Sharps (Warding Remix) (2009)

Nathan Moore : 'Sharps', remixed by Stu Hatton


There’s a booklet called Patient Rights which no one has read. Ceiling-mounted cameras raise conversation from its natural pitch by a semitone. Count the kinds of innocuous: white walls; a small set of lies played back to placate. For some of us the timetable remains mysterious, opaque; it approaches the divine. Fluorescent tube flashes code; spasmodic pain. Clipboards held towards white coats, shieldlike. Conspiring to dull us; that’s my theory. Ticking off the codeine. The sharps (syringe, paper clips, knife) stored in micro-lockers. Some inmates bemoan the lack of music. Keys carried by orderlies provide semi-regular percussion. Padded footfalls. The door’s alarmed; red pulsing bulb. When a car pulls up outside we set our foreheads on the glass. We ogle with the sincerity of children. The muscled orderlies arriving to move us on, their strides replicated on the monitors. Such incidents are all we have. Sometimes manhandled, sometimes a needle pierces.


Process Notes:

I visited Nathan's old blog, Exhaust fumes and french fries, to choose a poem to remix as part of our remix exchange. The first poem I came across was 'Sharps', and immediately I felt drawn to it - the atmosphere it creates, the moods of the ward, the emphasis on safety precautions, the way the inner lives of the inmates are evoked in the poem. I read through 'Sharps' a number of times. I selected key phrases - phrases I felt were auspicious, which I could perhaps reshape or re-contextualise in an interesting way. A number of those phrases survive in the remix, altered to differing degrees. I'm not sure how I decided that the remix would be a prose poem. Prose has more or less become my 'default' form, unless I'm specifically aiming to create something that's more rhythmic and/or fragmentary - which isn't to say that rhythm and fragmentation can't be accommodated in a prose poem.

I felt the phrases I'd selected didn't constitute enough material to work with - I needed to draw material from elsewhere to make the remix 'my own'. So I messed around with Googlism, and happened upon some other interesting phrases by running a search for 'sharps' and a couple of other words which seemed relevant to my purpose. Then I began assembling sentences by expanding upon the phrases I had, twisting them around and free-associating.

I worked at the remix sporadically, usually spending no more than half an hour on it at a time, adding a sentence or two per sitting, and tweaking what I already had. Several sentences didn't make the final cut, and a number of the phrases I'd gathered weren't used, but the majority were. I swapped a few sentences around as part of the editing process, but mostly the flow established itself without too much interference.

I figure I've kept pretty close to the thrust of Nathan's original, so that this isn't a 'wholesale' remix (the face of the original is still very recognisable in it). Probably my favourite part of Nathan's poem is the reference to seeing the crotches of people in cars from the vantage of the second floor, but this hasn't made its way into the remix. In Nathan's poem this image was unexpected, startling, but struck me as completely authentic. There's an honesty to it that I admire; for me it opens up questions about the 'innocence' of the gaze (can a gaze ever be innocent?), and the assumptions we make about the gaze of the other, especially when we perceive the other as 'childlike'. This aspect found its way into my remix in the line 'We ogle with the sincerity of children.'

Arboretum (Remix of 'Oh?') (2009)

'Arboretum' by Nathan Moore
(a remix of the Stu Hatton poem 'Oh?')


Our golden dream:
the trees have been taught to enter text.

The trees are confused
by our mixed messages.

The city’s trees are radioactive. The wind
in their branches sounds like techno.

The trees can’t tell girls from boys. They need
a handbook.

When the weather’s warm we get unruly
in the rooms between the trees.

Oh, I knew this would happen. That cranky tree
bit me and broke my arm.

The tree on the tram is a tourist.

Imagine this request: be my endless resource.

Along the bald coast, among the poisoned bays, the last blue
pine shudders with fatigue.

When the trees come back they’ll be digital and they’ll
rule the planet by force.

I have difficulty forgetting
what trees look like.

Must we fail? Must we soak in sap? Hold a knife
to the living throat?

Now we raid the commons. Now we are alone.
Now it’s just us and the gods staring awkwardly at each other.

Consider optics. Consider perspective. Consider the horizon
without that tree.

* * *

Nathan's Process Notes:

Like Dana, I couldn’t keep away from Stu Hatton’s proposal to remix poems on his blog. Although Stu is open to different methods regarding the remix exchange, I gave myself the task of using every word in his poem, “Oh?” I love the way thoughts like “we fall awake” surface and submerge in this work.

