Eggs & Roses - Thursday, August 23

On Thursday the 23rd of August I'll be doing an extended reading as part of the 'Eggs & Roses' spoken word and literature series at La Trobe University's Bundoora campus.

I'll be reading my stuff (both old and new), discussing the origins of my work, and generally talking shit about the intersection of poetry, technology and madness (or something along those lines). Questions and audience interaction will be encouraged!

Eggs & Roses is running every Thursday during second semester, from 4:30pm in room 431 of the Humanities 2 building at La Trobe Bundoora Campus. A campus map is available from here.

Hope to see you there!

Verandah 22 Launch

Verandah 22 will be launched on Saturday the 1st of September in the Bagging Room at the Malthouse, from 2pm. The launch is part of the 2007 Melbourne Writers' Festival. It's a free event.

I've been to the last two launches, which were both well attended, with refreshments aplenty (that means free booze for you boozehounds). I imagine there will be some readings involved... I'll try to provide more info closer to the date.

fashionably (2007)

time I reach the party
all the drugs
have already been played
(a recurring theme)

my selfish friends!
I just wanted a little toy-toy for me!!!

to let the drugs
do the talking

get the monkey off,
write myself off on

okay, I’ll drop the code
if you’ll quit coding with me

all you can offer
is flattery
& these wedges of lime

sure, there’s booze & pot
(downers covered)
like you said

but I arrive &
everyone’s leaving

whispering “life’s too short
for this dreck”

(am I that undanceable?)

leaves me no choice but
to steal your lines
drink you dry
crashland on your couch:

when you kick me awake
I'll be itching,
pestering you

to make that call
(fingers crossed),
drive across town for pills

apology (2007)

sorry for the slow reply

I’ve been sick again,
spitting air,
haunting town without a face

(this face no longer valid)

hungry words flock
to define me:
'cut-price', 'reheated', 'uneven'…

so uneven I’ve been cutting
around the gardens rather than through,
scared fresh breath of pines
will make me retch

I’m watched by a list of eyes,
tailed by some voodoo priest
giving off his dark light

can’t do new people
can’t chase a thing
taste a thing

I mostly hide tight
up in this one-window bedsit
flicking switches
experimenting with the light

no call for music,
or food

I gaze jealous down
at the playhard kids
screwing with their own wiring,
scalping tickets to fastland

they’re ready to ambush me
with scissors,
lick the medicine out

although wait for it, the icing:
my phone is dead
(I killed it)

but enough of me,
how are you?

please accept this
small peace offering:
a freshly picked posey
of eyelashes

Stand up for the Burrup!

On Saturday the 3rd of June I joined my wife and friends to 'Stand up for the Burrup'. What's the Burrup, you ask?

"Western Australia's Burrup Peninsula is the world's largest outdoor rock engraving site, containing rock art of world importance possibly dating back to 30,000 years ago, including possibly the first ever representation of the human face in history. Woodside Petroleum and the Western Australian Government are planning to turn part of this site into a natural gas production facility against the wishes of some of the site's Aboriginal custodians and the scientific community." (from http://www.standupfortheburrup.com)

Stand ups have been held around Australia and internationally to protest Woodside and the WA government's plans. Representing Melbourne, we stood up in Federation Square, opposite Flinders St Station and Young & Jackson's (see picture below). Representatives from the ABC and Australian Associated Press were present to cover the protest, and a statement of support from former prime minster Malcolm Fraser was read out.

Visit standupfortheburrup.com to find out how you can support this cause and get involved.

Verandah 22

I've just received word that one of my poems, Self-portait (with wires, city & no clothes), will be published in Verandah 22, which will be launched at the 2007 Melbourne Writers Festival.

Stay tuned for further details of the launch party!

Something essential...

I got meme-tagged by sam of the ten thousand things... a nice little meme which originated from They Shoot Poets - Don't They?

Here 'tis:

“Give us at least 10 quotations pertaining to poetry - from 10 different writers &/or poets which best coincide with your philosophy vis a vis ars poetica. They can be posthumous or otherwise. The order is not important - unless it is to you.”

Sam rather charitably added the following disclaimer: "If the number ten is too daunting, go for less." Although I've managed to pull ten together from everything I've (n)ever read. And yes, for me the order is important.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
- ‘London’, William Blake

The people need poetry that will be their own secret
to keep them awake forever.
- #355 (‘Now I’m in the spider-web of light’), Osip Mandelstam

Reality is not simply there, it must be searched for and won.
- Paul Celan

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
- Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein

each word is a room built around us
- ‘Pitching Woo’, Karen Weiser

The great city has a hundred million rooms so any combination is possible
- ‘Day at a Time’, Michael Dransfield

Money is everywhere, but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.
- Federico Fellini

i had always had mixed feelings
about being considered a poet “if robert lowell is a
poet i dont want to be a poet__if robert frost was a
poet i dont want to be a poet__if socrates was a poet
ill consider it”
- David Antin

If you can do it then why do it?
- Gertrude Stein

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.
- Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki

And I'm going to tag exoiced (aka Brow of Calm), Yarni, Nathan, EZB and Reyes Cardenas.

digitalia (2007)

every day here
at the image farm

dum-dee-dum
crop & resize

I’m shrinking into, becoming
synonymous with my work

am this low-cost ‘virtusurgery’

am ‘his’ & ‘her’ sightlines

*

every day here
looking for some other face

out in the pseudo-rain,
packet traffic

not another me for chrissakes

will someone come visit,
feign interest

have their cowled, smoky needs
deluge my inbox?

