“Fighting a fire that cannot be seen.”
Louis MacNieceRural news
Begin a new life with the pledge never
To fly again. Knee-deep in the debts
Of heavy machinery—reign of irrigation
—the only choice left to tour the velvet
Leaf’s black grass until your yoga retreat
On a climate denying farm comes to focus
On maximising carcase value. I’m using
My heartbeat to count a breathing
Exercise that has the effect of slowing
My heartrate—as if it were cool
Irony to breathe myself out of existence
Just like everyone else. Even tailwinds
Feel ahead of me. Dragging culvert
Pipe like a cross I see antibiotics
In the eyes of livestock and bank vaults
In bottles of milk—monoculture former
Weapons manufacturer trademarks
The science of pouring money on forest
Fires. Phoenix or bust. My new boots
Advertised as last rites wading into
Quantum cereal fields both antistate and
State subsidised—the Perseids as my
Herbicide for sheer abundance of gilded
Plants more dead than alive.
Industrial formationsWe’ve taken metaphors to heart stream
-ing assets wedded to soul-searching
The statusquo. Everyone is a nature story
In lucrative environments even the moon
Bestowed upon us by healthy competition.
If only mindfulness meant remembering
Survival of the fittest was never Blitzkrieg
And not to get all instructional video in a
Poem but we owe the modern alpha male
Meme to a 1947 study of eight caged wolves
And when you observe functional packs
In the wild you see none of those dynamics
That are great tools for class warfare.
Causality was backwards: cooperation isn’t
A byproduct of harsh environments it’s
The engine—yet some razor-thin plateaus
Hold the ideal temperature range for loners.
Evolution is no arms race—what’re rockets
To penicillin for the clinically president—
What’s market for trying to escape your
Footprints. Look inwards and glimpse that
Early model capital and the spirit level of
Excess in your very own chemistry they say
—foreign investment like losing your house
Is just a state of mind. My goal is to never see
Another lawn again in the state wasteland
As privatised stress. The difference between
A peak and a valley is the brink of extinction.
Gravel highwaysHere comes the wellness juggernaut boom
-ing intentions on sage water—gold cobalt
Sapphires quartz all part of the same old
Story. When did the rose of time get so
Complex from windup clocks to universally
Coordinated zones and confronting our
Death cult. The road only gets built when
There’s something they want to get out
—crystal concrete for the crystal coloniser
—bricks of angeline and labradorite mortar
Heaping these stones into my salt pyramids.
There is no budget even for child labour
Backs strained against the darkness polished
Dust in the weave of lungs like forgotten
Clothes. I suppose most people would take
Cheap healing power over clean fusion energy
And I want to mine lithium for FMRI machines
In hospitals just not laptop batteries. Number
One priority is to be surrounded by crystals
So why not try mineral uranium as an anti-
depressant: if it would mean the last sale ever
The final astrological lawsuit for there is no
Healing power in middlemen. Grass glitters
Like sharp knives through cracked earth as sun
-light bends out of sight through earth’s prism.
Loose wallDrowning in powdered milk swept up
On the tide of facial recognition—
Rose quartz on wooden shelves ringing
Like an overture the bells of erosion.
Drill once for industry and twice for
Evolution’s random walk falling down
For you for the forever’th time.
Questions at all costs where forward is
Westward the very idea of “flaw” my
Closest allegory—a broad spectrum
Prophylactic doing thinking feeling.
It’s important to walk home in the cold
From the funeral even if you have other
Options. Headphones on your commute
Are the enemy and evolution is a terrible
Metaphor for technology. For all its supposed
Networking evolution doesn’t spend billions
Provoking love and care of social surveillance
Nets. Imagine one day analysing the surname
Manager just as you would Fletcher. Getting
Comfortable with guilt as it usually means
I have something I shouldn’t—so much so
Innocence feels like lack. More quality time
—handmade—where no loop is inevitable.
Opting out of natural selection. Walking
Away from even the idea of opting out.
- 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