Handbagged

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Jilly O'Brien

Funny peculiar
not funny haha

who

has the most to lose
from white smoke

and breaking bread
how the grocer’s daughter

ought to bare knuckle
on scabbed over grass, yet finds herself

elocuting
whilst the canary chokes

hits the cage floor
with a blind thump

working men are hit with bricks
thrown from the sky

each one wrapped in Christmas paper
and tied with string

a tag swinging

Funny peculiar
Not funny haha

That the Cold War
was a carry on

A Hollywood rom-com
starring Ronald Reagan

even Sting was on the payroll
hoping those Russians loved their children

too. Me too.

Funny peculiar
That Michael Parkinson, even,

had his phone tapped
on the picket lines

I listened
as the brass band tuned up

emptying spit valves without thinking
on the concrete

I did not go and see your film
I left it to someone else to pick

through the rubble
to try and get you out

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Trophies

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Eva Collins

The Nazi commander said to the Poles:
Even though we lost the war,
the plaques commemorating your dead,
will always be trophies
to us.

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Surreal, were it not Real (Sydney, 05:09, 22/03/2020)

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Bob Gearing

Fine sand bakes, unshadowed, on Bondi Beach in the mid-day sunshine.
The Kaaba is deserted; desultory knots linger at the Western Wall.
Lonely footfall sends metallic echoes down the steps at Waterloo station.
Redundant car horns on 5th Avenue; a forest of orange taxi lights.
And the world lies still, and quiet, at home now,
Thinking of friends lying in negative pressure rooms,
And anticipating, imagining, what is yet to come.

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Impatience

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Oliver Driscoll

Today, while my partner and I walked along the edge of the highway toward an area where the houses, trees and dogs are larger, more expansive, and have received a greater degree of care, I told her that I had written a piece about her watching a beautiful slow elegant film with very little dialogue shot and based in Hong Kong about impossible love between a man and woman each of whom were in marriages to other people they were not able to leave on her laptop while I watched a film, on my laptop, that suggested, or seemed to suggest, that each of us has one true love – what various characters within the film referred to as ‘soulmates’. I said, my synopsis of the film she had watched was okay, but the sentences describing the film I had watched were all far too long and difficult to navigate. I said, the films were, in a way, similar, though, I said, one of them is a good film and one of them isn’t. She said, well, another thing that was said in the documentary about the film shot and based in Hong Kong, that she had watched yesterday, the day after having watched the film itself, is that originally the male character’s motivation for having the affair that would become the impossible love was revenge.

My partner did not say whether the revenge was towards his wife, or towards the husband of the woman he was having an affair with or, perhaps, whether it was towards the woman he was having an affair with herself. She had also learned, she went on, from the documentary that a series of comical scenes had been shot that had likewise not made it into the final version of the film.

Towards the end of the walk, once we were again beyond the area where the houses, trees and dogs are larger, my partner pointed out what appeared to be a mobile phone number scrawled into the footpath in large numerals, thirty to forty centimetres high. She said, it doesn’t say call this number to get your dick sucked. Look, she said, the number is all on its own.

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Cook 2614

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Dave Drayton

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ALTERNATE REALITIES

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Gerard Sarnat

i. A.P. 11March20 9:08PM EST POTUS is expected in his televised Oval Office Coronavirus address to the nation to announce that he has negotiated the Best Deal Ever with Jeff Bezos. Amazon’s leveraged buyout of the US Government will turn over management of the pandemic including sale plus delivery of all services and goods — not just food or medicine. Mr. Bezos will become President — at least until January 20 following November’s election. Mr. Trump will receive a 10% finder’s fee plus 8% of all profits.

ii. A.P. 11March20 11:13PM EST – President Trump, who appeared under the weather and short of breath during his eleven-minute Oral Office address two hours ago, had a sudden respiratory arrest and died 10:29PM EST in the East Wing living quarters of the White House. Vice President Pence, who was sworn in by the Chief Justice, is looked at by Las Vegas as an odds-on favorite to defeat ex-Vice President Biden. Unlike the financial markets, his stock has shot up during recent days since overperforming expectations set when he was named Coronavirus czar.

iii. V-2 Nazi Rocket Redux

“Vunce ze rockets are up, who cares vere zey come down
“Zats not mein department!” says Werner von Braun
—Tom Lehrer

Coupla other news reports,
not yet picked up widely here,
now state that POTUS/V-POTUS
have been working to procure/move
some German research groups to U.S.
because they are way ahead in developing
COVID vaccines: the reason Mein Trumpf
wants these units is so ONLY Americans get
shots in case our Orange I-take-no-responsibility
Insane One starts WWIII – current rumours suggest
Wherner von Braun’s kid, Margrit Cécile, leads a team.