*

photograph is a spell,
curse

seductively true

*

desked, but
pumping the brakes

(praying for
glue to meld the storm together)

I am a fat, balding forgery
with a swipe-card

faulty (2007)

your speed-reading eyes
stalled by things I don’t have names for:
birds, trees... nature stuff

so we invent names from our lexicon:
banking bird, valium tree

our poems detail
glitches of perception,
are loose & easy,
repel ghosts


An earlier version of this poem was published in otoliths 12.

Scissors?

chose pile of scissors as my profile pic

oh no symbolism help !!

(may these scissors fall into the hands of fools)
(may these scissors fall into the hands of fools)
(may these scissors fall into the hands of fools)

Vipassanā (2007)

Meditation
shouldn't be misunderstood
as another search for an exit

It is a way back
to where you are

First letting the eyes stop,
calming the antennae

Then all punctuation dropped,
an unhurried torch
shone throughout the body

The mind does not need to shop

Silent as smoke
except for the radio
from the apartment below,
bleeps counting in the newshour;
swooshes of traffic, birdsong solos,
hum of the nearby city

Of course the body hands out flyers
for a protest march
and sometimes a slow bee visits,
buzzing at every itch,
every knot of fear,
every burn of venom in the blood

The ongoing task of sitting
may be learning such restlessness
by heart
(the heart has many commas)
while mind writes smaller and smaller

Though my first teacher taught
that mind and heart are the same bell,
fused in a single word:
chitta



Note: The literal translation of vipassanā (Pali) is ‘insight’. The word is used to refer to ‘insight meditation’, and a specific form of Buddhist meditation practice which is taught in various strands of modern Theravada Buddhism. See the Wikipedia entry on vipassanā for more information. I practice vipassanā meditation each morning, following the method taught by S. N. Goenka.

Below: An image from Ansuman Biswas' project Self/Portrait (sourced from thelab.org)

unplugged (2007)

day two of rehab

the raw bed
no exits
air soured by puke

steel-cold / sleepless,
fingers heavy with days

deserted eyes
lucid-dream:
running city steam-alleys
to cut a repair deal

ever try a sprint lying down?
(it's exhausting)

& the stories I hid in the city
have scattered, escaped into films
(my brainchild their goldmine)

outside of visiting hrs
a squad of ghosts
makes another sweep

Mascara and POAM

The first edition of online poetry journal Mascara has now hit the virtual shelves. It features poetry by Christopher Kelen, Jan Owen, Nathan Curnow, Ouyang Yu, Keri Glastonbury, Charles D'Anastasi, Ross Donlon and many more... including two poems (Drive-thru and Portrait of Ledong Qui) by yours truly, along with a shameless 'look at me standing in front of all these books' photo.

I was also the 'feature poet' in the April/May issue of POAM, 'museletter' of the Melbourne Poets Union. They chose to publish Inscriptions as an example of my work. A previous version of this poem had appeared in Unusual Work.

Down slow (song of samsara) (2007)

Be careful when you sing a song of broken love, a song of Samsara.
Just when you think you are relieving yourself of Samsara,
you might begin romancing it.
When the song sticks,
your broken love is replaced by a new love...
and you're it-
Samsara. ______________________(from Stonepeace)


naked
beneath the drugs
this is what I am

this is my face:

skin torn up
like carpet,
pair of choking eyes


have to get sick
____ to slow down


standing in the quickfire
the lanes of dust
grabbing at particles

my hands
trying to eat clouds

the roads between us
the fish of light
the millions

have to get sick to slow down,
freeze the eyelake over

see the fish of light
frozen swimmers
a library of ice


let's learn to swim down here
while we're dark

bodies solved

our bodies much older
than we, than we think


have to get sick
to glimpse you
_______________ you
not some death girl
forearms awarded
parallel wounds

(you were laying new roads
with the knife)

skin torn up
like carpet,
pair of choking eyes

this is what you are (too)

beneath the drugs
down slow


A previous version of this poem was published in Poetry Sz issue 25, March 2008.

hutt 2.5

hutt 2.5 (the 'special 2nd bonus birthday issue') is now online, featuring poems by Andy Jackson, Donna Kuhn, B. R. Dionysius, David Prater, Billy Jones, Jill Jones, Joanne Burns, Nathan Ladd, Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, and yours truly (cashed).

hutt is an inspired online poetry journal published by papertiger media.

