Thoughts on the recent international student caps?

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Suri Matondkar

r/AskAnAustralian • 17 hr. ago
flyguy_25

Thoughts on the recent international student caps?

it hasn’t come quickly enough/imo we’re overrun/can’t set foot in a cityside rental without getting outnumbered by their lot/had seventy of them at the last place/indian by the sounds/*smells* you mean/ha-ha/throw them out! next question!/are we being a bit hasty about this stuff/friends working in unis say massive layoffs aren’t far/oh propaganda and fearmongering that’s all/yeah unis know they’ve messed up/they’re just trying to save their golden goose from slaughter/their fault for handing out degrees like chupa chups/these kids are all scammers gagging for residency/personally don’t have anything against them but they need to stop trying to stay after/same I’m not against them coming but students are meant to stay students not try to become citizens/we’re already full!!/that’s exactly right/amen say it louder so they can hear/say it slower because they barely understand words/it’s annoying that’s what/don’t they have to take some sort of language test before they get here though/they scam it like they scam everything else for sure/I spek eengleesh vary vell sir/cue head nods/aggressive head nods are the worst/their like bad knock knock jokes/they can just stay in their third world countries and learn on zoom if they want it that much/another reason to go back to the 60s I suppose/bet they never had to deal with this stuff back then/the good ole days when you could buy a house and land for a goat and three eggs/the good ole days when you might get an infection and die in a week/I mean I think the 60s weren’t that bad/unless you were anything except a rich white man I guess/yep the 60s a time of great land prices and some miscellaneous societal and health concerns/but no international students/!!!!NO INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS!!!!/my grandpa didn’t live through the crap he did for us to suffer now/get a shitty little overpriced rental or wait weeks for a consult/grandad probably didn’t go to a doc those guys were a different breed of tough/true he always said you needed a stomach of steel to leave your home country and make a life in a new one/I have so much admiration for my grandparents who also came here way back when/mine too/mine too/mine too/mine as well/can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for them.
Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

The Unfinished Endnotes of Forgotten Rituals Compiled in Transit by Those Who Left

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Tess Ezzy

[1] Thumbprint in Dough as Homeland. Recorded on the back of a shipping manifest. The recipe lost. The gesture remains. Each loaf shaped like a prayer that never quite rose.

[2] Red Thread, East Window. Found knotted around an immigration form. The thread snapped in customs. No one could explain its use. Still, someone packed it.

[3] On Whistling After Dark. This law was never written. It travelled in blood. It was broken in the new country where everything was louder and ghosts came anyway.

[4] The Ritual of Folding Clothes for the Suitcase. Author: all our mothers. Only rule: leave some behind. Regret will be waiting on the other side.

[5] The Proper Care of Basil When the Soil Has Changed. Original climate no longer applicable. Still watered as if the sun remembered.

[6] A Knife Not Meant for Cutting. Declared at the airport. Confiscated. It was not sharp, only sacred. The officer did not understand the difference.

[7] Lullabies With No Translation. Sounded strange in strange rooms. Children forgot the words first. Mothers hummed under their breath, pretending not to notice.

[8] The Covering of Mirrors Before Departure. Done without knowing why. Cloth placed gently. A custom folded into muscle. The reflection was too much to carry.

[9] Why We Do Not Speak Certain Names in the New Country. Not out of shame. But out of reverence. But out of protection. But out of something the language couldn’t hold.

[10] Cloves Sewn into Hemlines. A girl stitched them into her school uniform. They were called strange. She wore them anyway.

[11] The Forgotten Saints of Border Crossings. No icons. No feast days. Just the women who walked alone and didn’t lose the thread.

[12] Say It Softly or Not At All. A catalogue of blessings for things left behind: olive oil, soft bread, the key under the mat. An entire village of longing folded into a goodbye.

[13] Last Entry. A woman, at the sink, washing fruit she doesn’t recognise.
She places it in a bowl from the old place.
She says nothing.
The water carries the rest.

Note –
This archive is incomplete.
Some entries were buried with the speakers.
Some were rewritten in the language of forgetting.
Some arrived too early. Some too late.
Still,
they come.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

When My Father Built a Fence, He Said It Would Keep the Bears Out, But I Knew It Wouldn’t

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Rowan Tate

Bitterroot. Minor apocalypse. Because I am the keeper of the rainwater,
I scatter it over the wild garlic like a sermon. There must be a river
for everything to return to.