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Egon Kisch Takes The Dictation Test 1934

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Damen O'Brien

I do not speak the language which condemns him.
My task is to speak the language of this door, the simple
words of yes or no, you may enter here, you may not.
Behind me Australia branches and the door must remain shut.

Outside, all of Australia branches and Spring’s first crows complain
to the cheerful wind and the wind jibes back. I’ve seen Mr Kisch
stare out the window a dozen times then back to the page’s empty mouth.
His allotted time is nearly gone, and nothing that he says can be correct.

His allotted time is nearly gone, and nothing in his multilingual brain
will grant the words to let him pass, though all of Europe is
burning at his back and all we have to do to save him is to
listen. The crows call out and all of them are prophesying war.

Listen, the crows call out and perhaps they speak the Lord’s Prayer
in Gaelic, for that’s the acid lines I’ve given him to speak, or they talk
of death. I cannot tell. I do not speak it, and nor does he. For
the purpose of the test is not to pass, and his lips must stay shut.

The purpose of the test is not to pass and the only language set
must be the only language he is certain not to know. I left my daughters
rolling in their cot this morning to make my way down to the immigrant’s dock,
their voices squealing behind me like the unkind judgment of the birds.

Their voices squealing, the birds have marked the hour and time is up.
He never spoke a word though the Jews of Europe were burning at his back.
He knew we would not listen to any prayer he chose, nor any warning.
When the trial is run, he can put his case before the testing of the law.

When the trial is run, they’ll say of me, he was a second rate Scotsman,
he had not a word of Gaelic to decide, but that was not my failure: what
I did not know was that the language of a door is always no. You do not
need a door to enter, but a door like any mouth can be kept shut.

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Worn-out thongs

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Lucy Roberts

She is always walking,
worn-out thongs, no hat.
Her feet slog out the daily route,
one small grocery bag comes back.

I am always driving,
high in my black shiny car.
Dashing somewhere, running late, picking up a child.
Daring a couple of kays over the speed limit.

She walks alone this suburb’s streets,
past parks and gardens, family homes.
Sagging jeans with fraying cuffs, lank hair, sunburnt
shoulders and beer-gut belly spilling from stretched-out tank tops.

Each time I see her pacing,
I don’t recognise her face.
It slides and shifts and melts away.
Today, she could be my age.

She walks and staggers, stops and stands,
swaying and sweating on the path.
The sun the sun the constant sun;
it’s 35 degrees outside my car.

I don’t always see her, I think she goes away.
I straightened once, from weeding: filthy handed
to see her standing haunting
the shade of the gumtree across the road.

I flinched.
She never seems to see me.
Who does she see when she stands and stares?
I would know her anywhere.

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Metaphor

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Andrew Sutherland
I ask Wan Ching how she is. Are you lonely? At home on whatever-floor. She replies, I have had mysterious droppings on my floor for some time. Her brother-in-law sends pictures to a biologist friend. Apparently, the droppings of a bat. Never seen the animal, Wan Ching writes. Just been cleaning up its mess. Log on HDB fengshui forums: wi-fi geomancers tell us, time to buy 4D. We know we’re lucky upside-down. In sleep I never dream of wings, but flap into the night the same; depending on the angle. Actually – isn’t a bat technically always the right side up? For what it needs to do, I mean. I’m not a gambling person, but one of my worst fears is being a vector, and never realising what I’ve done. An essay on viral dramaturgy lurks in my browser history, though I’m not sure if I ever plan to read it. I’m a scientific person, too. I’m quite sure no one ate the bat; just happen to fly by. Echolocation doesn’t work if nothing’s there in front of you. I don’t compare advice; no point wondering what to think. I just enjoy the luck – and not so lonely, either. Wan Ching’s yet to see her guest. Finally, I type: do you think maybe the bat is a metaphor? She says, the bat might be, but the shit is real.
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Meanwhile

