Sunday, April 30, 2017

Rob Schackne #318 - "A lie you have"


A lie you have
to be merciful
I don't know
anyway today
on the eve of
workers day
the dead men
the dead women

the dead children
everybody's in
the ditches

the long fields
the factories
this one life

your favourite
your best bones
every little bit

come Monday
what's reality
all you threw away
you're fucked


Sand # 100 Claine Keily

She stared at
the lights in the distance
remembering her dreams
of attending a university
by the seaside
but she moved
to places she did not know then
refused to be a wife
swore herself childless
and tried to help her mother
drive a car
then found that all her mother could do
was signal suddenly
and pull off the road
declaring her hatred of
highways and the local
roundabout even

Afterwards she sat on the
sofa and listened to her
mother discuss the price of cat
food, the need to buy more
vinegar to wash the floors
with, while the beach across the
road was never visited and became
a complaint of salt laden
air and perilous
drifting sand

Kerri Shying R # 230 - Creationism


Creationism

I best get the washing out,
 best get some food on
 ought take the
 long pre-plastered strips of fabric
 press them to my breasts

create a  pot plant holder destiny 
the western garden   some admirer yes

every woman steals the day every woman
runs away            the half-plucked chook of daytime
pressed up hard into the underarm
a thing of some contention harbouring
one pocket             this escaping daylight
run for it
 girl run

Stuart Rawlinson #17 - Nightwalks

There are thousands of people
On the empty streets
In low-lit living rooms
The news is discussed
In hushed tones
A cinema screen
Projects the game onto
The street
Silently
I miss
The score
Striding up
misplaced
Roman roads
Past roadside shrines
Ducking under nature
Hopping over rabbit holes
The sound of nothing
Enveloped and equalised
By overhanging branches

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Rob Schackne #317 - Jupiter Tonight

Jupiter Tonight


Jupiter tonight
explain light rip
slowly accrete 
with the years
a perfection

or its potential
young I thought
seconds passed
a bank of girls
a school of fishes
rush comes home
then goes out 
a certain flower 
from the past
gathered like
the four moons
collecting love
it was perfect

Kristen de Kline #92 Litigation Blues

rumours of take-overs mergers offers     shadow the corridors
paper-work slaps your desk   the words 'good faith' reverberate
through the two page disclaimer    
some sort of sick joke     remember that old TV show
you get the money I get the paper bag

hollow bones
empty deals carve emptier words
out of Autumn air     men, coal blackened, hollowed out     drift around Lawless  
ghostly girls     pale blue dresses     linger by rusted out cars, bonnets up
windows down     laughter    that's all you can
make out      laughter        

the sky

might be amethyst     bring it on
the new car caviar four star daydream
clouds turn a darker shade of     violet, brooding
stars writhe around tensely, like little fish  
somebody flounders,  finds it hard
to breathe   breathe-in-out-in-out 
pass me my puffer

ghostly hollow

bones men     fire off paperwork
stopwastingtimespacelegalfees       no more sick jokes
not in the mood     really      not in the mood
bones laugh men dance     time kisses
slaps     runs     away
five little figures and a blue circle flee
from a lawyer's notebook     stars fit and
tremble    nobody comes up for air    wigs and robes wheeze
in the courthouse     darkness drifts
around  

slappin' time  
     running     away  
     coming     undone
is this your idea of fun


Kerri Shying R # 229 At the Savoy


At the Savoy

that light fitting looks like
a busted arse

see I made you laugh 
 I made you look
and why you crying

girl anyways     they’d never get the duster into there

there’s me reluctant but the drink
 on the long teak bar top
sticky ringed             says yes

 and me the one to clean it              
you know that I bet

he wriggled his stool a bit closer
 ahhh
always a girl
like you

*( with thanks to my cousin Paul Roff for the first line)

Stuart Rawlinson #16 - And Normal Service Must Resume

And normal service must resume at once.
Between the cold and draughty waiting rooms
Stern men with grave and greyer voices wait
For a change, for a thaw, for news from the radio, but

Unanswered broadcasts are sent without reply.
Some wooden benches dragged around a stove
The porous insulation of last stands
Diluted and dissolved in snow globe skies.