I read “Oh?” twice then waited a few days to let it stew in my brain. Like Dana, I made a Wordle image out of it. The image is a cloud of words from a given text. Word size is determined by the frequency of the word in the original text. In this case, “tree” was the most frequently used word, so I decided to make that the core of the poem thematically and in terms of its appearance in each line. Because I wanted to use Stu’s every word, my poem ended up twice as long as it is now. Dana and I agreed, though, that the second half seemed unnecessary after the line that begins “Consider optics …”

About Nathan

Nathan is a father, poet and painter from Columbus, Ohio. His work has appeared in Saggio Poetry Journal, Asphalt Sky and ouroboros review. Together with Dana Guthrie Martin he edited the 'mutating the signature' issue of qarrtsiluni. He and Dana also co-maintain an excellent blog.

Note from Stu

I really admire what Nathan's managed to do with my poem, which itself is still very much a work in progress. I think it's a terrific remix, and that's not just because I'm a lover of trees. It reminds me a little of Wallace Stevens' 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird'. Nathan's meditations and manipulations have the effect of making trees seem 'as strange as they are'.

I'm considering remixing Nathan's remix(!), but first I'll keep up my end of the 'remix exchange' bargain, with a remix of Nathan's poem 'Sharps'. I'll post it on here as soon as it's ready.

Inspirations at the Dan O'Connell 7/3

Last Saturday there was no feature poet at the Dan; it was an all-open-mic affair, with the theme of 'Inspirations', i.e. which poets/poems have inspired you, or what have they inspired you to write?

I chose to recite William Blake's 'London', which would have been one of the first poems to deliver a cold spinal shock while I was a teenager. In my view it still stands as one of the great city poems, along with the likes of Lorca's 'New York: Office and Denunciation', which I featured as one of the recurring poems on this blog.

Next up I read Pam Brown's 'At the wall', from Dear Deliria: New and Selected Poems. As I said (with a wry smile) on the day, I hope this poem inspires someone to do something other than write poetry. It's a serious punch in the guts - the kind we need.

Finally I read the final (88th) sonnet from Ted Berrigan's The Sonnets. Every hair on my body was standing to attention for those last few lines, ending with 'It is 5:15am ___________ Dear Chris, hello'. I would've first read bits of Berrigan more than ten years ago, but more recently, after reading The Sonnets in full, and hearing Berrigan read them more or less in their entirety after downloading an mp3 from UbuWeb, they've become a central text for me. They're a freaky construction of repetitions, appropriations, interrelations, shifting textures and tones.

It was fun listening to other poets' inspirations, and the fruits thereof. Ledong Qui took the theme laterally, and surprised a few people by pulling out a thesaurus and flicking at random, sampling words from it. Berrigan would've approved.

Below: Reciting 'London' (photo by Michael Reynolds).

sunday (2009)

caught in so much daylight
(plainclothesman's funnel)

skin warmed by eye
ignored by hand

limp handshaking all that bridges
(or else sunday cough)

analog clock semaphores
(calc the time left)

a side sleep deletes

recovered, regeared for travel

pool of glass
under blue light

& were you on an illicit?
your pupils played bent little notes

all the pixels spilled...

last night city
a dirty epic
held words

(the poem)

now that city is missing

First two remixes from Remix Exchange

Below (in the previous two posts) you'll see the first fruits of the Remix Exchange: a remix by Dana Guthrie Martin of my mini-sequence of poems First Seven Sevens, and my remix of her poem 'Suite'. Each remix also includes process notes written by the remixer.

I love what Dana's done with the Sevens. She mostly restricted herself to the vocabulary of the original, but she's really made it her own. There's an uncanny element of seeing 'my' words remixed in this way. And there are echoes of the original also in the use of enjambment and short, somewhat arcane sentences. I like how she's chosen a significant word to repeat from each stanza to the next, thereby forging a thematic link.

Thanks so much to Dana for collaborating on this; it was a great pleasure to remix her poem and have mine remixed in return. The buzz I got out of the whole process has made me even more keen to enter into remix exchanges with other poets/writers/artists. If you're interested, feel free to get in touch, or post a comment here.

Here's a little bit about Dana:

"Dana Guthrie Martin lives in the Seattle area and writes wherever writing will have her. She shares her home with her husband, her pet hamster and her robot, Feldman. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Blood Orange Review, Blossombones, Boxcar Poetry Review, Fence and qarrtsiluni. Most of the time, she and poetry hobble along in a sort of three-legged race where there is no finish line."