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Marina Tulic

Headlines nurse a generation of cynics and madmen with microphones,
Hope is out of fashion, except when Twitter’s watching, and
post-truth politics are in. I’m too tired for trends, though.
Maybe god lost his faith a long time ago, but
I still believe
in those lured outside by the rumour of rain
and four a.m. fog on the city,
who leap off speeding trains, hear silence, walk directionless
yet always end up collapsing on the shore, homesick
and heart-mad.
I still believe
in old fools out on their verandas, chewing evening nepenthe,
their grief a living testimony that history still exists, however
shriveled and beaten.
In quiet lives spent trying to dive deeper,
expelled to the surface by shortness of breath
just when they thought they finally had it –
that they finally understood it. Returning to land
only to grapple with smoke, still convinced they can forge it
into being, and forge being into
beauty.
I still believe in art,
and hope,
and resistance,
and you.

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We’re facing environmental ruin and you’re scared of a text

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Ruth Horsfall

(via tweet by @jaboukie)

I am trying to write something profound that we’re
going to find funny, yet moving, but resolutely facing

a sunrise that I’m already tired by, environmental
destruction, my spangled nerves swiped and tapped to ruin

and yet no matter how bad things feel, and
believe me they often feel bad, when I read you’re

coming home early, or you’re also feeling scared
and love courses through me like a coronavirus of

my heart I’m just so glad I am living in the time of a
smart phone, and it brought you to me by text.

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On the committee of vultures

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Jim Thomas

The feeling on the island was
that a god had come here to die.
We met lesser angels wandering
drunk through the hills,

accusing passers-by of paying
tax to many-tongued deserts,
beasts muscled in shadow and
serpents who chase their tails

like dogs. We argued about the
rites held on the ridgeline of
her lips, where churches flock
like vultures. Priests there class

the old image of love as reptile
and the new one as heresy.
Accordingly, we sat around the table
looking for answers and taking

on the dimensions of a white bull.
We waited until the sky darkened
and each moon rose, rehearsing
cruel omens: the engine

of a vacuum will choke out of sight,
the legions will form a testudo
and the rain will beat down their shields,
the mirror will sag exhausted into pose

and the pale tongues loll in unison,
the city of gates will uncurl its fist and
the ship will miss the reef, but
only just, the captain

will turn and ask, ‘Did you see that?’

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It Turns Back Upon Itself

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Jennifer Eadie

It moves like a broken dog. like a dog that has been broken. is what he said to me as we watched it. I read that Wadjemup began as a prison for Aboriginal men and boys. the records show that 373 Aboriginal prisoners died while incarcerated. these men are understood to be buried at a ma ss burial s ite, a b urial ground. the numbers do not seem to be holdin g eno ugh meaning: 437 deaths in custod y since t he 1991 ro y al co mmission. no police or pri son officer has been charged.

He explained that the movement is in the elbows: inward and out. this is how to scoop the air beside you. There are six boys being held in isola          tion at Don Dale who are tear ga ssed and we thep ublic areto ld it is because of a riot but five of th e bo ys are locked in their cel l whe n they were gassed ten times in the space of one and a half minutes. The prison staff are lau ghing andcalling one o f the b oys alittlerfu cker. one boy is lying face down on the floor and is expose d to          t eargas fo r eig htmin utes.

I say to him: I do not believe w e are a c hieving anything. he says back: the words       spoken at protests are heart-felt. I reply that I do not believe that th e government of this country has heart. our words become empty as the government rolls them around on their tongue. throw ing them back                    ward and forw ard o ver an d over              until th e language tur ns inwards: the language turns back upon itself.1

I say to            h im: I donotbelievewea reachievin ga nything.hesays back: thew ordsspokena tprotests are heart-felt. I replythat I do notb elieve that the governmentof this coun tryhas heart.our languagetur ns b ack on itself.o urwordsbecome empty as the governmentro llsthemaround on t heir tongue.throwingthembackwardandforward overandoveruntilthel anguageturn sbac kuponitself.

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The Colour of Shame

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Rhiannon Hall

Curves and a cause, curves and
some freedom, curves and a voice
A Ramones t-shirt, tight, and a grandmother’s
tartan shrunken to a skirt that covers

not much, a jacket, an XL jacket, a heavy navy
and no frills. But the colour of shame
flushed cheeks – there is a strain, a

tension between how a good
middle class, white, Christian girl should dress
and how this one is

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Counterpoints

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Alex Sutcliffe

1

Lay your body of work on the line, for the unemployed / cry
out for change. They need / content creators. Invest in
something higher. Penthouse suites. In the land of the free /
there are openings. The unemployed fill / the sky. Is the limit
for fledgling investors / land? Speculation lifts the stock
prices / in our hearts. Valued Donors lay / the foundations.
Graduates paint the sky / in this economy of empty
skyscrapers. There are holes for the unemployed to fill.