Who will speak today? Who will answer?
Every woman has a day when she stops feeding the birds
and starts breaking mirrors.

My mother said her prayers like petals falling off roses
but God was tired of getting flowers. She left the basement
tiled with canning jars,

peach halves suspended like lungs, dust a soft skin
on every lid. I keep the voicemail saved. Play it
when the house is too quiet.

Do the dark shapes in the forest know you’re afraid of them?
The best gods let you believe the rain can be convinced
to fall upward.

The kitchen clock is wrong again, or maybe right
for a different life. Grief grows fingers, learns to braid
the hair of daughters.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

blessed fruit

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Lisa Nan Joo

i see a photo of a pumpkin that looks like Jesus
a carrot resembling an astronaut
a bifurcated turnip that could win
a lovely legs competition

on wish dot com there is a plastic mould
that shapes pears into Buddhas
so i buy one for all my close friends
and we have a party to consume
our enlightened fruits

on the radio there is a famous psychic
who says Amelia Earheart isn’t dead
she is living in a cloud-world
populated by ancient deities
the really fertile ones
which is why the sky
seems so hormonal all the time
flushing, leaking, all that zing!

you can call on 1-800-AVIATE
and get a free zodiac chart
written by Amelia
which seems plausible
because surely, up in the clouds
she has a more cosmological outlook
than almost anyone else i can think of
guided by the clairvoyance
of loved-up godheads

i call at once
to find out what the stars hold for me
but the line is busy
and then goes dead
my future
disconnected

my father has an inflamed gallbladder
in anatomical drawings
it resembles a ripening fig
he asks the doctors to save it
from medical waste
and displays it in his garage
afloat in pink preservative
overseeing his retirement hobbies:
repairing home appliances
riding the peloton
writing a natural history of compost
basking in the glow of
his own vestigial flesh

finally i get through to Amelia
i want to know how
long my father will live
if he will lose more critical organs
a lobe of lung
a kernel of pancreas
and whether i should look for
the shape of meaning in them
symbols or icons
major or minor miracles
the face of god that appears
sometimes in damp walls
tree trunks
and toast

she tells me that all organic matter
is a constellation
an enzyme can be an effigy
your heredity a hagiography
the world is mostly flesh
of one kind or another
with enough ambiguity in between
to make a miraculous
mess

Amelia says she’ll mail me
an astrological chart
a tea cleanse
and a reiki doll
to soothe my existential woe

the line goes dead
and all i hear
is the signal tone
myself
munching down on
my reborn pear
wondering if my beatific colon
counts for
or against
on my scorecard
of piety

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

how to be an immigrant without leaving

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Sreeja Naskar

i changed my name at school and kept my mother’s in my pocket.
— it bled through the lining
(it always does)
her vowels too round for their roll call

i swallowed her accent to fit into my own throat
but some days it still
clings to my gums

/ and tastes like apology

i wrote HOME in my math notebook
with a pencil i stole

and erased it so hard the page gave in

(how else do you learn belonging?)
except by losing?

the teacher said my name wrong
for three years straight
and i never corrected her

(i wanted to be liked more than i wanted to exist)

i learned to laugh where they laughed
(even when it hurt)
i became fluent in not-looking-back

the kids asked me where i’m from
and i said
here.
(but they looked at my hands like liars)

i learned silence is
easier than explanation
but some days it still chews through my teeth

my grandfather never left his village
and still
they called us foreign

i told them my skin is not a translation

(they laughed)

the flag on the classroom wall
always looked like a dare

// i stopped standing

i wear my mother’s name
inside my hoodie sleeve
(where i can press it when no one’s watching)
she calls me in her tongue
and i answer like a ghost

this is how to leave:
with your shoes still on
with your passport untouched
with your story mispronounced

this is how to stay:
quiet
and almost
and in pieces

i immigrate every time
i speak
and don’t explain

i still dream in a language
i never learned to write
i still say thank you like i’m asking
to be allowed

one day
i’ll say my name
and it won’t flinch.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

