October 2011
5 posts
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September 2011
9 posts
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#81
Sliver
To me a sliver must always
recall the heady halcyon days
of youth, and Magic cards.
Slivers came in every colour,
black and white and red all over,
as well as blue and green.
Each sliver’s stat-augmenting skill
applied to all its kin til killed,
the whole the sum of parts.
And though I sold or gave away
my cards some years ago, today
I think of slivers still.
I think...
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#80
Sonnet of Sleep
Last night, as I lay lying in a deep
and downy, doona’d slumber, there arose
such phantasms as manifest in sleep
(or SBS late-night slash early shows) –
a night parade of hypothetic selves,
all variations on the theme of me,
I saw a mop-haired tubby boy of twelve,
a thinner, stubbled self at twenty three;
a me with thicker gut, but thinner hair,
and one who held a...
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Dream: September 2011
T and I were at a bar with D and H. There were carts laden with cakes and it was dark. I had possession of a book that was blank, but as I turned the pages hand writing was appearing. David Bowie’s writing. David Bowie was writing to me through the book. I walked out of the bar with the book and into Collingwood. As soon as I entered Collingwood I was lost. But it was okay, David Bowie was...
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#79
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Remembering rapt and rigorous attention,
how we sat in silence, as the speakers hissed
wails and warbles from whereabouts unknown.
Approaching Pavonis Mons, preaching the word
of Wayne, wild-eyed warrior-poet, grey
hair and heartful, heliotropic sound
issued forth to function as finally, this:
a bridge not yet burnt by being forgotten.
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#78
Love Song (or, I Can Haz Peach Flannel Trousers?)
Michelangelo rubs the window-panes
rubs the chimneys
time yet for
toast and tea
Michelangelo will wonder,
his hair rich and thin
should I?
should I?
I, white in the lamplight,
with light brown hair
should I then?
should I begin?
at dusk through the smoke
lonely men lean out of windows
while sunsets and teacups
trail along...
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March 2011
10 posts
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#77
reading log
The first book I read this year took four weeks to finish. The second has taken four days. If I can keep up this pace, I’ll read the next in a little over twelve hours, the following in two, and the fifth in about fifteen minutes. While the kettle boils I can read my sixth, and while opening a packet of Tim Tams I can polish off the seventh. I can scratch my arse and read the...
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#73
Chekhov
The story (so it goes)
is that Anton Chekhov,
asked by a colleague
his method of composition,
picked up an ashtray
and, brandishing it, said,
“Tomorrow I will write
a story called The Ashtray.”
When all we have
is what we have on hand,
even a dirty, ashen saucer
is a welcome friend.
February 2011
46 posts
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#72
Some subground dive
(this nightmare club)
where skeltons jive
to big bass dub-
step’s boom-a-boom.
While grinding hips,
those in the room
stand on the tips
of tarsals, meta-
tarsals - brittle
digits better
fit for little
more than lying
still. Yet for our sins
we all are dying
to get in.
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#71
at the back of the moon
hollow, for all we know
the Platonic form of the cave
a perfect soup spoon, a soap dish
filled with the shadows of astronauts
dancing on the sunlined lip
casting silhouettes of long bodies
through no atmosphere
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#70
Scorpion trails me for three days. Fitting we should meet here, in this place. Sun scorches clouds to tatters, offering no relief from the heat. My heart races but my mind is still. I stand with my back to the sea, not ten metres from where he stands. Watching me.
“It’s time,” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
We run towards one another. The sun keeps shining.
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#69
muffled reading, overheard
Was she waiting there,
pretty, stupid?
Of course she was -
I’d done it myself.
Antibiotics and penicillin on the wall -
how to know it was safe?
You must understand:
no one got hurt. People got better.
If you want me to tell the whole truth,
the politicians should at least allow me another gun.
You must understand:
I was not safe.
I use my own...
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#68
tea-making discourse for two with unresolved tension
- Tea?
- Yes, please. - What sort? Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Chamomile…?
- Er, Earl Grey is fine, thanks. - Sugar?
- Just one. - Mistletoe?
- What? - Just kidding.
- Oh… ha. - Unicorn?
- Would it fit in the cup? - You’re right. Best not, then.
- Got any arsenic? - God! Do you have to be so morbid all the time?
- What? I was...
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#67
Handy Hints
Keeping the wolf from the door plays an important role in the life of any good housewife or househusband. At the first signs of lupine incursion upon the property of yourself and your beloved, one is advised to take up arms against this rag-pelted, skin-and-bone sea of troubles and by opposing end them. Though specialist small arms and rifles are available (provided local licensing...
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#66
The imaginary passengers of the forking plane are like you and me - accustomed to taking the wonder of flight for granted, they sleep, eat, read. One or two, however, may glance out across a breakfast terrain, take in the steaming calderas of coffee cups, the arid, crumbless expanses of table, the mountain range of scramble eggs rising up from toasted mesa, golden ropey roads run glistening from...
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#65
the sharp-eyed boy
the sharp-eyed boy
(the pointy-eyed youth)
sees
disused dogs nosing about back alleys
small snakes terrorising toddlers with hisses
the glint of gold in a pile of shop floor sweepings
the spread of feet against the fat, flat rubber of thongs
those sharp and pointed peepers
don’t do much for him
except keep him amused
N first tomorrow
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#64
Ling ling ling ling: every time I see you, I get down on my knees and pray.
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#63
how paisley is made
well, you see,
when two patterns
love each other
very, very much
stripes and spots, say,
or microchecks and plaid
they’re hung in wardrobes
real close together,
so their fabrics
rub up against each other
and then, some time later,
you get a tiny textile
a pocketsquare, perhaps,
or neckerchief, or
some other old-fashioned
fashion accoutrement
with...
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