ConFest

Over Easter my wife Monica and I headed to ConFest (short for Conference Festival). We camped amongst friends old and new, got back to nature, attended workshops, did meditation and yoga, witnessed live drumming and firetwirling, took part in a sacred ceremony, went swimming in the river, got lost wandering around in the dark, participated in the 'spontaneous choir'... and the rest! This was my third ConFest, and while I don't think the festival itself has changed a great deal since I last attended a few years ago, I think I have changed significantly in that time - which made it a very different experience this time around.

I put on a workshop entitled 'You call that poetry?!' which consisted of readings and a freeform discussion addressing questions such as 'What is poetry?' and 'Where is poetry today?'. We were treated to some amazing performances; a number of poets brought their poems along to read out, while others recited their words from memory. I kicked things off by reading Opening Meditation and went on to talk about the relationship between poetry and meditation, a topic which I hope to cover in more detail in a future blog post.

Thanks to everyone who attended the workshop, and everyone who made ConFest such an inspiring, spontaneous and rejuvenating experience! I think the poem How to be hungry (which I had planned to read in closing the workshop) sums up some of the truth-seeking, life-changing spirit of ConFest: 'unplug everything'! I hereby dedicate it to those who aren't afraid to resist their programming, rethink, reshape, and reclaim the Earth for the Earth's sake.

Stu


Below: ConFest settlements (photo by Monica Barratt)

Two poems to be published in 'Mascara'

Two of my poems (Drive-thru and Portrait of Ledong Qui) are scheduled to be published in the new online poetry journal Mascara.

The first edition of Mascara should appear online in April - watch this space for details.

the last day (2007)

it was just one of those things where a bunch of people think the same thing at the same time probably while working at shitty jobs or playing the starved artist somehow scraping by

like us we were sitting in vacant lots mid-city with drum-fires the smoke curling south & bumming cigs off passersby taking turns to snatch at sleep on shipwrecked couches flaky cats screeching round our feet

& just when we were on a roll passing the sickly port thinking “nowhere will ever be safer than here” four windows appear in the sky & open up the weather turning inside out clouds flipping over

and the chemical weather shopped til it dropped sucking every two-bit bargain in sight the sky stretched like a swollen eye & we tried outstaring it praying for a blink gazing at derelict heavens mesmerised like children mainlining their first Christmas

“the sky holds what kind of right?” I remember asking whoever was listening what right to smoke us out of the hole we were in oh no question we were holed but fuck me & crank the Starship Humanity the sky or whoever was cloaked in it really went to town dinner suit opera tickets & all

combusting the unworthy & all the usual biblical stuff flies dropping like um flies emergency service choppers somersaulting like plastic bags a plague of dead monkeys pissing in my hair

this wasn’t our favourite God surfing in with magic drum on his keychain that inspires flowers to change colour this was a being from one of those other humourless galaxies where no really means no

& there I was muttering what do you want, being, you want to pretty up the landscape huh & I’m coaching myself through it thinking just stay with it & man the controls brave captain

while making cute googoo gaga noises & an old adage from TV backs through my mind “go in the direction of your fear” they used to say that at the end of every show

this the final episode & if my dreams ever walk again you will arrive around dusk our hidden studio by the river with our remaining stash of light together taking one last look

hands / office (2006)

this is Modern Art: / motivational / poster of the pyramids captioned ‘Achievement’ / the sky absent, savagely cropped / (how to measure achievement when the sky is absent?)

*

across the open plan / cool paint-tones emit calm / it’s “too nice a day” / sun nothing but hindrance / wimp blinds / glare-stained monitors / staff listless / doing time behind / panes of heat / call logged re: the aircon / drip workflow / has sprung a lake

*

Bruce, who loves Friday drinks / is not alone / after-work trains become sparsely passengered / & this is (isn’t this?) / who ‘you’ are today / a drowner / “Gabe ‘n’ me are hitting the Deep End after work…” / your looks / your talent / you could be / “… anyone else?”

*

cubicles, ‘pods’ / officespace bouncing / with sweet soda FM / looped playlist / X-Factor? No, I don't / I am an island / correction: a shoal / mousy Support Analyst / acned / phonecall evader / in shooting out the apartment / this morning, toast in hand / neglected to carry enough / defeat music / to see out the day

*

aforementioned Bruce is seasoned / old hand, old hands / wandering / knows where to sit, stand / for best access / the bar, ripe officegirls / sloshed against a washroom wall / No sorry I’m feeling / a little married / tonight

*

dead links on the intranet / What’s the name, the girl from Accounts / the off-tap? / I’ll copy you in / something wicked this way / brushed by tiesilk / Are you hitting on / we’ll put it to the bored / bang on about / the ethics, if you like / “These aren’t the right minutes!” / I smell a / Steering Committee / duty-free cologne / & bulk-price handwash

*

two weeks pass / Bruce gets taken out / to lunch at the brasserie / I forget, what’s the name of that swank-shack on Bourke? / clears his desk upon return / then escorted by security / heaving boxes labeled ‘Fragile’ / out the revolving doors / a chance slap of wind / scattering flock / of white papers / to blot the gutter rain


A slightly different version of this poem was published in [untitled], September 2009.