Daydream An Index

Posted on August 12, 2025 by S K Kelen

Recall a distant past life a victorious lion
Restless, trying to remember the mislaid
Suddenly remembered the word, insomniac,
A golden age, until blood explodes from jugulars.
Home and all in one peace (sic)
Dear ______, thank you, life is spinning out of control
Off-duty crew bunked down, glad to be silent underwater
Back to a day in 1996, when lightning struck the plane
Still, a glacier or two
1996: watching the news on a TV at the airport
Wandering in a happy state
Flocks of birds cavort over a playing field scores of cockatoos fly kamikaze style the
Two young bronzewing pigeons bob up and down
Next we meet Chornobyl’s special babies:
Friendly apes are gone so our closest living relatives are cars and
There are episodes you’re glad you missed
Thinking can clutter, do more harm than good.
The old Police rapid response ‘Flying Squad’,
Standing as still as possible in a straggly line
Red-eyed teddy-boys tarting in clubland
Say nothing and the power of the wind feeds
Here you are, you are here – X marks the spot –
Over the phone an uncalled for speech:
Driving in search of the address we’d been given
A door materialises, you arrive from the future,
thank the lords of gleam
Promising an invisible world and the inspiration
Boot splash
ate flying saucers,
no honour seeing
doom car doom music
hard rain, crazed possum
training cat to be
suburban Rimbaud
they can’t remember
Pokémon sneak in
can think of nothing
beyond redemption
flying squad ends up
our kids are messy
burning the midnight
one day there will be
the secret of good
toy orangutans
too much me, me, me
you blazing bird-shark
go out and have fun
rain settles pollen
no air force can stop
waits till his family
young kamikaze
this loneliness is
two clever beggars
moon trapped in quiet
Reality bends into itself, we think we’re going places
Master Sun Tzu, say something before
Politics is mostly men in a bear pit;
An empty room
Another three weeks basic training
The way a beast fumbles among its belongings—an
So many times since the day he died, I’d met him
Breathing exhilaration, life is wonderful worth living, and
Also known as a part time love poet he
Drove by the house where you grew up
Justin Bieber ringtone saves Russian man
In captivity the elephants
Lament trees and tigers,
He rose from the vision and knew what to do;
Eternal kitchen amid playful spinifex
Raindrops plash
Walk down the quiet path,
The clouds are always there
He starts a landslide shooting a
Sun shines a gone Sunday, the assignation
We lived in electricity’s future
A green Mallarmé floats ethereal over the Harbour Bridge
The river and creeks carry sweet ash,
People don’t understand you
How quiet the mind is can determine
Diminished world. The demagogue’s cruel slogans
Puffed up non-com, big-noting himself for an alien woman
Not born a robot, but I pursued the robot way –
Once upon a time stars in the sky
Planet X arrived to hang around
Common nouns personified can come to life
Begins on a distant, creaking world
The galaxy.
Captain’s quill scratched
The travel agent’s eyes bubbled
Ask any question.
Mrs Possum sniffs the air, smells slices of bread
Zeus handed Troy’s smoking altars to the Greeks
All the world’s a game and we

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

Notes on a glory hole (cut up)

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Ted Greensmith-West

Cut up from Newshub article dated 18th January 2024, titled: CONCERNED GREY LYNN RESIDENT BATTLES TO STOP PUBLIC BATHROOM SEX
AFTER ‘GETTING NOWHERE WITH POLICE’, accessed online here.

Pitman, entering as he walked.
“Away with that!” – the glory I was trying with the
bathroom battle: that was Tuesday.

“Once,” he said, at the hole intersection,
threatening around for guys.

the kids from

the opposite hole, at the corner bathrooms, are
concerned – and just like Grey Lynn, in public.
The many going in, walked in a stream, and
I use a primary plate. I have a toilet but removed it.

At that plugger
sit the sex men,
the Resident Sexual Five.

Imagine: Grey Lynn with its bathroom activity site!
on a Tuesday! in the middle of school!
In minutes: he, Pitman, came
on around to patch numerous
‘activities’, he said.

Having to use the hole after, Police immediately
repatched before the location and had instances
to report. Being the new repatched behaviour, they are not
scheduled to actively witness an incident.