I can also tell you that she's recently been accepted into a Master of Fine Arts program at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I wish her every success with that. She's also a prolific collaborator. I recommend following the mutating the signature blog, which Dana co-maintains with Nathan Moore. You should also definitely check out the 'mutating the signature' issue of qarrtsiluni, which Dana and Nathan co-edited. The entire issue is dedicated to collaborative works.

Suite (Sour Remix) (2009)

Dana Guthrie Martin : 'Suite', remixed by Stu Hatton

At your question eyes :: sped away in guilt no :: I hadn’t been thinking of :: you I’d been thinking about what :: I think about why :: would I do otherwise?

(what does inertia)

You ask :: what does inertia :: mean I say this :: suspended game board overrun :: with dice

(keep erasing)

We think in untouchable :: substances :: you vapour I :: dust I’ve been :: thinking whatever comes :: too easily knotting :: frequencies been through :: opportunities all these cold :: currencies flood :: your speaking :: mouth

(until you have)

You ask :: what does silence :: mean I say a shell :: aluminium :: egg that will not :: hatch

(what you need)

The last dream we :: sit in a café noise :: of china, knives and :: the too-loud :: music and rival :: talk at other :: tables you place :: your cup over :: your mouth as :: a semi-mask :: I fence my :: eyes with a :: napkin and :: the waiter softly :: asking us to leave

(what does silence)

Overgrown :: with silence I cannot :: listen my ears :: shrivelled buds cannot :: respond my bloodless :: tongue the skin :: a snake sheds


Process Notes:

My remix began as a reply to 'Suite', with a male voice replying to the female voice of Dana's poem. I've aimed for a kind of symmetry with the original, and retained some formal elements, such as the use of short phrases broken up with double-colons. I retained a couple of phrases from the original also.

The last part I added was the 'dream sequence' stanza set in the café. I opted for more fragmentation of the phrases in this stanza to evoke the dream-state's fluidity of association. Then I decided to apply the same fragmentation to the rest of the remix, which basically involved adjusting where the breaks (double-colons) between phrases occurred. This meant that the 'heads' and 'tails' of discrete phrases were pruned and grafted on to adjacent phrases. The result was a greater sense of discontinuity, meaning that the reader probably has to make more of an effort to follow the flow of the poem. The parenthetical phrases between stanzas were the final elements to be added.

I found the remixing process very interesting indeed. I felt I was taking on someone else's voice, which I guess is something I've done a few times in my work, but I don't think I've channeled this kind of voice before. It's a male voice, but I'd say there's a feminine edge to the imagery it projects.

Dana's notes on this remix can be found here.

First Seven Sevens (Remix) (2009)

First Seven Sevens, remixed by Dana Guthrie Martin

#1

There are no meds.
Another lucid moment.
Inside words hunger dries.
Paranoia’s ear comes loose,
howls through fields
remembers what it means
to drown.

#2

Another constellate goodbye.
Another tearful bedpan.
I like what you’ve done
with your forehead.
Inside the drowned,
at least one photograph:
heads thrown back.

#3

People felt things.
Edges. Needles. Casings.
Scratch & Sniff descriptions
of goodbyes often
belong on film.
Go read something
untoward.

#4

The computers are down.
Composes turns into compasses.
Bodies spin
like dime store tops.
Spiritualize all you want,
even a cave is full of sky.
Just sniff.

#5

They are revising deserts
into test sites again.
Dualistic thinking
brought us
sign and symbol,
hemorrhage and clog.
The sky never gets any credit.

#6

Moving symbols
conversant in slow-dancing
lend tranquilized
reassurance to droids.
Don’t forget
the enemies of glad:
Kick blood free.

#7

Keep tending your ego.
Dessert the color of night
skirts dazed magpies.
Awareness wears a hood,
dries in fragments.
Replicants prefer a belly
full of reassurances: We are one.


Dana's Process Notes:

The process I used was to strip all of Stu’s words out of his poem, “Sevens,” and jumble them up in a wordle. My initial plan was to remix the piece by using his words and only his words. But as with all plans, things changed. I started inserting some of my own words here and there as images came to me that I couldn’t shake and couldn’t create without using words that weren’t in the original piece.

In terms of structure, I wanted to keep the seven, seven-line stanzas because that form seemed essential to the remix. I noticed that I’d repeated certain important words in more than one stanza, and I decided that the repetitions should have some structure as well, so I placed the repeated words in adjacent stanzas as a way of threading them together.

