdeeds.
On the Sabbath he has fashioned
Clay images of birds.”

Then Jesus claps his hands together.
They hear his child-voice give a shout.
Before their eyes the prince of graces
Scares a flock of sparrows up.

They hear him speak the clear small words.
The pure lips of Jesus move:
“So that you may know who made you
Fly home now. Away! Be off!”

A witness spread the news: a story
Everybody marvelled at.
They listened and could hear distinctly
The little cries of birds in flight.

Posted in 02: UNTHEMED | Tagged

The Harleys

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Les Murray

Blats booted to blatant
dubbin the avenue dire
with rubbings of Sveinn Forkbeard
leading a black squall of Harleys
with Moe Snow-Whitebeard and

Possum Brushbeard and their ladies
and, sphincter-lipped, gunning,
massed leather muscle on a run,
on a roll, Santas from Hell
like a whole shoal leaning

wide-wristed, their tautness stable
in fluency, fast streetscape dwindling,
all rifing astride, on the outside
of sleek grunt vehicles, woman-clung,
forty years on from Marlon.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

Train

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Kirsten Tranter

a thread
his olive suit shows a thread come loose, buttons sewn cheaply. his lapels curl
with a double-breasted edge. my gaze feels vicious. his grey suit sits flat
with a woollen look. her thin-soled shoes are crumpling towards the point. her
mascara hangs heavy, she could be sleeping. I begin to understand the huge
shelf of magazines at the station, the irritation of over the shoulder reading.

air
when I step on the carriage the air is thick with more than the usual smell of
dark tunnels. there is a coiling around the air. sit and wait for it to spring.
then it begins. she starts to sing, loudly with no joy. I have caught myself
humming to my walkman at times and suppressed my ticking fingers. but she
is singing, just call me angel of the morning. the stare of the passenger
continues from every face, a blank. the air stiffens with the noise of her
rough tone in the shake of the train.

the window
the water shows in a glimpse through rose bay’s greenery and then the
gallery’s elegance. I want to find domesticity in the close windows of the
nearby houses in this short passage through open air. the grey house is
promising. today the curtains are different. there is no seeing through the
freshly painted walls, a humming icy fridge, a white bed billowing with muslin,
a metal sculpture. someone stands, and writes, and goes to the fridge and
considers, and sits to face away from the rail line close to the window. back
into the tunnel with a rattle.

a short distance
water pours down the glass door at the end of the carriage. the small space
of light before the next dark enclosure shines with the wet colour of
rainbreak, and heavy green plants are climbing the tunnel’s shoulder. this is
a sight to contemplate but the rushing archway makes it a glimpse. through
and out again, the park is damp grass and a mist has covered all the taller
buildings. my ankles know the cold I will feel when I step out into it, the
street’s puddles shining in the hardened early light. the greyness stretches
across the close sky, no sight past the next block. the sky is a wide cloud of
fog as low as the ground in the short distance.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

And Out

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Lauren Williams

It’s like developing a photograph
in reverse
First the detail is sharp
then the chemicals begin
their deconstruction
Soon all that’s left of a person
are bits and pieces –
the blue of an iris,
the fierce dot of a pupil,
crooked, real teeth
in a hard, soft mouth,
the way the neck meets the shoulders,
a ring on an elegant hand…
The effort of holding these pieces
together becomes ludicrous
Time eats the image blank
till there’s just a sheet of paper
with an ache on it
and even that will go.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

Epithalamion

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Hugh Tolhurst

As the century snarls towards a full stop,
living together is frightening:
the young don’t marry because they’re scared.
I wouldn’t do it this late
but some kids still go the whole shebang,
a couple I love did it on New Year’s Day
in a clearing in the Dandenongs
as hungover as the worst of their guests,
so romantic they refused a gift,
requested a wedding poem, sweet fucking idiots.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

The Speaking Page

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Robert Adamson

When the tide moves again
comes up over
the point here
and spills
into Parsley Bay,
goes over
the river’s torn entrails –
your breath becomes
tidal
atmosphere,
it heals deeply
thoroughly
then you
begin to understand
that the river
is like a blank page
you enter it
differently: shape
it as you would
a new thought
first vaguely
with phrases
then sentences
until finally
its language
starts talking –
when the river
covers a bay
you know its weight
soothes
healing the savaged earth
and the tide
begins to make music
as it covers oysters
as it climbs
over the rocks
its song fills the valley:
a baroque
tinkling tune
its lyrics
in a language
easy to comprehend
of course
it’s imagination
weaving
the river-song, your mind’s
invention
is playing you
as the tide begins
to ebb
and you see smooth mud
cuts healing
and there is windsong
to dance now
with your voice.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

Ode to Sth Beach

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Mark Reid

The remains of the pier
stick in your miserly west coast wash.
The factory burns in corrugations
amidst the rabbity scrub, its cyclone
fencing rusts on the noxious perimeter.
I have strayed from the primary
colours of your playground,
from the preened lawns & pines.
I am walking the dog beach, old Manners
arse up/snout down on the trail
of some vermin or sea-creature long spent.
I am giddy with aroma, with brine,
with the stench of pickled things tossed
from the ocean’s passing window.
I am watching the low profile of Rottnest,
falling again for dusk over water,
the port’s orange bloom
mirrored at Rockingham.
I am mourning the Indian Ocean’s
tatty border, my lines snagging on the hem.
I am clinging to my sense of you
& your fishermen who
hang in there.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

Still Life Suite

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Susan Bower

1. Magician

She is marked as magician:
sticks, flame, shadow and rope.
She is restless, there is talk of prostitution
behind the floured hands of the kitchens
the manicured administrations.