Council’s new metal hole-cover has scheduled an
ongoing indecent activity:
Tuesday is 111, the Police is 105,
Pitman is men lining up and going at it.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

tropical skimming

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Dominic Symes

from what I can remember gleaning
it was a gas pipe issue

& I’ve already let reception know

considering this errant thong atop a recycling bin

I treat the surface of the poem like
it were the fresh water and I
the smooth stone heading t’ward
a crocodile’s beady eye

as strangler figs are stagflating the old growth
leaves fucking everywhere gathered
expectantly like workers around a picket
protesting seasons

four in a day? try two in a year!
as compensation we’re offered
expired beers & crocodile tears

how you gon’ be mad on vacation?
the stereo asks the restaurant’s other guests

was it kanye or keynes who said
to take a day off because automation
won’t do it for you?

only that’s politically incorrect
& I check my emails as a dirty joke

like a golf club to a cane toad
like a cassowary to a main road

when I find the room doesn’t have wifi
I lock the doors & stay up to watch the towels dry
on the bathroom floor

(they don’t)

so we all go on strike
like the golden orb by the front counter
who stops spinning webs
to peer inside a XXXX gold

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

weetootla

Posted on August 12, 2025 by berni m janssen


Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

The New York City Garbage Strike Of 1968

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Izzy Maxson

In this photo men in suits and hats are smashing pinball machines with hammers

A portrait of New York City’s 30 year ban on the machines for being a form of gambling, from 1942 as a matter of moral imperative and a shortage of materials for the war until 1976 when a looming bankruptcy made them think twice about gambling revenue

The pinball world champion himself, sworn in in a courtroom in front of god, bureaucracy and TV cameras, said exactly where the silver ball was going to go, to prove skill over luck, and to the astonishment of everyone watching, the called shot happened exactly as he said it would.

And here we have two rooms, in one the cracked facades and burned out bulbs, the boxes like coffins, like the dead clocks of the future, gathered up into a heap, all quarters stripped from their bellies

The other room is empty, here is where the machines that were saved were kept, under oil rags and tarps, sleeping time machines, locked and keyed, one day forgotten, then another day, vanished, taken away all once from the damp brick vault

Here in the space between catastrophes where we attempt our immurement

It’s so easy to believe that the past was populated exclusively by children

Led out of their pastures by a pillar of smoke, a bonfire of their own discarded naivety, armed with pitchforks and torches like the mob at the end of every Frankenstein movie, out of an iron prison, and into a fire growing in color and beauty

Here is a forest growing, here, a place where all the bucks are worth five points and there’s unlimited ammunition

To discard one game for another, oh so easy to believe, that this was the day, all those men with hammers, had just that very morning, put away their teddy bears or stitched shut their beady eyes for the day’s bloody work ahead, here was the very day the rats took over, we don’t remember exactly what it is drove them out again, but the sugar cubes you can find on the street, are best not eaten, unless you’re sure where they came from, and no one really is

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

Boot

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Ledya Khamou

SYLVIA PLATH WOULD HATE YOU AND FREUD
WOULD LOVE ME. I HAVE TO ADDRESS THE CLICHES
BEFORE THEY BLUNT.
MY BROAD SHOULDERS ARE YOURS REALLY
AND MY WIRE ROD HOT TEMPER IS YOURS REALLY
AND YOUR DEMERIT POINTS ARE REALLY MY CAR CRASHES,
MY PARKING TICKETS. YOUR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
IS REALLY MY LOW BLOOD PRESSURE AND YOUR ANXIETY
MEDICATION IS REALLY MY ANTIDEPRESSANTS,
AND YOUR VIOLENT VICTIMISED CHILDHOOD IS
REALLY MY PASSIVE PUSHOVER CHILDHOOD.
I COULD GO ON, BUT I NEED A FULL STOP
BEFORE I OVERSPILL. BEFORE I REMEMBER YOUR
READING GLASSES AND YOUR TECHNOLOGY
BLINDNESS. GUILT WILL BLEED FROM EVERY WOUND YOU INFLICTED;
I WILL LAP AT IT LIKE A DUMB DOG. LIKE A BITCH.
REMEMBER WHEN YOU CALLED ME THAT.
YOUR PRONUNCIATION WAS OFF,
THE ‘I’ DRAGGED OUT, THE ‘B’ TOO SOFT.
OR PERHAPS MY EARS WERE NOT ATTUNED,
YOUR VOICE SOAKED IN VENOM. I WAS TEN STEPS
FROM THE FRONT DOOR, BAGS SLIDING OFF MY SHOULDERS
BEFORE I REALISED WHAT YOU MEANT.
A THUMP ON MY BACKBONE. WORSE THAN
ALL THE BACKHANDS OF MY YOUNGER YEARS.
I SHOULD HAVE MARKED THE TIME. I BECAME BUT A WOMAN
YOU HATE, ONE OF THE MANY WOMEN YOU HATE.
I NEED TO SAY EVERYTHING SHORT AND SIMPLE
SO THAT YOU CAN UNDERSTAND MY ENGLISH.
I AM SICK. I HAVE NOT SLEPT IN THREE YEARS.
I WANT YOU TO BE PROUD OF ME AND I
NEVER WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN.
THIS IS FUTILE PROSE. YOU WILL NEVER READ THIS.
YOU WANTED ME TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT ASSYRIA.
I KNOW VERY LITTLE, AND THIS IS ALL I CAN GIVE YOU.
BUT I KNOW, YOU KNOW,
I CAN SAY EVERY MEAN THOUGHT IN MY HEAD
BUT HERE I AM:
FILLING IN THE BRUTE BRUTE BOOTS
OF A BRUTE LIKE YOU.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