I read Stu’s piece several times a few weeks before I started writing. But during the process, I didn’t revisit Stu’s piece at all. I wanted the words to take me somewhere without being swayed by how Stu had used them. I just went back and looked at the piece again today, and it’s amazing to read both sets of “Sevens” together. They read like a conversation. Even though most of the words are the same, there’s still a sense of different voices using those words, infusing them with meaning through tone and context.

I also just realized that I managed to leave the word “magpie” out of my version. I love magpies, and there’s no excuse for having left that word out. I just revised the last stanza to include the word “magpies.” Did you know that pies used to be made by placing a hollow ceramic magpie in the middle that would allow the heat from the pie to escape from its beak? I decided that my magpies belonged in my line about desserts. They fit right in there.

Frame Lines #7 now available

Issue #7 of Frame Lines is now available. There's some stunningly beautiful visual art inside, plus plenty of superb poetry, fiction and non-fiction. My poem pollen is also in there.

I'd recommend subscribing to receive the magazine as a PDF. This won't cost you anything, and all you have to supply is an email address!

Alternatively you can thumb through or download the magazine via Issuu, which presents documents as virtually-flickable objects (you'll see what I mean if you click on the document I've embedded below).

Many thanks to the Frame Lines editors - I'm thrilled to have my work included in such a stunning publication.

hybrid (2009)

birds siren across hard water. where the girls were to be used nothing is. our business the best protection. major counterfeiters' hedge against disaster scenarios. eye warns against thinking again about. the stress state at the mid there’s someone out there using some. don’t look at what i’m wirebonded. bring your tools and screen-glitch. all comes when it’s not meant variation on this design. as if text chopped of different fonts. a sampler knowledge is to take place at. remixer rendering trees again as strange as they are. under stress a sexual placement of pollen upon the stigma. lean times don't have money to be asking questions

what happens if you redefine

"Under certain conditions any language event can be poetry. The question thus becomes one of what are these conditions."

"The historical attraction of the arts to madness is a question of what happens if you redefine the language."

- Ron Silliman, from 'The Chinese Notebook' in The Age of Huts (compleat).

want (2009)

will not be pinned or nailed unless we choose a name in the margin ~ sanctify a saint who can be edgecutter too ~ a rat on rat patrol radar on ~ i’m a business cannot assist i feel so oh no master of none milky tea on my fingers ~ think i’ve found the real stuff needs doing hired a hand but it couldn’t hold ~ the use? ~ slob readerships for mediated ~ taped mouths ~ taped mouths ~ theft can be pretty? they’re your words not mine what’s to write home? ~ don’t interfere with mating plants ~ guns stick to your easily think i’ve figured how to read these secured the bridge flee the inward we shit so much repressed breath ~ pocketed another face for later quit sleep take up night fled the junk party room with its pinked haze ~ you want her nametag though & so many buildings your table not content


As published in Otoliths 14, August 2009. This poem contains words from a raiders guide by Michael Farrell.

Below: Andreas Gursky, '99 Cent'

Gigs - February '09

First up was the launch of Unusual Work #7 at Uptown Jazz Cafe on the 6th of Feb. Great atmosphere and an appreciative audience for outer-limits poetry and art - what more could you ask for? Loved Sean O'Callaghan's reading with video/slideshow, and to hear Maxine Clarke perform her West Indian patois poems was something else! What a voice! And great to witness Paul Fearne do his first 'public' reading of his work. I love Amelia Walker's 'Norwegian' piece in UW#7 - you should check it out if you haven't already. In the words of PiO: 'small magazines: the life blood of a great literature... MAKE AN EFFORT!'

Then there was Passionate Tongues on Monday the 16th. Tiggy Johnson and Alex Skovron - couldn't have picked two more different poets really - both gave inspired readings. Plenty of quality and good humour in the open mic too. I read two of my WA Notebook poems, coastal and The day writes itself.

Today I made it down to the Dan O'Connell, where Carmen Main was the feature. She rocks... what can I say?! Open mic was fun today too. I read two more from the WA Notebook, development and Waterfront.

That's probably it for this month - I'll be trying to knuckle down to some serious work before March rears its head.