There is the tilted town,
lives operating in a
perpetual potato winter
faces still sharp around the kitchen table,
only now with a digital accuracy.

The photocopier, the phone, the chair
just so.


2. Butcher

The butcher is perfect in the window
her head bent to the task
her hands blurred
over solid machines.
Linearity imposed
on squat meats,
baroque with a marbled complexity.

Everyday her immaculate apron
a canvas of hunger.
She has lost a finger
and expects more than this,
as her TV glows
with a tubular procession
explosions, diamonds, and a meaningful glance.
Her head bends to the task
her hands moving in her lap.


3. Wormer

Her hands are the only tool she has,
they are full of the type of debris
embedded in the mangroves:
broken bottle, jagged cans
and condoms.

All around her there are plants
breathing. On a quiet day
she can hear them.
As they cast bars of shadow across
her back she bends,
worming.
Mangroves mock her in their successful living:
Reproducing, transpiring, synthesizing
and succulent,
while she is as dry and transparent as
the stocking in her hand.

She is seen on the shores,
estuarine creatures moving about her.
They are strung up in her hut
both talisman and food.
She is tolerated there
for one day
she too shall become prey


4. Gardener

The flowers, the plants
are there as expected
complex
she remembers
in cross section
under the microscope all those years
ago at school.
Their construction
an orchestra of desire
cornets of moist petals
great swabs of pollen.

With her pencils and calipers,
how could she have known
that the house would come,
a deceptively simple family
living on inside.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

Me, Myself, No Other

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Philip Hammial

It’s me, myself, no other who’s lying
on this filthy mattress in this hospital
corridor, cloudsick, humiliated
by their procedures, by the samples
that they’ve taken.
&, yes,
it’s me, myself, no other who has
but one intention: to make it perfectly clear
that my most ardent wish is to leave as I came –
on my hands and knees, crawling.
&, yes,
it’s yours truly, this humble petitioner
that you see before you who will crawl,
naked, to each in turn, to each
of the mothers, to submit
to their wrath.
& myself, no
other who will present you, made
with my own hands, of my hair, of dirt
from under my nails, an effigy of myself
to do with as you will.
& myself, no
other, who’s stripped to the waist
in this dim hole, who for twelve hours each night
shovels coal into a boiler – steam
for an engine that must be, can only be
an engine of war
&, yes, it’s
me, no other, who, entering a room
that I thought was empty, finds it full
of steamer trunks & in each, as I lift
its lid, the evidence of a failed migration –
a blue snake, hibernating, oblivious
to the intoxication of my flute.
& me,
alone, hugging myself, who’s crooning
a lullaby as the ox is dismissed, as it sinks
into mist – the ox painted blue
that brought me here cradled
in its horns.
& myself, no
other who, coming amongst strangers,
can understand their language as if
it was my own, their discourse
of dead horses, of empire, of excrement
& tedium.
& myself, yours
truly, no other, who, at the end
of a long journey, was given a tent
in this camp of cowards, who tonight
around a fire as we warm ourselves, in
gratitude, in terror, will place on the lips
of each of my comrades a kiss
of betrayal.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

Chapman River

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Anthony Lawrence

At dusk, on a narrow path by the Chapman River, trying to locate myself,
I peel the skin from a honey-locust thorn, and watch black ants
move along a branch. The ants have made a dark stain on the bark
from countless single-file journeyings. When I cut a line through them
with the thorn, they back up, spreading into each other like grey water.
Kneeling in mud beside the river, counting the three-forked
prints of waterbirds, a sandfly with vertical stripes on its abdomen
lands on my arm. I imagine a pair of herons high-stepping
through a cloud of midges to investigate a soft splash near a willow snag.
I see a sand fly bloating itself on my blood, and stab myself
absent-mindedly with the thorn. Concentrating on the sting
its poison makes, I watch the ants until it’s too dark to see
their feelers waving, place my ear above the bark, and listen to them
collide, pause, move on. I locate myself. I give myself names:
waterbird, black ant, footprint, peeled thorn.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged

The Ghost in the Bar

Posted on July 1, 1997 by Dorothy Hewett

I remember how you used to sit
in the bleak light nursing a beer
in that pub off Oxford St
with the barflies lined up behind you.

You would sit there all afternoon
and into the twilight
sometimes telling a story
or showing off your extra knowledge
just enough to put a demarcation line
between you and the others
they tolerated you but they knew
you were taking the mickey

sometimes I’d ring and you’d come to the phone
with your drunken chatter
your soft drawl of words
I wondered how long you would stay there
before your body gave out
and they came in their white coats
carrying a stretcher
St Vinnies was just down the road

still there was a happy ending of sorts
you moved away and gave up the grog
but what did you leave behind?

Only a ghost pinned in a shaft of light
sitting in that bar off Oxford St
talking to itself
in a sibilant knowing whisper.

Posted in 02: UNTHEMED | Tagged

The Norm

Posted on January 1, 1997 by John Mateer

But when I saw her
‘my first fuck’
in the supermarket both
of us doing our weekly chore
the place polished by fluoro-green
was not so much a
maze as a gallery
of itemized lust. Here’s
a black pen, draw barcodes on
my forehead, Quickly, She’s
passing … I’d had visions:
maternal heritage strobed
from her fleshy face that night
her loosened bra revealed indifferent
if glowing lunar skin. My heart
was singing like dawnbirds in
established suburbs.
She took my virginity into
her with a tough kitchenhand’s grip,
gnawed me with muscle.
I her one-nighter after a band and
too much beer. She my longing
randomized. The one guarantee
here in this supermarket
in this exchangeable city is
the face’s inevitable
sighting me then turning
the daze normal.

Posted in 01: UNTHEMED | Tagged