Yellow fingernails through old gloves poke
The dial melts as fast as church stained glass
Harsh static, flicker and mirage of sound
Cankers exponential loss of hope.

Delayed, delayed again, the homebound train
The waiting riders who regale with cultural
Tales and touchpoints, progressivelly removed
‘Til home becomes myth, legend and empty stage

The dented tea urn barely simmers now -
Its steam slowed down and hanging in mid-air.
The clock, long stopped, still strikes and fills the room
And lights that once burned bright replaced by shadow.

Outside, below the platform and fresh snow
On steel tracks, on settled sleepers of stone
Lines defy perspective and dim time
And normal service must resume at once.

Stuart Rawlinson #15 - Lichen Facts

No, you've got it all wrong
Tipsy-turvy in fact
The voice of Mr Bolton
Second Year geography teacher
Reminded me at 3am this morning
Like some rubbish Dickens
Ghost of high school past
Lichens thrive on clean air
CLEAN AIR
Cructose, Foliose
Leprose lichen
What am I doing, standing here
Day after day
Teaching you for
If you can't tell the difference
Between lichen and spore?

Rob Schackne #316 - "a classic use"


a classic use
of space
fill it
with emptiness

play it again
leave off
fly backwards
a classic use
of birds
norwegian wood
all that jazz 
stand by
a breeze

Friday, April 28, 2017

Kerri Shying R # 228 Symbio ( at the Animal Gardens)


Symbio ( at the Animal Gardens)

here you come wassailing  
on the whimper   on the turn

I don’t like your friends Jeffrey
 ok mum just eat the vegetables

too easily   the labels
glue themselves append  

 I turn you over            over       the bad penny 
is it you              is it me 

who is tied up where’s the tree



Kit Kelen #478 - spring - Genarp


478
spring – Genarp
at the Sundmark Castle

for Björn and Karin and Oskar and (absent) Sigrid and for Göran too


I know this home
black labrador guarded
sinks in the lawn come up

I must have dreamt a way back here
the place was in my head all night
in a basement and the stairs crept up

here's a welcome sun comes calling
curls with cat on kitchen couch

still frost on the shaded lawn this morning
(in Sweden no sun too much)

then grey clouds gather
grey clouds go
trees reach
in buds we show

I remember this garden
in feet of snow
and yesterday fine hail piled thick

every kind of weather comes
still spring is king
and will be crowned
sun streaming morning bright
to show the season home





Kit Kelen #477 - Genarp


477
Genarp
25.4.17

having not yet arrived
I have to guess a way
out in the bright of it

still in my head in another zone
where seasons matter much less

here, grey in the sun's way, green
light breeze forgetting scarf

moss bright
struck by sun
budded to bliss
now fully birded

everything in the queue to be
and all begun again

all winter strong still standing
here where the weekend was
mud of wheels makes

I was worried I might get lost with the dog
but Gimli knows the way

there's wind like traffic through the trees
red fungus from the stump
and on the yellow trail

moss of the log
in the snow's steps trod
roots for tripping
bogs for dog

ghosts bright the night
where corpses sink
but that's another story

who's like a horse
still anxious to obey?