Below: at the Dan O'Connell 21/2/09 (photo by Michael Reynolds)

haze (2009)

Forecast for Melbourne, February 17, 2009:
31 degrees, smoke
_____________– Bureau of Meteorology

1.

clouded suburbs

smoke haze from the fires

recall Black Saturday_______________crush of heat

& refuge in numb privacy

justify a cigarette, bottle, joint, TV…
______________________network news lunging for pathos


2.

veins of light through the blinds

her body whispers in the linen

don’t want to say but will
________________ (so much energy fed to honesty)

animating these lips, alone

“why put away things you know you’ll take out again?”

rehearsing the encounter,
_______________trying it on the tongue

“why leave things lying around
_____________when they can be taken out when needed?”

but notice how everything fits?
_______________meditation brings cadence

& in the dreaming-throat
______________ignites small fires

how this static zone of afternoon
______________________shadowless
______________________________recurs over & over


3.

the recognition

beneath the as-normal laughter
______________fixing drinks inside airconned apartment

haze will lift

heat subside

quarrel resume

anicca

recurring poem #5

Samuel Wagan Watson : cold storage

bussed it into Mitchell
from out of nowhere
and found it on ice

to the horizon line
a smothering layer of cold political rhetoric
the hopeless arguments of history palpitating
__-gently into the cracks
__-of stoneware earth

hurting is the season here in the bush
and winter is the additive that comes with it,
the storm shutters are up -
every second store closed or having a closing-down sale

the hunger pains of the city end here
the spirits are being sucked away into this gas-pipeline
as the Beast just keeps taking ... taking ... taking ...

black and white struggle to reconcile
slashing their own bloodlines
the kids packed off to the Big Smoke
where all the opportunities now manifest

a rainbow-serpent dormant on cryogenic dreams
chiling over into the landscape
while a secret war is fueled on urban innuendo
as a country-town loses another generation of its young
to the lust of the city

a main street void
____________-of the laughter of its children


Below: Sam Wagan Watson at the Brisbane Writers Festival

Second Seven Sevens (2008)

(following on from the First Seven Sevens)


#7

Numberless hells
recently reopened.
These under lands, the vast
three-way streets
withholding orphan data,
brains meshed in wire.
This is not 2009.


#11

‘To love your mother
tongue is to love all mother tongues.’
Today,
what language contorts to depict.
Mangled jokes & mating calls.
Silence is a rhythm too,
resists being thought.


‘To love your own mother tongue is to love all mother tongues’ – Anjan Sen


#12

come on now, talk
about your family: sister’s cursed
before all coordinates
have even been sown down

every man father
every woman mother

No, screw you, Oedipus.


‘come on now, tell me about your family, your sister’s cursed...’ = Pavement, ‘Silence Kit’


#13

facile curious
he had all ports open,
a bloodless coup.
tomorrow sees him
flesh-mining for
extremer, extremer.
(words wilt/fail).


#14

They mistake words for things.
Won’t say ‘I’ any more –
how could you?
An artist wants a world
different from how she finds it.
Those who profit by their careful errors.
An exhibition of picture frames.


#15

this is our address:
morning fed on a seemingly low subject:
“Drink me,” male voice requests
– static dream moment –

the nauseating businesslike tones
employed to recruit her
have slid through my mind.


#16

targets, alphabets, numerals & flags
the presentation so literal
flat & given.

searchlights skyward!

morse flashes & flares
hastily deployed.

the winking light that terminates.


Below: 'Seven sevens' by bricolage.108

Sein und Werden : cinematique

I'm told that two of my poems (desist and Forkhead) will be featured in the upcoming 'cinematique' edition of Sein und Werden ('Being and Becoming'), which promotes itself as 'a literary magazine of experimental prose, poetry and artwork that seeks to merge and modernise the ideas behind Expressionism, Surrealism and Existentialism.'

desist is a poetic response to Stan Brakhage's experimental short desistfilm, and should feature in the print edition of the mag, while Forkhead, based on David Lynch's Lost Highway, will be freely available online.

Thanks go to editor Rachel Kendall for offering to publish my poems in the UK for the first time.

Poetry Idol heat 1 / Paradise Anthology launch

Last Sunday Nick Whittock and I acted as judges for the first heat of Poetry Idol 2009, which was held at St Kilda Library along with the launch of the second Paradise Anthology.

Nick and I eventually picked out Marc Testart and Ozlem Baro to go through to the final, while the audience voted for Sharona Radovsky and Duanne Clarke. The encouragement award went to Corrine Phillips. All were worthy winners.

The two former Poetry Idol winners, Geoff Lemon and Ezra Bix, gave energised performances of poems and promoted their respective books. The publication of Ezra's had been part of his prize, while Geoff's is published by Picaro.

