a white boat

for the first moment
the song is your hard life

a voice dreams your thought
your spirit with all its riot

as here music moves through night
and the city lodges in you

you say "I’ve just one other sea
one city more than this”

but your corpse will also enter
reminiscent of all aphrodisiacs

consequently, though you destroy
the white boat is here only for you

each road is not a possible road
since you ruined time

each number walks alone
and its uproar disturbs the pushes

each judgement has its secrecy
the shutdowns of therefore

each possible way
will destroy and endure, only you

difficult memory -a cycle

1.
Trouble
this night
will move
loneliness

its hesitant shade
soaking
asphalt sleep

the heads of
walkers
trembling


Pleasure
I wake with fever day

I make a greeting as yield

softening this evening
of remorse
howling with the dogs


Memory
the ravages
the city

not visible any more

the tombs
at last


Goodbye
human flowers
start words
filled with
long time
leaven of
an abyss


2.
Trouble
night also winds
its coil of hesitant colour
on wet bitumen
where sleep lends
its trembling


Wish
Observes its fever
of daily wake up

as fruit softens
remorse forms its dog
which destroys
memory


Recall
ravished suns
the city is not quite the grave


Valediction
a long time somehow
to be adjusted
which is a song of the world

filled with a miracle wild-life span
an abyss is a drug


3.
Difficulty
night equals
its isolation
coiled
the color of bitumen
bathed in half-sleep
tremolo of a driver


Beadings of Pleasure
Fervent, wide awake
daily paper, a good salute for now

apple shapes remorse
evening’s growl


Apart
those beatings of the sun
a city encrypted
not to last


Taking Leave
Beloved, in some way
not to be recorded

that is, uninstructed

it’s just the beginning
of closing
a word filled up
wild with miracle
like the abyss


4.
Struggle
this also equals night
this insulated ring
colours that sleep
point to hesitation
and where it’s heading


Delight
with wide zeal
according to the news

for good
the fruits forms

more night, that desert


Reminiscence
the villa
overthrows the visible
is not at last


Farewell
loved some way
more then not
close and human
now above miracle
the wild mine
as abyss


5.
Difficulty
tonight equals the east
insulated by sleep

a point in the road
wires leading

that hesitation
trembles and watches


Pleasure
the title
the program
the pilot

a newspaper
an accord
a fever

for good
with fruit
on form

of night
of remorse
of the one dog

that


Memory
that a sun predatory

of that house, overthrown

visible and dear

the last of


Goodbye
much is certain tho’ grey

of the way more than not

that the instructed world

is not one of poetry

*

And Memory
of the desert
of destruction
who closes

limpid as one word
wild mind
as the abyss

sydney tonight

Well, Sydney did Earth Hour tonight: billed as a "commitment to reducing global warming". So, a lot of the lights of the city were turned off for an hour tonight. Don't think anyone else in the world did it. Did they?

Annette and I dug out a few candles and turned off our lights and most other stuff for an hour from 7.30 pm till 8.30 pm. Well, a little bit before and after, an Earth Hour And A Quarter.

Although the lights were supposed to go out around the CBD, I walked up the street to the ridge around 8.20 pm and noticed that, while some of our streets seemed quite dark, the city was still a bit lit. I waited till 8.30 and not much happened, no great flood of light again. I met a neighbour who wondered as well. I said maybe it's because it's a Saturday and not many building lights would have been on anyway. Anyway, I got to talk to some of the neighbours I hadn't really met before.

Annette had decided she would stay home, so she wasn't with me. She was watching the World Championship swimming and wanted to see that gorgeous French swimmer, Laure Manadou, win the 400. Which she didn't. An American won. Yet again. Oh well. But the Yanks don't seem to be quite as arrogant as they used to be, so you don't mind it. They are good at the moment. And the Australians aren't quite so arrogant, either. Well, nothing to be arrogant about, really. Australia isn't winning that much. Though the Aussie girl's relay win was enjoyable. Good to see swimmers from Sweden, Korea, Tunisia, etc, win something over the last week. And it's only a splash in a pool.

a daily piece

we never realised until
that we’d not connived inside
as raising order and the yard
our hero was, the sky

of that daily piece, its poor
deforms a way that fears
a left thing slightly butterfly
a tap in firmament, direct

light is reaming distance
more that’s separated
then together to an ocean
the illumined system, never

hear seas of the flawed totality
that’s torn a brigand of the ether
a veil was to reveal me this
and all within, the zone

and distance, as surely I approached
its digging continued angles
motives of a food, alfalfa saturates
reputed forces, a layer

the flagstone’s vector is a time
one remains, computer as a place
with that crow, whose nevermore
is the crosspiece, my irony

still, here’s pieces of the way
along that bird of speech
they wait with my internal part
that caws with which, and more

another saturday

It's a state election day today.
We lined up like good citizens and cast our potsherds into the pile.
Not much of a choice, Mr Fluffy and Mr Budgie.
Whoever you vote for, a politician always gets in.
The schools will still be a shambles, the train system will continue breaking down and we will now have to drink desalinated water.