Below: office 'motivational' poster that inspired this poem.

Work (2006)

“rest awhile work
is imaginary”
– Michael Farrell, from my skeleton


The poet (Michael Farrell?) is overheard
on his mobile
on the train
on the way to work:

“re: carrying bones / keeping score
(to be down with what the gulls want)
I can only tell you what I don't know;

I don’t want what someone else
has worked for & thought about, & spare me
those whirlwind biddings done by jinnees.

Though I will
filch some hot young language
if you have any.”

He closes the call with a ciao,
snaps the clam-phone shut but
keeps talking anyway,
slips into best voiceover voice:

“Forgive these anonymous, these
fresh white collars

heavybreath suit thick with
Old Spice, gripping
a leather handle

& the morning girl
dressed as a fashion
store with her still-wet hair.”

Having bought our attention, the poet
blows us off to the office with a parable:

“A man crawls out of an argument
with his wife (the most stolen car in the city),
begins masturbating over a fire,
teaching art &
the remnants of what beauty did
in its prime.

He pulls a fair crowd, but sure enough
once talk turns to grace & forgiveness
they lose interest & disperse.
Despondent, he hits the bottle like a demon,
quits the bank job, never works again.”

hypothetical (2007)

a failed hello in the supermarket aisle half-smiling we reach for the same packet as if we share some pages

pity you’re not scoping for a thin read

& here I was thinking powerdressing was some 80s throwback but there you float designer swan black plumage all clopping heels & purpose

& anyway hypothetically how long before I’d spill about the ‘best employer anyone ever had’ & the drug I take when I’m the only one in the office

yeah ok office schmoffice it’s a meth-lab sometimes you just have to eat what they give you

& yeah my flared jeans are 6 years past their use-by my shoes too chunky but no way am I ditching this gimmick t-shirt that says ‘tac-tics’ instead of you guessed it

second thoughts sorry bout the meth-lab thing that was just to freak your mother

Pool (2007)

chemical blue of the pool one hot sacred day the sun a dreaming demon clothes strewn through the house on cool tiles and carpet I want to submerge with you electrified water flecked with fidgeting light our flesh blurred slow beneath as if ghosts from the waist down our arms arcing the weight of the water beadlike bubbles fizzing on the surface your head floats to me regal like a mallard leaving a v-shape in its wake your dark-wet hair clings faithful to your neck your hand crabbing over my back you kiss like liquid our mouths pour cool streams our lips skate salt tongues slip quick and vivid we brushtouch like passing fish our flesh become sealskin we slide body off body and without warning you decide I’m a fire to contain splash and drown me digging waves with the triangle of your hands unrelenting wall upon wall until I howl for an end spray back with interest the fool that I am trying to house you bury you in waves of my making enraged like some stung vengeful seagod until we’re done clowning return to ourselves recall our nakedness how the water carries allows us to magnetise so quick to forget the burning stones at pool’s edge the buzzing pollen garden since these are but toy reflections in your eyes and we need inhabit only the inner circle that we trace with our toes as we spin the sky round on the tall axle we make with the centred sun & make our full disappearance fucking in circles together at noon


Note: This poem was written in response to this thread on Bluelight.

porn (2006)

i.e. where sex is a form of greeting begins with the basics tits
blowjobs etc you stalk the elusive chase-thrill until chore of
the addict quest to out-gross you underperform no wonder
_________________________________________you
wonder why not bring the drugs in front of the camera the
post-shoot bloods cramps visits to quacks gynos & cashola
cut on desks in shoebox low-rent offices strewn with adult
store novelties stockpiled microwave dinners actress
ephemera industry awards
_________________matter of fact that’s been done
seek & ye shall seek what you want’s a free pass cultivating
mind dirtier than mysterious mid-rock-festival portaloo
discovered by timetravellers allegedly researching lives of
beggars & toms in 17th century london squalor
____________________________oops this was
unplanned uh whatever your day off home alone an
exercise in deletion clear browsing history clear private
data now the afterfade you mindless gutless pointless


As published in Otoliths 14, August 2009.

everything louder than everything else (2007)

schoolkids sit mutinously in the classroom thinking,
why don’t we ever learn about ____? [not audible]

not these kitschy hymns, but, like…
our screentest, advance, potential audience
*

all vying to jumpstart careers as enfants terribles
(“I hate speech” liquid-papered on the spine of a textbook)

