Sunday, December 31, 2017

Kit Kelen #729 - I count myself among them


729
I count myself among them

all these people desperate
to be saved from themselves
desperate to transcend
to be beyond beside themselves

with gods and demons
pills, good angels
exercise, the magic diet
helpful books and shopping - just the act of it
or work - for goodness sake

to diss the body too
in favour of abstract thinner-than-air
such as forever rumoured

poem of the morning -
that will get you off the hook

who knows of what they are capable?

and here they are with all there is
there cannot be more wonders

these are the monsters years have imagined

and were they to pause a moment
each would hear music of the clock that keeps them
that they keep
would know the preciousness of time
the mechanism
and their own running down

Saturday, December 30, 2017

Kit Kelen #728


728
must have been distracted

lost my train of thought
I know there had been something important there
I wondered if you might have remembered
because you might have been thinking what I was thinking
but I could see you were lost in thought yourself
I retraced what I could and returned to the crime scene
came up with a blank
was it something I'd read? eaten? discovered?
wracked scone but no avail
I think it was something sluggish in the weather
maybe something from the night before
and then I noticed where I was
though not quite sure
a certain trill of tune took me
rain on the roof was reminiscent
I thought of the day ahead
instructions I was bound to follow
how we got here
what's next to do
the topic list
the shopping
sex
where I'd left my resolutions
who I am
will be
then I lost that thread
I was talking to myself again
I don't suppose anyone would notice
but there was a thing I had to tell somebody still
skip that
something more important
corner of the eye you know
a fly stuck still on the glass
was it trying to understand
how it could perch on an ocean of air
and be flightless
you can see through the wings
but I don't suppose a fly can
was it stuck remembering too?
I think it was just a thought
it was never going to be a butterfly, was it?

it's a good thing I've written all of this down
now that we've gone to the one dream
which is nowhere to be at all

Rob Schackne #558 - Untitled (redux)

Untitled


Famous for a poem
written when he was drunk
(he doesn’t much like)
a great love 
a missed flight
an arrow a bed a blister
he walks with umbrella
treads on wet leaves


Friday, December 29, 2017

Kerri Shying R # 387 within my blurred speech


within my blurred speech

those seconds ache for each other
cling together    atoms   singing
out the centre of my birth name
call to the sun
how  does she live
call to moon
why does she speak
call to the earth
who does she speak
mother
father
who are her people  in the spaces
by the atoms live the colours
of the eyes of everyone who lived
before  they ask the questions seconds
onetwothreefourfive
blur

Kit Kelen #727 - first light (again) and time travel


727
first light
(again)

like a clock struck up
and here leaps puppy
play
it's all we can be to believe then
up image and away

all mine
that I see now
make off with
claim the day for next

by chariot
flagged thought

who of the past could quibble me now?

it comes for me like a last wish lost
noose of all and could commute

I'm pillow pressed to say
it's dawn
like a birth pink lipped

loved me from the beginning
dream caught out in it

I hear come like gossip
touching up the trees

spread
turn
roll
last stretch to it

receive

again
again
o heart beat home
to mean just we are here







time travel

if we went to the future
we wouldn't come back
I think that's happening now

Rob Schackne #557 - "The cat"


The cat
its rule
do you ever
go out on
a limb
tell me
a story
your body
falling down
can you
float
when you
wake up
in leather straps

all shook up

Thursday, December 28, 2017

Kerri Shying R # #385 - Outside


Outside

the weather is all outside along with
cats and bags and fighting dogs the
school forty zones   the coppers
waiting       for the miscreants
to slip

the weather   is all a mess
a pile of triangles   of underwire
bras   shooken in a bag 
and dumped   too dry too
wet   too high   like my cousin
just before the end

the weather man  I’d like to get him
as a guest   at my birthday
for when I get the big
six o  and make him take a turn
at every relative
I’ve got  it’s everything
the weather

don’t get me going on the weathersheds
that’s just sex

Kit Kelen #726 - ouch with


726
ouch with

at the beginning of things
always failing again
imperfect creature I am
not even a certain shape

I don't care if you hate me
or I do care but have to not

you must admit

something is crawling up me here
something is in my throat
clamped to my leg
won't let go
it bites
they all
you do

you think it's just your dinner

I am

we are unadorned here
simpletons of style

can you see me?
that's your work

if I paint no one will see what I see
I do it in my head

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Cameos # Claine Keily 123

She is not sure when
she began to measure houses
by the amount of rice they could hold
and of how many people that amount
could feed for a year