Then we went and had a late breakfast, caught a train to town and saw the manga exhibition (good cattledog).
It had rained by the time we got back, wet washing, blessed water.

Still as humid as, and still awaiting the change.

election poem

Stations
have not wrapped around you
as string sounds might
if they may, autumn
or June cold coming close.

March is still safe
march on like a highway.
Uncertainty magnifies loud voices
the little tyrannies
of boredom.

Perhaps sex on a train
would be quick.
Fuck the indicators!
They mean nothing.

The city’s spilt seed
is gashed by taxis.
I have no balls to hide
nothing to hang on to
the levers don’t work anyway.

Maybe it’s an election
strategy you’re too tired
to believe in -
the sore arse and the sorry breast
whipped and milked.

Perhaps it’s more fun
than breathing.

more newness

Tom Beckett interviews me at e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e-v-a-l-u-e-s. Yes, the lines are open between NSW and Ohio.

It took a little while because of all the to-do I've been through lately. But I did get it together eventually.

Enjoy! And thanks, Tom. It was fun.

(Read all the other interviews as well.)

some new things on-line

The new edition of foam:e is now online. Poets featured include Michael Aiken, Marcia Arrieta, Chris Bell, Iain Britton, Joanne Burns, Sam Byfield, Jill Chan, Alison Eastley, Raymond Farr, Kristin Hannaford, Libby Hart, Anne Heide, Donald Illich, Carol Jenkins, SK Kelen, Misbah Khokhar, Heather Matthew, Vlanes (Vladislav Nekliaev), Maurice Oliver, Jody Porter, Ynes Sanz, Nathan Shepherdson, Louise Waller, Samuel Wharton, Les Wicks and Jena Woodhouse.

And Les Wicks has put together a homage to poets who have either taken part in or will take part in the Festival International de la Poésie at Trois-Rivières, Quebec. Poets featured include Bernard Ascal, Gaston Bellemare, Maxianne Berger, Eric Charlebois, Sylvestre Clancier, David Fraser, Abigail Friedman, Paul Gilbert, Philip Hammial, Jill Jones, Marcel Labine, Martin Langford, Dyane Léger, Erik Lindner, Rufo Quintavalle, Daniel Samoilovich, Paul Savoie, Lambert Schlechter, Carolyn Marie Souaid, Jacques Tornay & Hyam Yared.

meme-ing

OK I tagged some folks regarding the meme that Tom Beckett tagged me for. Here's the results from Ivy, Andrew and Ernesto. I also tagged Chris Murray but she seems to be having some internet isshews in Bahrain.

Perhaps there's some common threads: rain or water, rock or stone, streets, weather, smell (scent), touch, music or something percussive.

thanks

Thank you to all who've wished me well (and offered virtual chicken soup), on-line and off.

One day at a time.

You can't worry about what can't be changed (my brother told me that last week).

notes

Write slowly and compose in air
Your mind walks with ghosts on the ceiling
Stand as you move into your limbs
Love your fences and stone as you may
There’s no reply that won’t hurt you

outside books - a meme

Tom Beckett tagged me with this meme:

"I now propose a new tag: Things which one has read and has been influenced by which are not confined to those paper-bound vessels of the printed word we refer to as books. Let's call these Non-Books. Or maybe Impossible Books. Or Limen Books? It's up to you."

--J. Bradshaw

Could be lots of things but here's some:

raking light

the emptiness of afternoon at home, while sick, punctuated with fugitive neighbourhood sounds, machinery buzz, cars, birds (this comes from childhood)

the smell of jasmine in september spring

beginning to cook a meal, bringing the ingredients together, to the oil

the smell of rain on summer streets

the beginning of so many old songs (too numerous ...) - that strum, tick of percussion, bass rumble

the birds outside our back window

the sound of the mail arriving, even if it will be crap or bills

watching the sky, clouds, weather from a work desk

the smell of railway stations

breeze on skin

a hand on a body and the various meanings of this


I tag Ivy Alvarez, Ernesto Priego, Andrew Burke and Chris Murray.

as a distraction

I've been pretty unwell for more than two weeks, in bed on and off.

Went back to work twice, too soon.

There's unwellness in the family.

It has been extremely stressful, and so, no posts.

But I made myself this afternoon.