It’s the first mistake when the gloom floats in
switching through the channels of late night television
that palindrome of double-ues
it only casts you down, no matter
how bright-lit: and lo!
the ultrasharp reflection of the LCD
what God provides as harvest
‘His’ curious judgment seems most days
more a test, or so you’d like to think.
Something après testament style
having woken in a fugue in a motel room
edging the ocean. Beneath the ruins. End of the end.
The room is filled with humming objects
and despite customary domestic detail
(peach bedspread, aforementioned whitegood
hum)(No minibar, but of course a Bible)
you otherwise can’t quite place it.
It’s not the night itself, that non-illuminated other
more a problem of reference, self-citation
all the miracles of human intervention
from prophets to apostate thumbs
shuttles to the moon, funnel into this
one dumb stroke of a well thumbed newspaper
a feature on package holidays, poolside cocktails
plastic palm trees because you deserve it your chance
to eat hearts on the beach.
And the Devil’s Book
what the world will have whether they will or no
is jammed, tunned
¼ History & ¾ CNN
MH370 descends and descends
Nietzsche’s dead & Nozick’s wrong & Nitschke
advertises plastic headbags on a chatshow & Christ
knows the anaesthesia is not going the distance. No matter
the time you spend on mental state theories of well-being
sooner or later you gotta towel off
perch the side of that cracked tub, face the mirror
see. Cos this whole day you’ve stared and stared
like the world’s the sum of your own botched work
and—what?—any surprise
tonight you’re snapped right off your pencil?
emptied? utterly fucked out by it all
having woken as driftnets from News of the World
trawl the high Cs of your cerebellum
and now nothing’s left but bycatch.
So why wouldn’t you pass out to the beach
spend the night raving with some lunatic of a backpacker
a refugee from the 60s dream
embedded with the graffiti
blowing great blunt hits
streetlight dark pavilion gone
looming shadow of civilisation
crumbling beyond the wall saying
I don’t talk about nothin man
I don’t even read the paper
I took my device and dug it down
one foot by one foot six right
n pushed back the sand
man, that’s what I did
and tonight of nights this speaks to you
a wisdom beyond compare.
Swallow your words, bury yourself
drink nothing but sand
and when you’re good and baked
swim out past the breakers
into that pitching black
to float on your back
indeterminate a blob as blobs might be
one chunk of rock adrift between suns
& this is what you’re thinking, yes
launch yourself to the fates
see if water buoys, what weed
sends in thin tentacles up from the deep
and if you’re gifted back to sky, back to air
back to the swell and heave of below and above
if you’re gifted back to the cities, empires, continents,
back to the red lights of Campbell Parade
then ascending the reef and depth
from the terrible mouth of Mariana
the angel trumpet blaring stars
a word will shape that dark
into the hallowed face of love.Shivering a little as the wind comes up
walking home DNA of helix rounds
in the down-hung bark of eucalypts
sweeping the night trees
footpath’s shifting knuckles
undersole bones of your feet
bare shanks, and all of it utterly foreign and particular
from headland to headland the colour tuned a dream of physics
wild indivisible hues. Meantime you mutter
solemn promises to a future-self: to never
read below the line, toss the brochure, turn out
the lights, the JWs, the relatives,
and never, never watch the credits
they run without end and say nothing you’ll remember
Listen to the morning, you say
Listen to the light
Listen to the only creature talking
pure sense, that magpie
warbling gospels to a strangeness of coming day
and by suchlike landmarks might you navigate
back unto the world.
Crash on the sofa TV/off
newspapers burned/binned
and drifting into unconsciousness
you figure: wallow a little if it takes you
but you didn’t sell the world
and you don’t have to buy it back
although, hazily, you have been online shopping
and waking some morning hence
you will find yourself in a motel room
you recognise but vaguely
filled with humming objects
and through the window The Pacific
will exhale in rolling dumps.
- 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