WATER-SOLUBLE

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Isra Hassan

For my birthday, I’ve come to be
an antonym: economic with my tears

and water-soluble. Annually, I lose
the fear of my ineptitude, and
kindred light switches pantomime.

It is not the day, but I, who chases
the night, and it is not the moon, but
I, who’s suspended there.

Water, in its imminent plural form, stipulates
its obligations, collected in smatterings,
glistening on the coves others may call cheeks.

Clouds are present, accumulating by
the droves, resolute in their exhaustions.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

To Loan Applicant #18503592

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Coco Huang

Let’s make a transaction: I’ll join you at the
-$7.30 Green Beans Café
each morning and you can tell me about the used Gibson you bought off
-$1,464.90 eBay seller: mattiesmusic
and how you almost forgot to pay
-$325.00 Paul rent
I’ll ask about that time you went to
-$5.05 Sing KK World
by yourself on a Wednesday afternoon, and you’ll insist karaoke’s better
-$32.99 Purrfect Pets Warehouse
when you can howl your heart out alone
-$130.93 Woolworths Next Day Delivery
you want me to lend you a few hundred ks to build your dream
-$370.00 Recording Studio, 5h hire
while you’re tethered to last-minute shifts minding kids at
+$450.72 KFC Salary
and I know it’s hard for you to get by on the occasional
+$140.00 The Kooka Friday gig
when you’ve got to budget for
-$67.00 MyTelco Promo Plus Plan
-$30.00 Transport for NSW Opal Aus Card
-$27.95 PharmaCare Discount Chemist
but no one knows you the way I do
+$2.91 Credit interest
I believe in bending numbers and pulling-off strings
+$250.00 Songwriting workshop
and maybe one day, when you’ve made it big, you’ll send me a
-$158.35 GENIE Polaris Tour – Box A Ticket
to your show and I’ll write a proper poem for you.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

目送 (or In bed after lunch)

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Haoyi Zhang

He receives me in last centuries’ hospital best: blue shirt, grey cardi. He dresses her too: a black hairpin holds back long waves of speckled hair from gray-green ringed irises.

Delicate in weathered banana-pulp skin-paper, they’d hate to rub raw like this before strangers. In bed after lunch, she whispers for him carefully to turn over for her the day’s events and characters, like smoothed rocks. At the bathroom door, my girl-grandma shies, hand curved against wall like I’m a wolf in her house.

I remember his lips a dark mauve, wet, always moving. Purpling and loose now, they dribble tuneless songs to long-knuckled hands above the sink, between doorways and over my tiny tight anxieties.

At the other end of the hallway, his shoulders slope a gentle question mark, traced in my years of absence. I turn mine away, lamely; spoon-face toward elevator.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

The Banana

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Sam Morley

Forgive me child, now a man
with each of us sitting on our sides
of this car, feeling the world speed
by with its yellow fields
never naming anything
not even laughing at Calder Park
or Bob Jane’s face or Sunbury.

I am sorry it has come to this
speechless highway thrum.

Here, you used to ask
about how can a grey line
in the atmosphere
split the blue sky in half.

But you’ve just spent most of a sweet song
trying to connect your phone to Bluetooth
and didn’t say a word to me
when I said
it’s worth taking this tune in.

But it’s just Islands in the Stream
is all you said, never looking up from your screen.

You used to say things about people
we passed on the road
like what they did
or how fast can we leave them behind.

Now you’re wordless
eating a banana
because that is the only fruit
you’ve ever liked to eat.
You seem to eat it and forget to breathe.