& aspirants, rivals
mimic us whenever we leave the room
*

what we really have to talk about is where our assumptions lie
& what is supervised (here, you can have my copy of the report)

some idiot writes in to the newspaper
saying ‘we’ should be sending a tougher message on drugs

*

DO NOT swing on hoop / this area
is for basketball only

while out on the steps scrawny emo kids pocket dead birds,
erase a few shadows from the world


Note: "everything louder than everything else" is, firstly, part of a remark by Ian Gillan of Deep Purple from their Made in Japan live album: "Could we have everything louder than everything else?" It's also the title of a live album by Motorhead.

Heartwood (2006)

10pm,
board the city train from Clifton Hill,

sit down opposite
blackfellas who want to make movies.

This tight crew of Kooris
they’ve got the themes:

“The contradictions, brother.
The blackfella / whitefella.”

Jim (the orator of the crew)
wants to make us wiser:
“From the heart.
It’s not about this
It’s about this”

(points to skin, heart respectively).

We’ve said this before.
We missed our target.

The dead, usually darker
inner wood of a large diameter trunk
is termed the ‘heartwood’.

I get a friendly “Who the fuck are you,
anyway?”

“I’m a writer.
Nah, it’s cool… not a journalist haha”

I think of Andrew Bolt’s blog
bombing its way through scar country.

“You are looking at the next gen.
of aboriginal Australians.”

“So where are you guys headed?”

“Softies… it’s a pool hall…
well, it’s kind of a strip joint”
“The whitest chicks you’ve ever seen!”

They laugh,
I laugh
(slight delay).

Then we’re an advertisement for alcohol,
all laughing like idiots.

‘Accomodation’ is the way we adapt
to one another in a face to face
conversation, the way my voice
soaks a little of yours, the way
we co-morph to accommodate

“History, she never sleeps,” says Jim,
like he's not changing the subject.

I’m trying to visualise
a restless history:

Blood signals the shoreline,
warding like brake lights;
shores awash with it, shallows
an unshaken cocktail.

Can a waste of blood warp
beautiful?

For whatever reason
I’m hearing B B King in full
smiling flight:

I believe
to my soul...

& Jim spells out his email
(“we should hook up”)

then all 5 or 6 of them spill out
of the train
soon as it hits the city,
yelling a cloud of curses & blessings.

Jim pokes his head
back inside the door just
before it chomps automatically:
“So write me, brother.”

Notes: Koori is a word which Indigenous Australians from parts of south eastern Australia use to describe themselves. It literally means 'the young of a goat'. According to the Wikipedia entry "it is a great privilege to be named so as kid goats are full of energy and almost certainly survive childhood."

Andrew Bolt is an infamous columnist and associate editor of Melbourne tabloid the Herald Sun, for whom he also maintains a blog. He denies the existence of the stolen generations of Australian Aborigines.

Below: Eric Fischl, A visit to / A visit from / The Island
(Source: http://www.repubblica.it/gallerie/online/cultura_scienze/nyrenaissance/2.html)

http://www.ericfischl.com/

Friendly (2007)

Every time I turn on the computer I’m aware of how I’ve
been working up the courage to tell you, but you are a friend

You’re always online
Don’t make yourself invisible

(So used to the fact that no one)

Accept this um friendship cookie
as token of my

I’ve always been bad at this

post-rock (2007)

milk a baby black box recorder weaving through a vista mural in much clusters exposé of the fast wind chimes anecdotal with hard data spectral of course whitewater it’s a soundtrack to the abandoning the good stuff kids go a film does coke thankfully bottles fabric of the desert beginning or end melancholia the source of uncertainty friends of a small eternity so well-suited to employ them scissors inverted in such a wide-eared though bookish it’s surprising it’s taken so long onstage as a longtime fan for this trick of exposure emblematically more attention beautiful greyscale as one might expect tracks of quilted feedback nonetheless manage to breathe like premature a blob of goopy a few insane years people were ant traffic through forced windows out front lush vocal harmonies groove officer and texture middling big-sky arranged into the shape of the obligatory close-ups

As published in Otoliths 9 (May 2008).

Below: a part-coloured map shows noise (red) travelling up buildings; deafening noise of traffic entering Paris appears as deep blue. Source: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6974/full/427480a.html

Bored poem (2007)

“Sometimes I think we should worry more about what evil we are losing.” – Chris Tonelli, from Walks are Useless. So are Poems. (http://www.wordforword.info/vol10/tonelli.htm)

plans slide so calm it snooze the alarm wants us to care again why not mix up the day tabs with the night thieving entire back catalogue the legwork done for you on this site hell your jaded debut sank without trace in blizzard of popups nothing will ever be so flawless golden rookie of promise a (yawn) why not be bored for a second try the erotic cakes ever-elastic stretches of boredom phone myself saying things without thinking smoking way too many blunts largely a lost decade I didn’t guffaw didn’t care it was what it was: a business deal in the pipes for some time though the payoff leans into the mic a capella strut closely resembles most vital warrior photo shoots million-seller glossies arse kissy tongue tutorial forge a lucrative gambling career zero chance anti-star gutter-soul dice game internet's monopoly bulletproofs your heart not wagered though would-be screenwriter’s dazzling technique torrents what’s on their minds tools of the procrastination trade their strongbox-hefting mercenaries accept portion of blame for shortcomings ironic pleasures of the modern age call it what you will I mean hello that’s what the delete key is for folks














Image by Chris Jordan.

The back way is the way back (2006)

“Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.” – Pablo Neruda


At last, I pull up alongside you.

For once you’ve got no destination.

Finally there are no cars to fold ourselves into.

Divested of traffic, the streets operate only as borders.

Although the Scottish lady at the school crossing, fervent til the end (bless her), still blows her whistle.

As if we were far from here.

As if we could turn the desk around and work on something else.

I think the sky refuses to turn, so I don’t think well.

Some fast days I forget the heart, cannot look it in the face.

Fast days have fast eyes but sometimes not.

Watching remakes of service station, parking lot, fast food as they bounce over the horizon.

But the city is no excuse.

According to a recent study, the weather is now our favourite artform.

Another study showed that given free access to everything, we still seek out the harmful.

Matters of definition.

From one perspective, nothing is invasive.

Just another entrance, just another exit.

Most of us seem so easy to please, but nothing could be further.

Easy to tease, yes.

Touchy much?

The audience of a talkshow made up entirely of hermits.

Now I remember what I was going to say, but I can’t remember exactly how I was going to say it, therefore I’m likely to lie.

A digital flower.

I buy a digital flower.

I buy a rare digital flower.

Collecting fires / extreme weather since I can’t collect myself.

Sleep has how many exits?

The sun explodes twenty four seven.

In search of an address.

Sometimes the street is there on the skin.

The little points of water, little marks of light.

Glassed in.

Are we glassed in we devise a new form of choosing; some beautiful grey thing?

Put the tears back where you found them.

Tear to the scene, with the widest scratchpad you can get your hands on.

Still Life (2007)

Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha,
sits on top of the left speaker
above the TV, VCR, DVD player,
the CDs, the home vids,
the music & films made meek by our rejection,
the Playstation, games cartridges,
busted console controllers.

The Buddha waits on top of the left speaker;
on top of the right speaker is a Dalek figurine
armed with pushbutton
for 5 different sound effects
& a manipulable eye.

Things we lost in the fire (2006)

we were just punks doing stuff
with wiring (ours, mainly)
smallscale
(not exactly flush with cash)

trading in unwanted body parts,
recycled mirrorglass,
thrones, pendants, oversize teasets

we dressed all arcane: black, obviously,
but with strips of amber like roadworkers

we played Vampire & Cyberpunk
through ephedrine summer nights
& sheltered disfigured birds in the basement

our neighbours took us for Goths,
alerted the police;
our friends, straightfaced,
called us ‘clerics of refuse’

we combed treasure for trash,
anything flammable
& built the fire as an artwork,
working title 'offering'

once lit, it proved a popular exhibit
and we finally met the neighbours
but didn’t stick around
to greet the fire department

the fire took us right back to basics
as a 'true' work of art should;
thinking survival, we paired off,
got snagged on jobs & coping drugs

the birds escaped to South America

Forkhead (2006)

(After David Lynch's Lost Highway)

There there. You’re tired. Stressed. Have collected no victories. All your curfews. Even the sax hasn’t let you out. Of the house. But I’m there right now. Call me.

*

This must be super-rare, but the first time I saw Lost Highway I was stoned. Foreseeing a headfilm, I’d shared a preparatory J outside the Astor Theatre. Finding my seat, I found myself quietly toasted.

*

Forks in the road, in the head. Highway by night; snaking lights. Lost in forks.

*

An ancient book on the art of feigning death. Unquenchable book.

*

From early in the piece I had Fred Madison figured as a fellow forkhead. A real channelsurfer. My suspicions were confirmed (bigtime) when he forked into parallel identities, Fred Madison becoming Pete Dayton becoming Fred Madison becoming, etc.

*

More questions than answers: He wears black or black wears him? Who’s tailgating who? How would he hide his body around himself, resurface out of the corners of her? Whaddayou mean, “What?!”

*

The phone’s ringing. (Again). Odd,

*

Hello… pick up?

*

LH was on a double bill with Dead Man. Lynch’s film came first, with its rapid eye movement. The good confusion. By the time it was over I had little energy left for Jim Jarmusch’s film… in my sleepwatching was left to ponder whether LH could equally have been titled Dead Man.