Genarp, all led off by seasons
in crow calls, swan dives
ducks dodging on

it's here I have to imagine a circle
with little rabbits on their run
to guess a way

with Gimli
snuffle-hound
flowers in the head
clouds of you following
or am I led?

out in the bright of it
grey in the sun's way

moss bright
struck by sun
in budded bliss

world bird begun
all this and this

I lack the understanding to be here
and yet here I am 






Rob Schackne #315 - "Only a bit indelicate"


Only a bit indelicate
tonight here in the sky
I look up with my chart

to find that I'm looking at
the constellation Scorpius
the showpiece of the Way
next to the star Antares
its heart is equal-to-war
next to constellation Libra
with its faint claws of justice
now that I'm thinking about

this old cell-minded thing
I might pinch those stars
for their abrupt division

a wee bit wet when tired
today you flew over China
the cells are neverminded

(see a thousand Buddhas)
on balance the night is clear
maybe not such a division
we are both poetic now

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Kit Kelen #476 - the nation trick again


476
the nation trick again
Anzac Day, 2017

wrapped in a flag
and all salute
some colour of the skin
not random
the nation trick
as empires conjure
as cash is raked

can't a white man say
we all Sisyphus salute
house on the hill
we're out of the trenches
to climb

but I won't make it
and neither will you

we're wrapped in a flag
so a corpse will sing
we're only following orders

who's up there shining
better than the ones
who'd do it all away?

the soldier's unknown
it's the nation trick

and do it again
here because we're here
mud made us

dig until there's gold

there have been things
worth dying for
but are there still today?


Kerri Shying R # 227 Litigation


Litigation

the closest I will get to overseas   New Zealand
and this candle

name of Monet’s Garden 
that picture   in my memory

nothing you can do to me 
 is stealing it away

Stuart Rawlinson #14 - The Lichen Hunt

When I was at school
We were told
Lichen is an indicator
Of pollution 
So the geography teacher
Despatched us 
(with parental signatures)
To spot, count, measure
All the lichens around town
Lichen on stone walls
Lichen on bus stops
Lichen on drain pipes
Each one unique
A universe exploded
In slow motion 
Across the side 
Of the corner shop
Each one green, purple
Furry, hijacking moss
Mustard cracked 
Sulphur thick crust
Pores stretching south
Following the Earth's rotation
As fast as they could 

Rob Schackne #314 - "Don't know if this is"


Don't know if this is
a happy piece or not
(a good Marvel comic
or a bad bedtime story)
but what would happen
if our minds got stuck
inside the smallest particle
our being would it be lost
& if so how could we be found

in our fever and our blood
running late for day
at the field hospital
in the hollow building
I guess not happy at all


Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Kerri Shying R # 226 - Be my back up


Be my back up

some backs   are heaped  up  
pack animals of the bunch

no question of a straw
 being thrown on 

creak 
you snap

it’s all take
that   and  that    that  that  and that

some backs
 get up fast

 srr zirr  
 the cat backs 

all claws and
fussy bowl placement             

some backs are quarter backs
 padded up

and hell bent
for the touch down

back me up baby 
when I’m jackknifed  
a box trailer 

 far from elegant
jack me up baby

 go
get the spare

Stuart Rawlinson #13 - Waiting Room Blues

Sixty minutes
Give or take
A century or two
In the hospital waiting
Room. The senseless room
Where appointments are
Like one way streets
Strip lights buzz
Taxi phones flash
The unemployed in
Occupational therapy
The notice board
Starts a heart attack
Don't drink
Don't smoke or
You'll be back in
No time - there's 
Always enough time in 
The waiting room

Rob Schackne #313 - "It follows poets"


It follows poets
& you don't know
(not personally)
the thing itself
what do you do
ratbags everywhere
origin (of course) unknown
helpless   no
senseless   maybe
don't fash yourself
probably won't lose much
(except the thing)
look both ways
cross the lawless road
don't give up your heart

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Kristen de Kline #91 - chrome car corpses

flapping birds look down on red
wheel barrows     white
cats     stalk along a hot tin
roof    fidget under bonnets of chrome car
corpses  

the man with hollow bones and white sugar
breath     tells you that someone has slashed the Zephyr
tyres     the world is
spun     children drain her
blood     kisses leave no
traces     his heart is giving
up  







