What does the street know?
both of its centuries
have disappeared
this was
a manufacturing warehouse
now a fitness gym
a cafe an imported
fancy european bike outlet
this was a corner shopthe police never come here
to this whatever,
who’d phone for them
no one burns a car round here
not for insurance not for fun
no one burns anything, no rageeddie says you’d have to choose
audi soft top sports car?
4 wheel drive weed spreader?
‘police cars are always good’we’re at 107 Projects
astrid’s artwork’s pinned up
white A4 sheets
prose paragraphs
against the grey wallheld by her line,
coinciding with mine
(written independently of hers)
‘The use value of a breakup
is thus the capacity
to steal and burn a car’
i.e. she concludes
a paragraph of prose
on avoiding
‘the pathology of heartbreak’
(astrid lorange)*
things I never say to friends
whenever I talk to them
email takes
too much typing
to explain
anyway it’s all scroll or arrow
next messagewhat I meant was
I’d talk about today’s news
the picture of the boy
being tasered to deathwho ever chooses
‘law & order’or
austerity measures –
veiled ideologies
in untroubled countriesor
the ‘high’ alert upgrade
the ASIO guy introduces
on the eve of his retirement,
a gold watch grenade(war on error
war on death cult
same same same
endless error)*
decrepit mentors
who won’t retire
grooming acolytes
for true belief
charmed, flocking
to their transformationothers seem to survive
somewhere
where everything
is ‘after baudelaire’
though actually
after him
is renée vivienthrowaway scraps
flashes & slips
notes on reverse sides
of receipts, envelopes,
paper tickets
in pencil or pen,
my method*
for hours, I can sit
in a plastic chair
looking interested
(recently
for two & a half
hours)
at any meeting or eventlife has brought me privacy
mental lurking
researching twenty-four-sevenin the background
dub incorporated
roots music I suppose
nothing to do
with this actual culture,
here,
but available to me
& I am a white person*
in a world
that really
has been turned
on its head
truth
is a moment
of falsehood__________________________
It was autumn
osama bin laden
had just been
dropped into the oceanwe continued remembering
time was becoming
less & lessno one had heard of
the ebola river –
we used to call that place
‘warring zaire’
now the democratic republic
of the congo*
some kind of concert
or documentary
shouting from the radio
sounds like conflict
a female complainant
‘a singer & a poet’ending up
listed in a chapter –
The Invisible Women
of Australian Poetry
in mid-C21
a young lesbian’s
research projectin the nineteen seventies
a man could be
‘an honorary woman’
& attend
women’s liberation
collective meetings,
sometimes*
capital is one thing
life has not brought me
Catalyst Money,
not a bank,
a smartalternative
my account
is a dwindler
their emphasis on smartmoney buys stuff
there’s probably
more stuff than people*
the virus
is returning
to its source__________________________
The only things that are true
are exaggerations
the dreams do not dreamoodgeroo noonuccal
gave me back
the problem
long before
I knew she didwhiteness
then
over forty years ago
kevin gilbert told us
‘white australia’
should leave
‘black australia’
alone.he was right.
‘diversity’
sounds positive
not irrefutablethose parts of the day
when you’re disconcerted
(often)*
crawl in the flint
on abandoned
open-cut floors
eat dust cry sticky tears
break skin give upimpossible
to not be
what the implications
of any history make you
to not be
part of a white default
all you ever do
discontinues only
a skerrick
of its futile record_______________________________
Outside the clinic
‘incompleteness
was our only hope’
says amanda
right into my ears
direct from the player
I already know
there’s no purpose,
there’s only life,
living,
but she’s talking about
the 20th century
not about today
now
at the hospital,
experimental stammering
altered words aphasia
breath distorted confab
turning noise to sound,
a live vocal performance
(amanda stewart
‘matter in the mouth’)
broadcast on radio
last weekso, ‘incompleteness’
- 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