Aside from judging on the day, in November I ran a workshop with several Paradise Anthology poets to prepare their poems for publication. I was also asked to pick out what I thought were the three best poems in the anthology. The poems I chose were written by Kai Jensen, Emma Kerrin and Fiona Stuart, who were all awarded prizes at the launch.

It was a great day of poetry and music, and a treat to see Chris Wilson perform live again. I also enjoyed Trish Anderson & Michael Crane's duet of Leonard Cohen's Who By Fire.

Thanks to Michael, Odette & Sally for all the support and encouragement. And kudos to all the poets, musicians, organisers, and everyone involved in The Paradise Anthology for pulling off another well-attended and fun event.

The Poetry Idol 2009 final will be held at Federation Square as part of the Age Melbourne Writers Festival. Chances are I'll be judging another heat or two before then. The next heat will be at South Yarra / Toorak library on Monday the 6th of April.

The Cartier Street Review: Feb '09 edition now up

The February edition of The Cartier Street Review is now accessible for your indulgence.

I'm very happy to have three poems in there, rubbing shoulders with some very talented poets: Patricia Smith, Don Cooroughs, Jee Leong Koh, Renee Dwyer, Will Hames, Don Schaeffer, Dianne Borsenik, Sadiq Rahman, Dubblex, John Burroughs, Joy Leftow, Don Coorough, Paul Niziol, Tanuj Solanki and Bernard Alain. There's also tasty prose by Craig Woods and Dave Besseling.

Special thanks to Bernard and Joy for their editorial hospitality!

3 poems to feature in Clockwise Cat

Three of my poems (sad somehow the girl, Nightpiece and Advice) will be featured in issue 14 of Clockwise Cat, which will come out around April.

Thanks to editor Alison Ross for accommodating these oddments!

otoliths 12 goes live

Check it out. I'm sure you'll find something that startles / tickles / unsettles you.

"Included in this issue are David-Baptiste Chirot, Denise Duhamel, Raymond Farr, J. S. Murnet, Tom Taylor, James Sanders, Martin Edmond, Kane X. Faucher, Andrew Taylor, Christopher Major, Forrest Roth, Cath Vidler, Angela Genusa, C.E. Chaffin, John Lowther, Mary Ellen Derwis, Joe Balaz, Mary Ellen Derwis & Joe Balaz, Maria Garcia Teutsch, Felino Soriano, Bobbi Lurie, Bill Drennan, Jeff Harrison, Sheila E. Murphy & John M. Bennett, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen & John M. Bennett, John M. Bennett & various collaborators, John M Bennett, Adam Robinson, Anny Ballardini, Michael Rothenberg, Jared Schickling & John Bloomberg-Rissman, Tom Beckett interviewing John Bloomberg-Rissman, John C. Goodman, Marcia Arrieta, Donald Dunbar, Eric Burke, Joseph Wood, Gregory Bem, George Moore, Brandon Shimoda, J. A. Tyler, sarah k bell, Ed Baker, Arpine Konyalian Grenier, Jill Jones, Geri Gale, Geof Huth, sean burn, Tim Gaze, Nicolette Westfall & Jeff Crouch, Paul Siegell, Daniel f Bradley, Stu Hatton, Dan Ruhrmanty, Philip Byron Oakes, Kristina Marie Darling, Katrinka Moore, Mary Kasimor, Charles Freeland, D.C.Porder, Jeremy P. Bushnell, Alana Madison, Michael Filimowicz, & Spencer Selby. The cover is by Alexander Jorgensen."

I have two pieces in this issue.

transit (2008)

for Dorothy

how can you say goodbye to all
your kindred at once? sometimes
the emotion must be sung, be
sounded darkly. this time it is
someone in proximity, another
glass broken, one in whose clear
chamber you held this liquid to
the light, as if answers could be
held that way. her words must
keep moving, tongue of fire, will
not pause for you, lick of the blade –

sinewave (2009)

The tomb within the green rise of earth
is the pregnant belly of the goddess,
where the newly dead are sown
to be born back to the sun.


Note: This poem was partly inspired by John Grigsby's book 'Beowulf and Grendel', and samples some words from it.

Coming soon: otoliths 12

Some more publication news just in: Mark Young will be publishing two of my things (some prose vignettes entitled Seven Concentrations, and a short poem called faulty) in issue 12 of otoliths, which for my money is one of the web's premier experimental text/art journals, featuring poetry, vispo, prose, visuals and other forms of madness.