For a long time now
she had noticed
the winter coming

When the performance was staged
beside the swimming pool
she remembered her youth
days spent rubbing in
suntan oil
while hotel guests
and children frolicked

This is how it goes here
the drummers drum
the dancers dance
and all here have
in their own way
a life lived in twenty minute cameos

Kit Kelen #725 - I can see out



725
I can see out

here's how
I'm not telling
you won't know where to read

light falls to me
it can be yours too

I have gathered time here
nothing was given

they cloud up a sky for us

my night is darker
but I see out

I see further back in the stars

and dreams do

there isn't a road to run away

you think of the unseen safely out
little squeals attest

you think I'm a shark to swim
put up your net all around
you salt me
hang me out

all along I could see a way
it's how I'm here

I may not be brave enough for a name

you think I'm locked up in a little forever
but I can see you
and I can see out

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Kerri Shying R # 384 - Boxing Day ( for Milly)


Boxing Day ( for Milly)

I planted the frangipani
where I could see
imaginary grandchildren
 climbing

where I want to drink coffee
and write 

while Max  the dog
sat guard  out on the footpath
on his chain

keeping a miniature eye
on Brownie  up the road


Kit Kelen #724 - time and the island


724
time and the island

can you know me?

of course I must lie about who I am

read into that as far as you can

you who are all around to do
go anywhere you like

but here

you can go anywhere but here

I am stuck, as it were, between pages

can you know me?

of course I must lie to be who I am

do you like 'as it were'
I believe that is a turn of phrase

you wouldn't want to be here, to come here
to the island

but time is slow
an hour is a season

they say it has a name
but I doubt that
anyway, I won't tell

I'm in a curl of words between

of course I am translated
I translate myself
it's how I'm here

if you have just a moment
you're wondering

it's brave of us to be here

a first page always is

you'll hope that I am healing here
(grant you that much kindness)

I can damage myself however

however is a funny word
a horn each way

like Janus wants an end in April

will you think to do that?

are we on the same page?

think all kinds of things of me

in your imagination
I'm some kind of fish
and I can swim away

I want you to know how I came

Monday, December 25, 2017

Rob Schackne #556 - "How we got here"


How we got here
call it amazing light
starlight this life
truth or paradise
the desert was hot today
you sound like it's a bad thing
aren't we all dissenters
look   we're lost   it's found
the desert is cold at night
it could've followed us
wait   another baby's crying
I think this is far enough

Stuart Rawlinson #89 - The Storm

the smell of rain on a cool breeze
clouds betray a horizon of mountains
noiseless flickers in the rivulets
one Mississippi
two Mississippi
fourteen miles away

Kerri Shying R # 383 - Slight


Slight

gently redirected
to the small pool

this Christmas  is my time
for letting go  the reigns
  my sleigh runners
  slicing on the grass
  a decoration
 only

Kit Kelen #723 - three christmas poems


723
three christmas poems


1

Christmas is a long way off
and summer is too much

the picture everywhere unfinished
so that it takes the eye

everyone arrives
the uncle ghosts
and mum and dad
nod all agreed

the new world's
under the Christmas tree
you'd go exploring there
next winter's fire
stacked by the drive

like new car smell
it isn't a single idea

cicada is a shell behind
and welcome to some other world

by means of merest agitation
broke through that sticky web

and blowfly rattling up down
all along the big glass slider
is wanting out as well



2

2000 years born Jesus
hello cruel world
2000 years of mother Mary
her birth howl
with angels on
because that bearded boy
sang swan
and she was pure as snow

*

liver's turned to paté
who's a fat goose now?



3
mixed message

he reigns forever
in a mind of kings

a little kindness
saves who sings

except we are at war

he is before the word's beginning
leaves us all for laughter

each of us is called to christmas

it is all flesh
and satiation

hard working man
and brave

a gift is of
the otherworldly

someone's to burn later

and crusading
here's a dove

lord of lords
and thank the host

fish so let's
walk water

three kings come
to womanly Jesus

he hangs out with
mothering God

with all of kindness come

if you believe
angels have wings

a little kindness
saves who sings

lamb and lion
zombie riser

he is fish and word

the one who is rain fallen
prayed for

and land sighted too

he is the all before it was
an alphabet gives chase

here in my gumtree underworld
I am the vanished vanquished of it

is it double Sunday
at cicada pitch?

make mine an upside down day
with infant pauper king

he does all kinds
of heaven things

a little kindness
saves who sings


*

coda

it's Monday
remember to put out the bin
and
what will we do to undo what we've done
now that our Christmas is come?