Not even a day without!
It isn’t good,
now black poems pile in every gland.It isn’t all bad.
This morning I leapt clean from the blocks,
pushing up into lulled woodland.
Low fog was with me like a tailwind.
Even the marsupials seemed groggy,
letting me metres closer than usual
before the bolt.
Losing sight
of shore quickly through drenched bracken whelming
taller than thought; occasional gumshed
clearings to catch breath in, lowlit
with heath, banksias, quadruped acacias,
all busy uploading winter blooms.
Lungs gasped like landed fish.
My calves burnt. But I was busy
beating out a way, a non-way,
fumbling its breadcrumbs childishly back
to half known tracks – but not quickly.
Untold hours away from myself
were gold.Lagging back to the shack
still brimming with animal fatigue,
I forgot to take lunch seriously –
scoffed! – letting blinkered
thoughts get a zealot look in.But a scarlet robin bobbed up
just in time to enthral me:
insatiable bird narcissism
craves every drop of crimson, every jet
black pixel the car’s side mirrors
kept dishing up – and then some;
the pull looked worse than heroin.Then when you consider the sugar-fix
sought daylong by a needling
eastern spinebill … (But you
wouldn’t. What sober person would?)Everyone was carrying but me.
And hadn’t I already lasted long enough?
And what cost continuing this see-saw without?A precious deafness had dissolved
with the morning fog; the pistons
more than audible now, insistent
as the blanks always there between stanzas
spent leaving myself and landing on things.And then the phone rang and I forgot
that to answer a phone is to look at a clock;
and to look at a clock was to know,
mid-June, if I didn’t leave soon
I’d miss my dealer’s daily window.The addicted mind is a mob:
Chinese whispers at compound interest
gain sociopathic sway. For me,
the forum always screams loudest around 1600.Who was I,
already one foot out the door,
to deny them more?
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones