free of the fear of freedom (2008)

one who flows

is a flower

videopoem #3

E.E.Cummings : Pity this busy monster, manunkind

(read by Ed F, video and music produced by Lila Sakura)

Poem text:

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
___________________________-A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

radio radio

I'll be performing some poems on radio this Friday (31st of October), sometime between 12:30 and 1:30pm AEST. I'll be making my second appearance on Barry Ponchard's weekly show on 3WBC, which features upbeat jazz and live readings by local writers.

I have a couple of poems in mind, but I'm open to requests!

If you're in Melbourne, set your dial to 94.1FM. Otherwise you can stream the station live at http://www.3wbc.org.au.

For those who miss it, I'll endeavour to record the segment and make it available here, just like last time.

downturn (2008)

another day down
pixel candy holding up your blood

*

delaydelay

*

lottery/obits
clutter the morning

*

afternoon ceded to
pixel candy hunt
(she has thighs pre-glows defenceless)

*

deferdefer

*

music does not enter

*

(occasionally filling notebooks with sludge)

*

go out for medication
to maintain radio silence

*

radio calm

*

music does not enter

*

skin up with unmailed letters
tobacco laced with hair
also to maintain radio silence

*

everything so well-connected:

*

(is singing in the wires)

*

pain shoots up your street into your mouth
holding up your blood

*

all else fails

*

look to bright futures:
cherish armoured children /
tree-like devices

*

inhabit unwatched film /
sit low on the totem

*

looploop

*

mark this unread

others (2008)

cannot contact / be
contacted

(no physical)

KEEP WRITING

no entry / to
conversation

so then speak to me
clear audio

must have recordings
(‘gainst loneliness)

will screen you
(daily matinée)

live vicarious / via
voice of others

Let go (2008)

To be shy & low
is not a way –

do not depend on this
… as a state,

nor hug doorways of the flat
smoking like a trap.

Why intent on shutting down
while the bulk of us still shake it?

& what, this is where you do your
talking – here, in the poem?

But your kindred are out soaring –
boy, you should slip into town!

'Down slow' nominated for 'Best of the Web 2009'

My poem Down slow (song of samsara) has been nominated by Jill Chan, editor of Poetry Sz, for inclusion in the forthcoming anthology Best of the Web 2009, published by DZANC Books.

This poem was one of three poems published in Poetry Sz during 2007/08 to be submitted to the editors for possible inclusion in the anthology.

Conversation with self & others (2008)

Waiting for a response
waiting for a grip on what’s dripping by

& to easily receive
tongues
from anywhere

but you are all
silent as lice.

Data sent
and aiming for
that area
inside
of your lungs.

Thank you for listening.

*

How to travel within
lockdown domesticity:

ingest caffeine
rethink my clothes
to head into town

but town is gone,
is just photos

& then who am I
heading into town –
some ornamental ghost?

In my ignorance I
will measure my cloud-head against you.
Sorry to have to meet like this.

*

Who amongst you
kick the
unthought stuff

&
know how to receive same?

Check your source code,
output settings.

Only this is what I want
to learn; shoot books
in my arm.

Though before we spin despair
in dead syntax
additional purchases may be necessary.

A mind always
celestial is no mind at all –

I found pills and ate them.
I am looking at everything as material

for later

but through material
to reach something
mis-read that

I thought of you, and knew.

The internet is watching.
I have evolved,
am numbered.

Flutter & clap your fear
like the national anthem.

It was good to hear from you;
time to let you go.


Below: Lego interpretation of Escher's Relativity by Andrew Lipson.

recurring poem #3

Federico Garcia Lorca: New York (Office and Denunciation)

To Fernando Vela


Under the multiplications,
a drop of duck's blood;
under the divisions,
a drop of sailor's blood;
under the additions, a river of tender blood.
A river that sings and flows
past bedrooms in the boroughs -
and it's money, cement, or wind
in New York's counterfeit dawn.
I know the mountains exist.
And wisdom's eyeglasses,
too. But I didn't come to see the sky.
I'm here to see the clouded blood,
the blood that sweeps machines over waterfalls
and the soul toward the cobra's tongue.
Every day in New York, they slaughter
four million ducks,
five million hogs,
two thousand pigeons to accommodate the tastes of the dying,
one million cows,
one million lambs,
and two million roosters
that smash the sky to pieces.

It's better to sob while honing a blade
or kill dogs on the delirious hunts
than to resist at dawn
the endless milk trains,
the endless blood trains
and the trains of roses, manacled
by the dealers in perfume.
The ducks and the pigeons,
and the hogs and the lambs
lay their drops of blood
under the multiplications,
and the terrified bellowing of the cows wrung dry
fills the valley with sorrow
where the Hudson gets drunk on oil.

I denounce everyone
who ignores the other half,
the half that can't be redeemed,
who lift their mountains of cement
where the hearts beat
inside forgotten little animals
and where all of us will fall
in the last feast of pneumatic drills.
I spit in all your faces.
The other half hears me,
devouring, pissing, flying in their purity,
like the supers' children in lobbies
who carry fragile twigs
to the emptied spaces where
the insect antennae are rusting.
This is not hell, but the street.
Not death, but the fruit stand.
There is a world of tamed rivers and distances just beyond our grasp
in the cat's paw smashed by a car,
and I hear the earthworm's song
in the hearts of many girls.
Rust, fermentation, earth tremor.

You yourself are the earth as you drift in office numbers.
What shall I do now? Set the landscapes in order?
Order the loves that soon become photographs,
that soon become pieces of wood and mouthfuls of blood?
No, no: I denounce it all.
I denounce the conspiracy
of these deserted offices
that radiate no agony,
that erase the forest's plans,
and I offer myself as food for the cows wrung dry
when their bellowing fills the valley
where the Hudson gets drunk on oil.

- Federico Garcia Lorca, 1930, from Poet in New York, translated by Greg Simon & Steven F White.

Below: Federico Garcia Lorca, Self-portrait in New York

stoppages (2008)

A closer look – cycling 'brings us closer to the landscape'. Streak of a roadkilled rainbow lorrikeet. How to get hushed.

*

Sunken face. All craved out. What variety of blues.

*

We don't do truth here. Look busy; act well-briefed. This fails like all double disguises.

*

Continue. Despite. Recoil.

*

A poem irreducible to paraphrase. A retreat, a shelter. Extracting voice from voice.

*

A love of chemical. Bugs me. What is meant by 'once' in 'just this once'.

*

Wake late. In bed you soft like a towel; I play apologist. ‘Define vanilla,’ you said.

*

You binned old photos - friends smiling back at me, bathing in foodscraps. You were blocked, needed to purge unneeded objects. Clearing your throat.

*

A fatal itch. What we seek we already have. Voice that insists, “You’ll be closer when you’ve covered all these.”

*

Hard to get anything done here. Let’s get lost at home. Smear memory across tiles.

NaNoWriMo

Ok, so I signed up for NaNoWriMo. This means I will be writing a novel of at least 50,000 words during November. God help me...

My decision was partly inspired by the previous post on this blog. I expect the novel will dovetail into prose poetry at inopportune moments. So who knows, maybe I'll post some extracts on here? Don't hold me to that, by the way...

If you'd like to monitor my progress or buddy up for the ride, here's my NaNoWriMo profile.

twenty-three hours

“the only problem with being a poet is figuring out what to do with the other twenty-three hours of the day.”

- Max Beerbohm, as quoted in 'Jobs of the Poets' by Michael Gottlieb from Jacket #35.

The Melbourne Veg Food Guide

Before I headed off overseas in June, I was one of nine foodies who wrote reviews for The Melbourne Veg Food Guide, which is now available from aduki independent press.

Whether you're vegetarian, vegan, an omnivore partial to veg food, or just looking for places to take vegetarian/vegan friends or relatives, this is an invaluable resource. It covers restaurants, cafes, fast food and more. So do yourself a favour and order a copy!

To the best of my knowledge it's the first of its kind in Melbourne, and I was proud to be involved in the project. Thanks to Lisa Dempster and Emily Clark for all your devotion to the cause.