*

Sleep is not entertainment. Broadly speaking. Ink runs in drawers. The woman who isn't a doppelganger. (Where is she?)

*

Plant cameras in the dark, rich soil. Houseplants that require no natural light. (Pupils dilate). Footage blooms in the night.

*

We’ve met before, haven’t we? This is one of those movie quotes I always quote 'in character'.

*

Impossible to say the story's over. Just as it’s impossible to say, “The story’s over there.” Still, despite everyone’s best intentions, the story may be put to rest with a cliché. A time-marker. The post-film cigarette, with its rush of switching back to some kind of

*

“David! Shit! I think you left the gate open!”


As published in Sein und Werden, Spring 2009 (online edition).

rock & roll (2006)

“Look out honey ‘cos I’m using technology”
– Iggy Pop, from The Stooges’ Search & Destroy


In there,
____-the unpretty of my head, there’s
-_the rock and roll,
prehistoric cave!!! furs, sweat & bone-piles!!!
__Iggy imping like a grin made flesh,
_______deadpan screams,

“We’re driving sex machines
_-we have many gears to go
we’ve had many years
____In Uniform !!!

___-You got nothin'
______-on today
___-let’s get nothin'
______-on today !!!”

Iggy imping like a grin made flesh
Iggy
___cuts some lust,
____________yells

____“she’s not so hot
______-on record /
___spectacular live

______________she so young
____________& empty

want her bad
& want her bad
__-want double meaning
____want triple meaning

She's happening to me

___(watch me die)

She's closer than a drug.”

Melbourne (an ode) (2006)

Melbourne so cruel in your coolness Melbourne
so cool in your cruelty / ok that’s a tad
harsh but that makes two of us my dear oh
dear you can’t wear that oh boy you can wear
thaaat boy you must be feeling festive / Melbourne
stars strung over your streets your fruitsellers
some of the best in a tight situation a girl
in tartan skirt short
but not slutty walks ahead clearly excited
highfives the VB streetsign above the bottleshop oh
Melbourne is that you? / sometimes heroic enough
to flash a bit of underbelly a little flabby but don’t
open any more gyms don’t close any more
public housing Melbourne
your mystics are lazy & need somewhere to live
when the street kicks them out in favour of paying customers
who wouldn’t know why or which gutter poses to adopt
for looking at the stars

35th Montsalvat Festival of Poetry & Song

The 2006 Montsalvat Festival of Poetry & Song took place on Sunday the 10th of December. Montsalvat is a picturesque artists' colony situated in Eltham, 26 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD. For more info on Montsalvat, check out the Wikipedia entry.

My wife Monica, our good friend Lisa Dempster and my good self made the long trek out to Eltham on a day when the temperature reached 42 degrees celsius! Lisa did a reading just after 1pm, as part of the University of Melbourne's section of the program, which was organised and MCed by Kevin Brophy. Lisa bucked the trend by reading a short story rather than poetry, and later in the day was treated to mock derision from several poets for her efforts! ("Don't talk to her, she writes prose!", etc.) Her reading was captivating, and I was also impressed by several of the poets in the group, including Ed Moreno and Francesca Haig.

Other highlights throughout the day included bill-topper Geoff Page, Dean Frenkle's harmonic overtone singing (which held me totally entranced), and the charismatic Dublin poet Iggy McGovern, who won the audience over with entertaining poetry interspersed with colourful anecdotes. Admittedly I didn't get to witness all of the poets I wanted to, as there were clashes in the program, and to be honest listening to poetry for 8 hours straight is a tall order! Thankfully there were art exhibitions, a book stall, vegetarian delicacies, good company, and the beautiful surrounds of Montsalvat to break things up! Plus quite a few of the poets listed in the program didn't make it out to the festival, no doubt owing to the oppressive weather conditions. Thankfully a cool change came through around 4pm.

At around 8pm I read three poems as part of the "And beyond..." reading, which was devoted to the memory of Melbourne poet Patrick Alexander. I read Inscriptions, which I dedicated to Monica; cashed; and How to be hungry got its first public airing. Thanks to Nick Powell for agreeing to MC the session at the last minute!

All up, it was a brilliant day and night. You can count me in for next year!

Under the Influence

I'm doing a reading on Tuesday the 5th of December, but not of my own work...

For the Victorian Writers' Centre's annual 'Under the Influence' event, where writers read work by other writers who have influenced them, I'm hoping to do justice to Federico Garcia Lorca's New York: Office and Attack. They say to never work with children or animals, and I think ghosts should probably be added to the list. They are just as unpredictable, if not more so. Who knows, all hell may (finally) break loose. It's that kind of poem... like Yeats' Second Coming, it raises demons at the same time as launching a damning critique of 'civilisation' as we know it. (Do we know it?)