2

In the only age not named for its weapons the poor raise
their hands / to make their voices heard. Lay down. Your
voices / are heard, objectives achieved. / Return to the
public square / in your palm. Your voices are private.
Property. / Barricades. The public square. / The poor raise
their voices and the only age not named for its weapons
takes up arms.

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There’s a boom up there (after Scott Morrison)

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Pascalle Burton

There’s a boom up there (after Scott Morrison)

This slider puzzle poem is a comment on how recording equipment can be increasingly used to reveal people’s racist attitudes, actions or complicity. ‘There’s a boom up there’ is what Scott Morrison said when Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott were making inappropriate comments about Syrian refugees and the plight of Pacific Island nations. Instead of saying ‘hey, that’s not cool to say that’, his sinister contribution to the conversation was to inform them that they might be overheard.

Source text: ‘There’s a boom up there: 6 times pollies were caught out by a mic’, The Drum, 2015.

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Villanelle (coercion)

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Marina Hazard

Sleep-eyed and fumbling at the sink at seven, recall the phoenix
posing its weary injunction, no less glorious for fatigue:
Get up, again, undone or ashen—just the repetition forms a radix.

Lazarus too was smelly, pyjama-stank composter-chic,
and surely felt mis-given returning from the morgue.
Sleep-eyed and fumbling at the sink at seven, recall the phoenix.

How, rising from the ashes, gray and powdered calisthenics
overpowered, over-joyed, in a dazzle of burned-bronze wings.
‘Get up, again, undone or ashen—just the repetition forms a radix’

(he might as well have said.) Rising’s the basis for no meagre ethics:
A dying-daily thing, daily dying something upright augurs,
sleep-eyed and fumbling at the sink at seven, to recall the phoenix

who did it again, and again, bathing in the dust, left by a hex
to continue a pattern of recurring resurrection and bear the intrigue.
Get up, again, undone or ashen—the repetition itself forms some radix, in

“Now wash and dress”, “now flick the kettle, glance across the Guardian’s fresh polemics”.
Unsure and not unscathed, but here now, step in the mundane – gigue.
Sleep-eyed and fumbling with the taps at seven, recall the phoenix,
get up, again, undone or ashen. Just the repetition forms a radix.

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91 days

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Sarah Temporal

uncertainty is a virus

we must all be prepared
art is a virus
love is a virus
the economy is a virus
America is a virus
panic is a virus essential services are a virus anyone who still has a job
is a virus we’re all in this together is a virus all Australians
are a virus the PM’s tie is awaiting results
kindness is a virus the vulnerable are a virus
condemnation is widespread emotion is a virus your friends are a virus
help is a virus the virus is running out of gloves cities are a virus
global warming is a virus acceleration is avirus the virus is adapting the virus
is learning to tweet Mel Gibson is a virus bitcoin is a virus Trump is a pandemic
resilience is a virus empty shelves are a virus singing is a virus flash mobs are a virus
hugging is a virus wear a chickenmask instead racism is a virus old age is a virus youth is a
virus invincibility is a virus the virus is obsessed with Bill Gates the virus is working around
the clock the virus is upskilling parliament is a virus tik-tok is a virus back to business
is a virus normal is a virus the virus is missing its grandparents the virus has lost track of
days memory is a virus 20seconds is a virus it is impossible to catch a virus if you always
wear a beard cruise ships are a virus dancing is a virus healing is a virus stupid is a virus the
public are a virus the people are a virus the virus ismaking the most of it the virus has never been so
clean compassion is a virus the health system is a virus my beloved sharks are a virus I’m
just waiting for the virus to take this seriously eugenics are a virus individuals were otherwise
healthy the virus has unfriended me the virus is drawing the line data is a virus conspiracy is a
virus resistance is a virus please do not comment as this virus is no longer live stress is a virus
challenge is a virus explanations are against the rules changing your clothes is against the virus
changing your mind is against the rules hesitation is a virus spitting is a virus recovery is a virus
thevirus can’t believe what is happening of all the ways the world sings to me this one stuffs its fists
in my mouth the virus is drowning the virus is looking to the future respiration is a virus mutation is
a virus behaviour isa virus time is a virus the virus is inside us the virus knows nothing has changed

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flag

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Shona Hawkes

this flag is a gun that spits out soldiers
instead of bullets
and I don’t know how to make peace
with my weaponised mind
or these feet that fear the dirt
or this tongue that won’t trust river water

I confuse liberation with loneliness
and my nation with a strangled kite
trying to break its chain

this body is a landmine
buried in stolen soil

this body is a thread
strung between two continents,
untold wars and forced evictions

raised for a world that never existed
in a country invented by brutal men.