I also had a couple of poems featured in issue 9. Thanks to Mark for finding room for my work.

The Cartier Street Review

Just received word from Bernard Alain that three of my poems (I will not carry, Mid-city meditation and For Edwin) will feature in the next edition of The Cartier Street Review.

I recommend checking out the poems and articles in the journal's archives - there's some great stuff.

haiku (2009)

the morning after:
half-finished tumbler of scotch,
a moth floating dead

formulation

"If any human activity is sacred it is the formulation of thought in clear speech." - attributed to Ezra Pound in Noel Stock's The Life of Ezra Pound.

Below: Ezra Pound by Wyndham Lewis.

coastal (2009)

"too hot to get busy anyway"

unused sky bestowing confidence

we'll take the coastal road

Aussie flags hoisted on roofs, in sandy gardens

'fuck off we're full' sticker
__________________on a ute's rear panel

but let the sunset beach do the tender talking

the brewery will do the rest

the sea:
______yet more fields to be farmed

parasails sweep, flip
______________as tankers ride the horizon


- on the coastal road to Fremantle, WA

development (2009)

impermeable, unstirred, unmoved

these lives that go on regardless

city of satellites

another new suburb on the city fringe

mounds of sand, industrial supplies stand waiting

shopping village has the works for home and garden

"we'll need at least 15 bags of ice"

the hells these cuts of meat came through (you'd weep & refuse to eat)

driving past these oversize words that say nothing, nothing to stop us

"what lifting the ban on uranium mining would do for this state"

news item portraying protesters as terrorist-clown-mutants

this station plays the golden oldies


- Ellenbrook, WA, 1/1/09


Below: 'Au$$ie Living' (click on image to enlarge)

Waterfront (2008)

subdued table

lunch overheated / flavourless

running the risk of being asked to leave -
___shouldn't be eating this food here
___though no sign tells us not to

the bona fide clientele stab their disapproval
___without so much as eye contact

this place swallowed by sun & ice cream kids
___boats knocking against the quay
___playground throbbing with fluro noise

a drink could make things worse

in the car park cars melting /
___wavelets shimmer on windshields


- Hilarys Boat Harbour, Perth, WA

Meeting (2008)

You start to get a feel for what might be expected
at this level. Those around the table who
intimidate you do so only out of habit. Items
raised become a troupe of coins spun on the
tabletop; the key point for debate is the need to
move on to the next. Coughing, shrugs and
cultured laughter make for a routine
performance. In this congregation you no
longer consider yourself well-nurtured; your
assertions falter, drowned by those in smoother
humour. You are once again amazed by how
much you don't know, by your allergic response
to operational matters. You know you wouldn't
want to be left one-on-one with any of those
seated here; conversation is for others.
Continually looking to the clock for lenience,
you plan to sneak away during lunch & not
return to the room for the resumption. Your
hand trembles as you reach for a biscuit.

ways out (2008)

Don't we fear we have already left it too late? Can't bear to watch. It's not so much that the horses are whipped, but that they are used up. Running out of context. Like a good labyrinth-maker, give them ways out. As in, you can't just 'get off' the plane. Perhaps a hallucinogen capable of de-storying. No landing lights. People look well in the dark. Again primitive and unknown. Something underheard. Consider the rights of trees. That the diagram we make of the world is rooted in their architecture. The latest iteration. Despite appearances, we haven't been in this part of the complex before.

The days write themselves (2008)

A roadsign warns against golf buggies.
Listen: is that a shot off the fairway
or a big bloke preparing to spit?
Perhaps both. Grey roos
bound out of sandtraps.
No one is making this up. Really
the days write themselves.
There'll be people over at 5
for champagne & nibbles.
Then the Monday after the 60th bash
we'll fit in 9 holes.
Stocked up so much alcohol
the house begins to sink. And
the parrots don't want us here either.
Not as if they need our help
to be classy. Who owns this plot
of blue & cirrus sky? Flies
routinely circle the heat
of the road. 4x4s rocket past
as we retreat into slim roadside shade.
Grasshoppers broadcast dry static.

- The Vines, WA, 24/12/08

These bastions of quiet achievement (2008)

What can be said here?
Passing a school
& two churches,
a dozen placards
of success.
Truly,
this plot of land was sold
by Candice Wellman. She
looks happy, but
what choice does she have?
Systemic smile.
Space at a premium -
fill it while you can!
All we're asking for is
sedated children,
by which we mean our own
or those seated nearby
(having paid top dollar
for these seats). "Sorry this is
such a one-sided
conversation;
in fact I'm interested
in what you have thought.
I mean on a personal level.
What you think
when you're not thinking,
how you swim as you drown."