Did you know I know everything
you have ever eaten?

And you eat everything so angry now
and I feel so sorry it has come to this

you knowing what I will say
to everything you mention

knowing when you reach to turn
the radio back to golden oldies
I’m going to say
I hate Billy Joel.

Meanwhile the banana
in your hand looks so good.
All I want for you is to look
down at it and take it in
perhaps smell it, follow its lines
do what we all do with good fruit.

Your stare now is so solid
as the banana browns
in the air conditioning.

And it’s the banana
so strong fleshed but bruising
that gets me –
just bring it to your lips
and before biting
just hold it there
let it touch you.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

big bird

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Monique Lyle

           a.           the violin

           when big bird steps out of his apartment he runs quickly down some stairs he sees a boy standing there looking at him big bird creeps past then keeps on running the boy is chasing him and that’s when he steals his violin

           down in the street there are many balloons and there are floating lattices big bird looks into some mirrors he sees tomatoes, a boat……. big bird has a violin lesson he sits on a chair next to a cat he looks through the stained glass window big bird pretends to read a sheet of music he hums and he whistles.… when it becomes big bird’s turn he plays the music magically he’s been practicing his whole life.

big bird has a job driving a truck he carries his violin with him to work he fixes the truck with a spanner and he takes it for a test drive. when big bird gets hungry he goes out for some lunch he orders beans at the cafe and he leaves his violin behind
           big bird gets taken into a dark house he can’t see any lights and he gets beaten up….. big bird heads back to the pub he heads past ernie who doesn’t want to talk to him
           big bird washes the dirt off his face and they all ask him to play some music they tell him that he’s a musician but they only pay him with a bread roll… they don’t understand that big bird has a family to feed

           b.           a dream

there is writing written in lipstick on the wall
           a black disc and a scene in black and white
it is daytime and then nighttime there are mountains and sunflowers daytime
           and then nighttime there’s a desert and then a forest. rain and then sun big bird sees someone standing at the end of a hall
           long and then white with a sun and then rain the person is far off and people in hats start struggling at the door …
           big bird sees a crowd of them rushing toward the sun going through white halls
           jesters are just standing there looking
           they are looking at someone who is summoning and pushing with their arms.
           big bird looks three times and this time he sees a man who is mad who is smoking in his room a man who is all in the dark….. big bird sees the people painted blue and he is painted blue too…. when big bird is out on the street he is tempted by a doll in the window it’s trying to sell him something but when he gets it big bird is stuck out all by himself out on a blue field out in front of a windstorm that is driving at him….
           somebody holds big bird tenderly in their arms but the train has already arrived to take big bird away.

           c.           the hunt

big bird comes back from the hunt but he finds that the door is closed
           he has a look inside but all he sees is a man with a scythe.
big bird checks the wallpaper he pulls the curtain down he shines the candle over a picture
           he thought he saw a bug in the corner of his eye.

           on top of the house in the morning big bird sees a statue
the lady is a chicken and she is holding a horn, she is greeting the day
           she is getting everybody together and telling them to get dressed the lady is giving the signal
           big bird awakes to a bear by his bed
           it has a brown fuzzy dressing gown on
the bear looks at big bird and it points up to the sky it leaves a private letter. big bird goes out to the pond where someone is digging a hole
           he hears some old men laughing while they dig
he finds himself in an orchard with his lover big bird sees her eating apples and grapes
           big bird hears the big dinner bell ringing and he starts running

big bird gets to the room of hanging wheels some are stored like heads in cabinets
           they are heads from the carts which will take you away. big bird sees some encyclopedias he sees a window covered in paint
           big bird tries to look out but he can’t.
a pestle for herbs is for a girl going mad.
big bird hears the trumpet. very soon he hears a shout and a gunshot.
           the bear has been struck and big bird knows that he has to die too.