Kit Kelen #475 - just pretending


475
just pretending

dust gathers us
in a house of paper

so many names
the disappeared

time runs backwards to
it's not a place

whoever lived in a story is here
all the broken hearts and the mended

a list of fears
gone missing

why are we?
how far will we read?

there isn't a password
the garden is waiting

with what you want now
the past is alive

it's never the same
but it's the story

beginning again




Silences # 99 Claine Keily

In the air conditioned car
she removed her sunglasses
this was the last of it
now her new nails would be
used to open straw bags
like none she had ever seen
in an American television program

In secret
she picked the figs
in her neighbour's garden
all because she
could no longer bear
her work
showing people
the same thing each day
until her heart became a
sack of overly ripe grain
lost forever to the dark
and only a doctor
could be used
to interpret
her silences


Kit Kelen #474 - one more time


474
one more time

time
is all tricks

we fall for it
step up

is there an arrow only?

our time is elsewhere now
and it will come

we have appeared out of nowhere
serendipitous it was

we're lost to it
and make it up

look into the mirror
see ourselves before

'please stop', we say
when it's too much

we make up time
and it will tell

it presses on
in the teeth of truth

sand flows
the river's still

dust gathers over
until now

that puddle in which leaves
reflect seasons

take the vanishing point
come to the bare limbs

bear with
all things past which
we live

Kerri Shying R - #225 - Cremains


Cremains

ought not be labeled like cranberries in the cupboard
I am one of those houseguests   who rises early    likes to do a little yoga

without wakening the host                        I was seeking something nice
something vegan     to smear across the  dryness of the gluten free

toast               cremains            so French              with marmalade - took me for a ride
later when I asked you if it was the plant-based version of an ash brie

there was that sound                        the earth turning            followed by air            tearing
I’m so sorry I ate your prized Pomeranian            she was a sweety             and I hope

this won’t change             our plans for Bali
in the Spring

Stuart Rawlinson #12 - Mr Milquetoast

Spineless, wishy-washy
Feeble and thin, he disappears

Between slim bleached
Lines and neutered passions

His pale words muffled and
Silenced, but never with accurate

Aim. Careful to miss the
Target in case the target

Takes offence. Pussyfooting
Namby-pamby little

Pageboy. He stood – not
For nothing, but for other people’s

Ideals, while his own designs
Re-aligned beneath his opaque

Skin. Trembling lips
Quirks and ticks – watch

His feet tap as he, speechless
Communicates unseen what

He doesn’t even believe

Rob Schackne #312 - A Good Question

A Good Question

                   "If a trip to Mars you earn, remember friend, there's no return."  
                            (Burma-Shave jingle)

A good question
you really want
a different life

a pound of leaves
a pound of bunnies

forget the showers
if a trip to Mars
is what you want
there's no return
the lie starts at dawn
the sun is falling

half a field away
everything arranged
tested near to death

forget the answers
there's no return
we leave in a hurry

and strewn behind
the smoking trees
the bodies I don’t know
what it was to know

                    ANZAC Day 2017

Monday, April 24, 2017

Kerri Shying R # 224 - Slot B


Slot B

the phone calls they crept up
in price    at first  the STD call

 we husbanded as sheep
I am old enough              I heard the pip pip pip

of the three minute tone
some            would simply ring off            mid sentence  I was

 born to local calls that went along for hours             for twenty cents           
 so much so            that Dad told the love-lorn in our ranks

 take it on the heel and toe across the road

to the public phone booth
 to croon  and strategise            

we could look out and see a brother perched up on the shelf for phone books       
glowing in the night            a pile of platypus  by  Slot A


 it was fair      nobody would have ever gotten through to our house
not in twenty years            now            now in this day  we don’t call houses    

 there are no houses       there are just people
uncollected            all free    awaiting algorithmic selection

all  timing            by the second  
     these days

 I have lost my tilt with time 
 drift through  seven hundred things to watch  on youtube           

