YESTERDAY WHEN I didn’t kiss
the IT guy, the whole world fell apart.
A staticky electricity
now fills the air as I wait on
a letter that might not ever arrive.
It’s been teeming down all week, windy
as hell, sideways rain. I wore leaky
boots so wet feet all day on Wednesday
and my umbrella broke on Thursday.Footpaths are littered with abandoned
umbrellas like dead wet birds, over-
flowing bins. Trains are packed and steamy,
days are getting dark by four o’clock.
Good things do happen. A book cover
I illustrated arrives, I do
a little dance, the designer does
several, the author will dance a jig
when his copy arrives in the post.But something else is still going on.
My All-Important Urgent Files dis-
appear. Digital mayhem ensues.
The typesetter wants the corrections
by fax or email. I try the fax;
it jams. When I try it again it
goes off like an alarm. I try turn-
ing it off and on again – and it
goes berserk. A fucking fax machine.I give up and leave to meet my friends,
forget to take my new umbrella.
Walking from Central to the dumpling
place I keep seeing mail vans. I think
of the letter I long for and dread
that doesn’t seem on its way to me.
Of course I miss the dumpling place and
walk into a pub, walk back on out,
find the right restaurant and join my friends.We eat dumplings and talk about how
the IT guy has a crush on me.
My friends say it’s because he wasn’t
at work today that everything went
haywire. I wonder if he’s thinking
about me, I hope he’s not thinking
about me. Is this IT madness
all bad karma for rejecting him
sent out from the ether straight to me?I leave the restaurant and it’s raining.
I get stuck at Central for an hour
waiting for
the train on platform nine-
teen terminates here please do not join
this train the train on platform 19
terminates here the train on platform
19 terminates here please do not
join do not join this train on platform
please do not join do not join this trainAt the other end I walk through rain,
I think of the train I’m trying to
get off, wondering where I’m going,
how I hope and dread there’s a letter
waiting for me at home. I hope it
says the things the IT guy told me.
I would marry you in a heartbeat.
Can we get a dog, even a cat?
Who cares what has happened in the pastwhat happens is
now walking the wet
night street, I think of how it will end.
There will be no letter waiting and
I’ll curl up in bed with the two cats,
I’ll think of my new painting of my
small bright candle in the other room
and its warm steady flame in the dark.
I open the letterbox.
It’s there.I take it out and bring it inside.
I hold the letter but can’t open
it yet because everything will change.
I sit down to write. I draft this poem.
Shortly when I open it, will I
destroy it? Will I destroy this poem?
I see the stamp’s a rose that says LOVE.
A bug’s half squished on the envelope,
moving.
I know how you feel, buddy.
- 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