- Scarborough, WA, 23/12/08

Logical Positivism (2008)

Blind faith’s the only kind? I don’t believe that. Here intuition is the tailwind, though something injures our hearing, electrically high-pitched. The windows were closed; there was the smell of a closed room. What were we waiting for? What weren’t we waiting for? Daylight was promising. Nightlight too, but in a different way. Of course our interests are too close for us to see. What if every morning we could improvise? Unblock the air? Well, now we can. I’ll begin: “taking the usual precautions, they managed to cut her free from the car.” Soon enough we'll have a book. When will you be available?

A Landmark (2008)

Only at the end of our visit
as we left in the brown dawn
did we see the nuclear facility over the town,
a landmark even through fog.

We knew very little at that time;
while visiting the cancer and Alzheimer’s patients,
though glad that conversation never stalled uncomfortably,
we had no inkling of the problem.

My parents had been raised there, but said nothing.
That silence still gets handed on; warnings fail
on what can only be described as a musical level.
Once, at school, we were shown a film of the devastation,

which I understood. It haunted my mouth for years.
Even now, if I see panicked crowds running, I go down,
until some bystander revives me
with language sane in the extreme.

Dan O'Connell, Saturday 13/12/08

On Saturday, after standing in the rain for an hour or so outside the State Library to protest the Australian government's plans to introduce mandatory internet filtering, I headed on down to the Dan O'Connell for the weekly open mic.

As a tribute to Dorothy Porter, I read the Overture from her Carmen sequence (which I posted below). This was originally featured in Driving Too Fast, her book from 1989. Then I read Drive-thru, which I originally wrote for Dorothy's creative writing class at Melbourne Uni in 1998 (Elizabeth Campbell was one of my classmates). I also read Down slow, which I'd been working on during my mentorship with Dorothy in 2007, and which she seemed to take a shine to.

The open mic was as diverse as ever. Several other poets read Dorothy Porter poems. Featured poet Anthea Bartholomeuz was impressive. I'll probably be back again some time in the new year.

Below: Reading Dorothy's poem (photo by Michael Reynolds).

recurring poem #4

Dorothy Porter: 'Overture' from Carmen

Three days of heatwave,
A hot lid of dinning cicadas.
At night only a flock of bats lifts
__and flies across a hot scrap of moon.
Colours flow hot and slow like lava;
__the sea is never cold
__shining like the bluish basking belly
____of a snake.
Even mauve smoky twilight scratches along the skin
__behind the eyes
__like a hot thorn.
A black and white butterfly
__floats past a bright orange weed
____that flutters hungrily
______like a fly-trap.
Around an oozing broken pipe
__midges cluster
____ogling the milky water
______that gives off a green stink.
The road is empty
__but for the bright disturbing green feathers
____of a rainbow lorikeet
______smeared across the hot bitumen.

But. Look now.
There's a white light
______glancing off the water;
a spatter of rain
hisses on the road
and wafts up
__in a dew of dust and petrol;
flecks of parrot piss float
__from a luxuriant blossoming gum;
white cars
__in this fierce light
__hurt the most.
Carmen
__drives with one loose dark hand
Carmen
__drives a white hot car.

Vale Dorothy Porter

Dorothy Porter 1954-2008

Poet, verse novelist, lyricist, trailblazer, music lover, mentor.

unfinished liquid (2008)

some swim beyond
reproach the water
robe the dot
orgs wear any
mud hurled sins
of omission hint
your interest more
talented bestiaries the
further back you
dig obscure lexical
artefacts hop out
of freshly printed
books to applause
our eyes snacking
on arcs aerodynamic
or otherwise such
a dull integrity
of suppressed intent
seldom smiling with
our whole body


As published in Counterexample Poetics, June 2009.

underslept, an urban centre (2008)

The governing feeling is
morning, stirred vagaries,
though you are too tired to be
traffic. This part of the
world a kind of
insomnia: a car advertises
‘public speaking for
all’. Try not to overthink
the nondescript, but on this
terrain it could prove hard to
be ruthless. A fool thinks
ruthlessness trumps the best
thing you’ve understood,
and a fool is often dead.
Take this one, filling in a
health questionnaire while
driving, perhaps content,
bouncing on the brake.