A m o c k e r ylike a confession
*
as usual it begins
as description
sheet lightning
streaks
across the corner
missenden & king
wide open doors
leach humidity
'FREE BYO'
the sign
on the plate glass
hovering fruitflies
sup the juices
hoisin splash
spots your blouse
full to belching
in Dumpling Hut
beery hotfaced
& beaming —
you philosophise
the wornout 'how to live'
theme
redundant wheezing
(you're 'positing')
no stopping it
*
a looming solution -
'jump off the bridge'
(unsaid)
*
why is that not funny?
*
assembling
your disapproval heap
we argue over
nothing much
but feel it
*
another go
another irritant —
nativists
voguing around scribbly barks
honouring an old as new
'Australianness'
*
now you're really starting to get on my nerves
*
another beer?
*
there are times
when everything's been said
(note
propensity for sulking)
put a lid on it?
*
I just noticed
you're wearing your
save the mangroves badge
(cheer up strategy)
*
workaday life
can be
pretty dull
pretty workaday
humdrum
oh fuck!
they should just
PRINT MORE MONEY!
*
&technically
does 'Australianness'
really need
double ns?
*
any love?
moving against one another
rubbing up
checking
over the shoulder
any love
any where
any way
huh
it isn't love
it isn't art
it's shit
pretty much
anyone?
*
(
personally of course I regret everything
not a word not a deed not a thought
not a need not a grief not a joy
not a girl not a boy not a doubt
not a trust not a scorn not a lust
not a hope not a fear not a smile
not a tear not a name not a face
no time no place that I do not regret
exceedingly
an ordure from beginning to end
)
*
then it seems
that
the gesture
determines
the document
every time
(it's a worry)
if,
as the internet poet says,
the first thing
a poem
communicates
is communicability
then
what?
*
some poetry
is
very good
at futility
*
it is mostly futile
but
it's also
'something to do'
echo echo echo
*
was an era doomed
in a moment?
when punk & disco
refused
any dialectical synthesis
oh that era
equals 'Mariah Carey'?
*
storm over
going home
bye bye dumpling
*
zip past
the emergency assembly point
so far so good
living here over half a decade
& no emergencies
b-double
stuck in the bus lane
king street
chock full
mr whippy's
nightmarish greensleeves
whirls
on the wind —
driven nuts
for forty years
by that carnival sound loop
any wonder
everyone seems
a bit jittery
*
it's here
climate change it is here
hotter inside
than outside
*
remember
the joneses?
now
neighbours resent neighbours'
better carbon outputs —
aircons cars pvc pool toys
plane trip emissions
*
the seasons
might need a change of name
how then
to say
'the sexiest summer was'
'the sexiest summer
of my life'
fervid tongues wet bellies
lovers
the sexiest summers of our lives
*
just before hiv
*
these days
the coffee machines
of some burbia or urbania
keep couples coupled
if that's
what's happened?
*
in stanmore
just off crystal street
olympia yellow —
Helen's kitchen ceiling
dreamy skylight
crossed by
big aluminium abdomens,
incoming planes
she says
for the government
it's another bad week
&
it's only tuesday
*
we're talking
about the past
having no influence
like some disastrous
Great Leap Forward
political convention
means nothing now
there's a saying in russia —
the past
is unpredictable
*
historians
cobweb your wounds
*
I know it's not
the end of capitalism
though
I might have said
it was ...
I surely did
or
hoped it was
*
I broke
the miniature ninukshuk
extra bad luck
*
&
seventy percent of the coral
is dead
*
to the reminiscery
tae visit
the wee spurrit
o'yae scots grandmither
bit na relief 'ere
och
woe betide
th' ebbing tide
aye
*
a real place called
river nith
in the northern & eastern parts
of the upper west district
*
aren't the good times a-comin'
soon
*
up the country
newly electrified sections
of the fence
keep things
in order
keep things
in the paspalum
a dingo
howling at dusk
if we're lucky
*
two streets
from
a wetland
i.e.
a couple of recycled
storm water ponds
introduced species
enjoying a respite
from rubbish dumps
*
ah
wondrous
contaminated
planet
*
it's all groundwork from here on
*
the modem's
in the wardrobe
the memory is full
what is to be done?
