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 shop
the 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 rage
eddie 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 wall
held 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 message
what I meant was

I’d talk about today’s news

the picture of the boy

being tasered to death
who ever chooses

     ‘law & order’ 
or 
austerity measures –

veiled ideologies

in untroubled countries
or
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 transformation 
others seem to survive

somewhere

where everything

is ‘after baudelaire’

    though actually

    after him

    is renée vivien
throwaway 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 event
life has brought me privacy

mental lurking

researching twenty-four-seven
in 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 ocean
we continued remembering

time was becoming

less & less
no 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 project
in 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 smart
money 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 dream    
oodgeroo noonuccal

gave me back

the problem

long before

I knew she did
whiteness
then

over forty years ago

kevin gilbert told us

   ‘white australia’

    should leave

   ‘black australia’

    alone. 
he was right. 
‘diversity’

sounds positive

not irrefutable  
those 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 up
impossible

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 week
so, ‘incompleteness’