find nothing   lost in interest
the world begs of me an outraged mind            matchless by reply           

unbuilt               my space     unwrapped     my time            
all the while beguiled

 this  high cost
here  keeping   of touch

Kristen de Kline #90 at the edge of Lawless

chattering away in darkness dead men leave their hollow bones
by the milk bar     hoist up the closed sign      hack away
hold me tightly     into flesh and bone     shredded

thinly     dead men sells cigars to the boss from the factory
stockpile milk bottles pineapple chunks spearmint thick shakes bottles of L&P
an old edition of Truth 

the empty waiting room     sighs
is that your heart     giving up

on you     hold me tightly      breathe colour  
backwards     splash ink into the

       skyline  

spoons bend     cars rust     that's just the way it is
hanging by the neck at the edge of Lawless     seeping

through the stalled traffic in the wrecker's yard     disassembled
cars hoisted up on wooden beer crates like carcasses, gasping

for air     the trees are finished    the leaves done  
slashed tyres     roll down the hill     extinguished, almost

everything is packed     he says     the world is spun

you hear a woman laughing     in present time now    the world is waiting
for a     head tearing     claws falling     from

amethyst skies     heads, claws collect in a  blue and white porcelain bowl, neatly
white cats     wait      beneath the car under-carriage

out at Lawless a man with hollow bones     smelling of white sugar
breath    tries to kiss you     The Jam refrains slice through the
fly-wire     rope

burns     cuts like paper    the lines don't add up
was he scared of dying    he says it's so
     long  

life       like a  

caterpillar     walking hands
collecting firewood     possums with insomnia
children drink her
blood     is that your heart




Stuart Rawlinson #11 - AM Spectrum

Warm air coils up the half-lit wall
As morning flicks the room awake
5am colours are mute outside
Fence slits split the spectrum

Shadows focus and unfocus
Motionless
In the morning's potential
The currents are accelerating
Imperceptibly

Chlorophyll draws into the leaf tips
Greens thicken and bulge
Blues deepen and smother
Twigs stiffen like rusted springs
Let us begin, let us begin 

Rob Schackne #311 - "I preview" (for KdK)


I preview
the possums awake
a thousand poems high
sitting there in trees
looking at me and you
writing this across

the shaky valleys
attacking the factories
armed to the teeth
then the white cat 
a million miles away
waiting under the car
art against the empire
passes on the 13th hour
joins us in felicity
for once was a rout
well it looked like one
fighting another day
for the treasure
you understand
my dear

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Contentment # 98 Claine Keily

As he talked
he smoked cigarettes
and then crushed the ends
in the empty glass of wine
before her
so as when they slept
she could smell the smoke
mingled with the last of the red

He told her of his past
of how he had played tennis
then when this became boring
he entertained himself
by imitating the accents
in American movies
then finding that others were impressed by this
he became an actor

Despite his age
he kept his ribs visible
through his skin
she found his vanity touching
and watched him as he slept
rich with a contentment
she wished she herself had

Rob Schackne #310 - "Your sewing I know"


Your sewing I know
and can almost feel it
double thread moving 

through the linen dress
but I can’t really know
or see as much as that

it was written after all
it’s white Irish dresses
unless I use my eyes
to see the fingers pulling
with the beam on high
batteries sometimes low
the natural machine's on
for too long you know
sometimes strains to see

one dream that's finished
what was frayed to repair
worn upon a perfect mind

Kerri Shying R # 223 - Revitalise my cityscape


Revitalise my cityscape

stop saying rebirth              about the place             when what you mean
is you are ripping us a new arse            how much more

of this indignity             should we have to take             always
making us agree at each stage             just be a Visigoth              a vandal

get the thing over with and done             all this internecine what-nottery
so bad for all the sandstone               and the flouro paint soaks in    the  sad

air drifts down along my street            we have ceased to make our gardens
self-conscious  to be twee    to be the we              we were before              tell us

again              how good it’s going to be