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Haze

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Mike Ladd

The prime-minister’s words fill the air –
they hang over the bays, obscure the roads
to the little towns, drift
between the bridge’s cables. His words
turn the sunlight a dirty orange.
You need a breathing mask
to get through them.
We are longing for a big downpour
to wash the prime-minister’s words away.

Meanwhile, what he refuses to say
keeps burning.

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Thenar Webspace

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Jeremy George

Loneliness comes out of the toilet bowl with a flashlight.
This happens in the middle of the night but also the afternoon.
Sometimes you find it screaming around and around,
Sometimes you feel a flushing in your throat. Think
Of the violence as thick images glazed onto porcelain with
Blood/ decide on the aggressiveness of the word schlack
Twenty-thousand black squares hovering before your eyes
Shadow-box the hallucination yell whack/whack whack.
Now stick your head in the water. The roots of your hair
Will pull your scalp outwards until it feels like a hat.
Remove the hat. You are inside. It is impolite.
Flush yourself again. Press the steel button down
Slowly, tenderly, there is an intimacy in self-disgust
A sharpness to harness. Keep at it. Forget your
Passwords. There is only glass in the bowl now
Glass in your mouth now, each big tooth clenched
Inside. Other grooves chalking grooves flush.
Flush again, swirling is swirling the light your white
Hand reaching out with nail clippings. Press them into
A palm. Think of Love. Think of the purple flowers
When you extend your thumb. The dog trapped in
The ceiling fan whimpering. The faulty wiring. The oil
Sea beneath the earth. Dancing on the bar in galoshes
For the blood. Missed messages. That shit in the pipes
That diluted the sun. I want you to understand that this
Is not self-immolation. Not a colour. Sometimes you will
Be tempted. Keep moving, flush again.

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American Dream

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Grant Quackenbush

I like to pretend I’m a billionaire.
It takes the edge off being broke.
When I wake up in my shoebox room
which I share with a family of rats
(I hear them at night
playing Scrabble in the walls)
I say: I choose to live this way. I like rats.
When I go to work and the boss
tells me to move faster or I’m fired
I think: I could buy this shitty company
and sell it to China if I wanted.
Lah di dah dee, trah lah lah.
Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart,
drove a 1979 Ford pickup.
Henry Ford lived modestly in Michigan.
Look Ma! I’m Henry Ford
living modestly in Brooklyn!
I’m wiping my ass with invisible cash!
I’m the richest schmuck in America!
And no one knows it but me.

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The Management

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Peter Harney

reserves the right
to inspect your head.
please do not leave
before the red light
goes out
& obey all the rules.
survival will be provided
by collected time,
you may feel secure.
we have done all we can
to make you as comfortable
as is reasonably possible.
it is expected in return
that you do the best
we know you can.
more than this is not required.
(you are reminded however
that any less is a serious offence).
we are treating you
like a human being,
please try to act like one.

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Victory (1917)

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Anastasia Radievska

what did the sun feel like
that armed October day

– did your dried skin
breathe between Nevskiy and Liteyny?

did your hair stand on ending when you saw
in those new men a light refracted full
a future danced into a falling web

– and did you really point your arm like that?
did spasm take you as you cleared the gate?

what dust swarmed in your eye when you first felt
the mechanism of time change form and shape?

and did the body now grown ethyl-thick
run through with an imagination of the motion
spilling to causes from its tongue and hands –

my great-grandmother’s ladle swimming
into the wheat and flesh inside her son

her daughter a distended limb, my father
paused to speak between the eared walls, us all
turning away from faces in the street

knowing to look would mean to trust
and trust belongs
to some imagined country that’s not here

– perhaps the same one that you saw,
Vladimir,
when your gaze tore its teeth on autumn sky

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