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

tonight

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Samantha Haran
tonight they are calling for the end of the world. it’s no big deal. haven’t you heard? the announcement of the apocalypse turns to static noise in the ears of those for whom the world is not a home, but a playground of profit, dead children, and social cohesion. for the rest of us, we sit in rows. (death sits between me and you like a third person / we remember everything, at least in our bones). you turn on the news, and the screen lights up flicking with blood. there is a body under my bed. it is business as usual. i typed this in a trance. we are all sick. we are all tired. did you not hear me? the world is on fire, and so are you. elon musk lauds over my twitter account. (there is nowhere left to scream). we are all possessed by ghosts, by demons, by monsters. a spectre is haunting: the spectre of afterpay. adani, raytheon and the rest of them too. they enrapture our spirits and disembody us slowly. there are bloodstains all over my carpet. i don’t know where they came from. the channel switches. i can’t remember what it was like to command my own limbs. i watch them disintegrate into dust and choke softly on the smoke they leave behind. (‘all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.’) it is only with you that tomorrow feels possible, feels beautiful, feels worthy at all. can you promise me this? promise me this. when you get there, when you see her, if she’s breathing, if we turned it around, if it’s different this time—will you save me a seat?
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ROCKSTAR SHIFT

Posted on August 12, 2025 by J. Taylor Bell

they say you should try everything once
but if that’s really the case i might be
stuck inside this warehouse taproom forever
and if it weren’t for the fact that i bush-bashed
my way through the last two months,
i may have presented myself earlier:
neither shaken nor stirred
dirty and still not free, full of fissured
(re)issues of physical graffiti sticky fingers
are you experienced
nevermind

all i’m saying is that mick jagger is 81 and done
that the horrors of hospitality are quotidian at most
neverending at best & good stories at least
as for me
turning 21 was something i’ll never do again
turning down a management position
for a $1/hr raise was something
i’ll have to keep between us
and if you’re not 10 minutes early
you’re late sometimes you don’t know
if your phone is autocorrecting you
like when i texted last night to say
i suddenly had a revolution:
Responsible Service of Alcohol
is an oxymoron

everything i know
about hospo and rock’n’roll
was handed down to me
by the world’s leading microbial ecologist
we dated for a while
but you can only talk about bear shit
for so long before
the sexual tension becomes
unbearable so
what will you give me
if i can split the g? super

and a souvenir bucket hat?
ok
you never know what’s around
the corner hotel
and that’s why i’ve resorted to screaming
at every right angle i see screaming
jesus wouldn’t have taken a 10% merch fee
and why i’ve resorted to ending every conversation
like a copy+pasted job application
i’m being as sincere as a guitar solo:
thanks for the opportunity
because this isn’t the future
any of us applied for
and i got tired of seeing everything
as a metaphor
tired of the leather pants tired of resignation
letters and b(e)sides
BOH shifts are better because everyone’s unsexy
in crocs together and happiness
just hangs there
like a ribbon microphone for you
to grab and scream into

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Protection spell against EO 14147 through EO 14291

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Willo Drummond

after Kenji C. Liu

The days of potential are over
potential catastrophe
potential disaster.

The days are now the days
of injustice
of horror
days we never thought would be.

Take sage stick. Draw closed circle in salt.

In the Sunshine State, high on the stench of permission
healthcare is revoked for children
precious, precious children
precious, precious unless…

Take pine needle. Burn cone.

The days of denial are over
the days of disbelief.
The days are here to hurry up
the days are here to believe:

the depths of hate are here
the lava is over the lip
burning a fast course
(searing a path to you).

Grind charred cone to dust. Take wine.

These days are the days for plain speaking
symbol has become cloud.
These days are the days for naming:

The blood of the children.
The blood of the rounded up.
The blood of the displaced.
The blood of the ill denied medicine.
The blood of the carrying girl.
The blood of the dysphoric now over the edge.
The blood of the wrong one percent.

Take moonstone. Intone prayer:

The blood of the bodies
the blood of the bodies
the bodies, the bodies
the bodies, the bodies
the bodies, the bodies
the bodies of blood.