*
born dual
(gemini)
I can operate
in the margins
but, like Mel Chin,
(conceptual artist)
be ever wary
of being placed there
by anything in the centre
that maintains power
by colonizing
its perimeter
pause
that's
unlikely to happen,
whose poetry's
ever
that popular?
(though others
may wish
to 'take note')
*
&
a hundred
schools of thought
contend
*
you're making
a mockery
*
we HAVE food,
not like
we're starving here
*
too many
horrendous 'incidents'
in the
world-at-large
*
such regret
*
a lot of the time
*
& now or
near to now
in the last month
another friend
leaves
too early
at 40
in querétaro
Luis Alberto Arellano
poet born into
the Age of Discrepancies
so wry —
your cryptic wit
& pasquinade
in québec
& us
(oh) so wise
— kind of —
in our poor
second
& third languages
nothing in english
in that little town,
soupe à l'oignon
ice wine
& french everything
farewell
dear Luis
*
we're
going on,
me & the living
friends
outside
a coburg cakeshop
seduced by pigeons
she loves pigeons
'like a Jungian
would'
*
new year's day
begins a second later
a leap second
for atomic time
I walked round there
on the first of january
round the corner
from
south dowling street
methadone centre
a bedraggled jacaranda
late to flower,
still purpling
the concrete
& crumpled can glitter
no water view
&
almost as dead
as sausalito
I walked round there
last april
Etel Adnan
'divides her time'
between
sausalito & paris
paris
a no brainer
(that sounds 'american')
*
It is always 4 PM,
the hour I kissed a poster
(etel adnan)
*
now in the new year
2018 fresh time
have I used my extra second
*
momentarily
let's turn to
something futury
*
maybe not
let's not
*
in this hemisphere
*
on tv news
emergency workers
say they are tired
of pulling people
from car wrecks
with mobile phones
embedded in their bodies
*
a lunatic drives
a speeding car
straight into
lunchtime crowds
in central Melbourne
across the river
the international
tennis competition
continues
unawares
*
the world-at-large
*
I think I'll just sit here
& read
*
it's probably ok to ask
a perec question
'approaches to what?'
*
approaches
to
lower case world
far from
the middling case
where
the semi colons
are kept (;)
*
having a coke with you
goes round & round
the internet
until
the very end
mindful poetry
colouring book's
orange green
red white
stripes
of universal
seven elevens
*
folkstar
acoustic tales
from hal an tow
jolly rumbalo
mr minit
repairs hemp sandles
quick turnaround
*
why don't we do it
all again?
why don't we just?
*
the world's physical stuff
remains physical
my poem
not transformative
I guess I could say
'that's materiality for you'
it should be
as ephemeral
as instagram
as a whisper
as a wink
*
recurring heatwaves
(it's here)
placing pots
under chairs & table shade
french tarragon hydrangea
I tend hydrangea
reluctantly
intimation -
the protestant gardens
of childhood
unlike hypoestes phyllostachya
a k a
madagascan polka dot plant
that I'll shelter willingly
the sun so fierce
& no breeze
garden's not too messy
today
but it can be
*
two bees working
on unidentified groundcover
a cricket in the mint pot
lone blue banded bee
selects pink begonia,
how modest
sweeping away dead leaves
purple & red petals
avoid all ants
*
my ears
are as long
as Buddha's
*
glammed up for nothing
false positive
*
talking to myself again
lying on
a little mustard green
ottoman
under
the window
that gives a view
of a window
of the house next door
the world's physical stuff
just sticks there
nothing's moving
*
tomorrow I should still be here
then on wednesday
to chinatown
to buy goodwill symbols
& small gifts
for
the year of the rooster
*
almost february again
(I'm not ready)
Pam Brown is an occasional editor & reviewer & an author of various books, chapbooks, pamphlets & e-books. Her most recent book of poetry is Missing up (Vagabond Press 2015). Stale Objects dePress published a folio of her collage & other graphics, Westernity, in 2016. She lives in Sydney, Australia.