At last year's event (at Carlton's Courthouse Theatre) I read two poems by the late, great Australian poet John Forbes (Drugs and Angel), to an audience which contained several other poets who had known John personally... which was a very humbling experience.

This year's event will be quite different, since it's doubling as the VWC Christmas Party! Full details below (as posted on the VWC website - http://www.writers-centre.org).


Under the Influence - the VWC's last event for 2006!
with Tony Wilson & Klare Lanson

Stella Glorie returns to host this celebration of our literary influences and the year past. This event will feature four writers, including novelist and broadcaster Tony Wilson, and poet/performer Klare Lanson. Each will read and talk about the writers that have influenced them - and you too can join in the festivities and bring your own three-minute reading. Come along and share the words of the writers that have inspired and influenced you, and celebrate the Centre's last event for the year.

When: Tuesday 5 December, 7pm
Where: Victorian Writers' Centre, 1st Floor Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne
Cost: $7, VWC Members $5
Bookings: 9654 9068













Above: Federico Garcia Lorca

Self-portrait (with wires, city & no clothes) (2006)

I am open
and open
and open
(we never close, so
why should the city sleep?)

City be slow with me,
city slow down; I love you but
I must get treed, rivered,
rocked, beached
and often

Back home on my body
hair grows like wild grass;
back home in my eye
a snapshot,
quick and approximate,
of the whole perfect whole

You asked to see a photo, but
I asked for paper
to write on

I am colourised wires, ant colony,
wide area network,
landmass seen from an airplane window

I am sub-atomic ghost

I am those
and those
and those

(sometimes
I look very familiar)

I am the words
we squeezed out of nature
which with use
became unusable
(I'm looking for
the new words
to give back)

I want to plant lamps

I'm walking around
no armour, no cloak
(I look pretty strange)

I am yes
and yes
and yes

and here
and here

(I’m so glad
you could make it)


As published in Verandah 22, September 2007.

A reading of this poem can be downloaded from here.

3CR Interview

On Wednesday the 11th of October I was interviewed by Juan Martorana on the breakfast show of Melbourne radio station 3CR. As well as talking about my work, and poetry in general, I read a couple of my poems: Inscriptions, which will be published in Issue #4 of Unusual Work, and cashed, which is set to appear online in the cool shade of the hutt.

The full interview can be downloaded in Mp3 format from here.

Generation of '0 (2006)

No newer thing / (saleable) / plug-ins / whither the whiter white / Hey there were languages before ours / unbottled water / undry roots / Our ‘thing’ some shopfront of erasures / opshopping / petty ID theft / embroidery / touch-txting / Can I hear you say / gosh! beige / malwear / closed circuit / civic cattlewatch / lowlying marketing geeks / annexed ‘intellectual’ look / Look ‘mate’ you’re freaking the customers / out side exit / greenlit convenient / Sooooooo / describe yourself (in one word or less) / illustrate your point / get storied / faking consensus / at eye-level / re-reiterate / retention of regulars / (don’t) mock meat / spray-on sweat / sure sure / untrained eyes have been wrong before (!) / Go on, admit it: / despite the patch / you're open to attack / (you do) the math / yoink! / before the aftermath / (scheduled outage) / Soundproofed / irrelevance beckons / stone-age PCs go slo mo / so… cuddle self-assessments / upgrade to (a) wireless / sort recyclables / take out tinny awards / go-get / decoratively munted / spun out / woah! / can do

draft wording for revolution : from balcony at Blue Train (2006)

“... valuables unattended” : the CBD a 3D graph : brightcoloured banners of Southbank fatten in wind

love you when random : “who in their right mind would even paint the river that colour?”

Blue Train kitchen clatters like tournament knights : reject the see-saw table we’re shown to : pull more napkins than needed : #4 pizza

sips of sidetalk : score some cred? : try swimming the Yarra : “are you for real?” : gales of laughter

“how many secret lives are played?” : graduates of the self-help section : get an edge : no handholds : bust a critique : “can’t kick can’t run can’t tackle” : why we got mired in fandom

conversation slips to politics : bluff through buzzword city : tad earnest : “could you ever love a patriot?” : wave stats like flags while we jiggle teabags

mark this urgent : sale must end! : stocktake : “could you feed our world while we’re away?” : planet’s lungs morph into soya beans : amazon dot gone : hybrid seeds won’t reproduce

we brainstorm : waves form waveforms : hang a sec : quick : need to write this down : can beat them on paper : we can be heroes : a few words of our own : a few bricks up our sleeves

cut to Planet America : juicer running backs built like tanks : big fish with big guns : and we, blind photographers

kidding ourselves : sorry speak up I can't quite : “another drink?” : “sorry guys, we're going to need this table...”

fallback : resolve split in the sore spot : so rooted, futures dim conventional : how we slide : soak all night in unmarked bars