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naked

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Ana Constantinou

powdered concrete. quashes/fills mouth. eyes. ears. nose. blood. milked by missiles. ’til it. dampens the earth. a father. likens extracting the body. of. his. son. to pulling. out the root of his heart. his heart. his heart in the. dirt plugging. the lips. of his son. 10-year-old. daughter cradles the. shoes. of her mother all. she has left. keening in. dirt. over grey. powdered ghost shoes. medic delivers. foetus. to hands of. man in the dirt. mother laboured ’til. the dirt overtook. her. a truck. delivers. 170 bodies. decomposing. nameless. reeking of the. world’s disinterest. survivors stand. at gravesites to. provide last rites. to. unidentified body pieces robbed. of their rights. while those of us. with mouths. unblocked have. rights. obligations. to speak ever. louder like. journalists. who gave. their lives. unprotected by. Press Vests and. their best. intentions. listed by International Federation of Journalists. including the method of murder. Mohamd Al-Salhi bullet…Samer Abu Daqqar missile strike on hospital…Rizq Al-Gharabli bomb…Mohamed El-Reefi bullet while collecting flour from aid delivery…Saher Akram Rayan while assisting neighbour…. Haider Ibrahim al-Masdar strike on media tent…Wafa Abu Dabaan in refugee camp…Hamza Abdul Rahman Murtaja airstrike on school…Abdullah Shakshak quadcopter…all relying on. truth to prevail. orphans and. widows distraught. desperate. for their. pleas. to extract compassion. from the. other side of the. screens in safe homes white. homes. like writers/actors/artists. attempting to voice. the opposite. to. the dominant narrative. speak true. it doesn’t always. go well. the powerful get antsy. join to create elaborate. stories. to confuse you. or don’t even bother to. say anything at all. which is the best way. to. shut. down. debate. about the start and the date. the value of. some lives. over others. followed by disingenuous claims. to integrity. veracity. the tyrannous. relying on lies. reversing the narrative. about who is. suffering. and who’s not. still. the truth remains. bare.

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the bougiest garage in thornbury

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Maddox Gifford
Click image to zoom.



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‘empty and faraway lands’

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Yvonne Patterson
Operations: Buffalo Antler Totem Mosaic





descent of darkness
hell-fire prowls antipodean skies

radiation strobe-lights country
freeze-frames bodies into rag-doll skeletons

a biosphere swallows
black mist



Maralinga Monte Bello Emu Field





deep in bunkers
watchers lie

ghost images fade to sepia
in photographs locked in empire’s vault

a country’s heart fused
into broken glass



Uranium Beryllium Plutonium




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Lactarius Milfing

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Rebecca Hawkes 

this is an introduction to the creamy
mycology of the mighty woodlands
in primal sanctuary life and rot are wrought
together through fungus so I must learn
all the names in iNaturalist
conversant with my surrounding ecology
poking in the undergrowth for Lactarius
an indigo milk cap weeping latex
a node in a network of things within which
everything is edible once so suckle on
a jostling of fruiting bodies
in the unmaking of a fallen maple
golden oysters glow from sloughing bark
gills velvety on the fingertips and damp as  
the slime mould brawny in the loam
all the earth’s infinitesimal efforts
in splendid vigorous vulgarity
puffballs farting out millions of lives
and stinkhorns wooing flies with stench
agonised and ecstatic through the dirt
a destroying angel rising
begetter of slow and terrible deaths
so I am pressed to check and check again 
my species IDs my risk appetite that fled
when nothing could compare
with the pleasures of a foraged feed seeking
the ultimate of earthstars its pale spores
spurting rivulets of sweetest flux that pour
back into the soil which is our mother 
so we marvel at the strangeness of this milk


novelty horrors of the infinite fusion
machine blending childhood monstrosities
into interconnected oneness
the wetness of the Pokedex as fluid as
curdling milkshakes until I become utterly
convinced of Miltank’s supremacy
that little cow so proudly udder forward
even as she is bred with too many beasts
she retains her essential qualities
these pixel mommy milkers
perky despite the individual’s dissolution 
she can be anything and still herself
a legendary thunderbird mantled in 
sloppy clotted cream splatters or
that wrestler champ a beefy hunk of spunk
posing with teats out like raw bratwursts
a painter smearing her own fluids on canvas
a false flower squirting paralytic buttermilk
a pregnant hound dragging a heifer’s udder 
and when you mate her with a god she is
seraphic upon wings of cosmic crema
creating the universe with the question
got milk? and I know now why our god left
to the shops for milk and never came back
to the profound wrongness of Milfing
a pinkly polluted orb with noxious fumes 
turned spumes of original elixir her nips dripping
colostrum rich nectar secretions I share
with my friend who is herself a MILF
knowing babes have no choice but to drink


Notes: ‘Lactarius’ names a family of milk-cap mushrooms that ooze creamy fluid. ‘Milfing’ refers to a fan-made Pokémon fusion combining
the cow ‘Miltank’ with the toxic bomb ‘Koffing’ – more similarly cursed Pokémon fusions are described in the poem and sourced from the wiki here.

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The Catalogue of the Ships (Il. 2. 494-760)

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Madalyn Delahunty

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