Snapshots, January 5th 2005
then I lay in the hallway
writing my homework or reading a book
I lay where they
had to walk over me or around me
I lay in the middle of the world
a sponge on the reef of Family
now I am moving everyday
a million miles an hour
I am jumping over
me lieing down in the hallway
I am spinning between
the river and the sea
who are you? runs in my head
like a little koan
impossible to ever answer
as I spin more Self
about me lieing down
who who who who who
there's not a snapshot that's true
i'm out of the picture
and in the spin of
my cacoon life
catch me if you can ...
i am i i am i i am i
Andrew Burke
***
Four days without cigarettes
and how can I whine
when dry
snow drifts in the cold and the sea
takes one hundred and fifty
thousand. I pull my
quilts around me, this knitted
scarf, this crocheted
hat, these dogs
to keep me warm with no need
to think of eating them.
The sea now peopled
with inedible creatures, half-fish half-
human. One does not
fork the flesh
of one's brother. The animals ran
before them to high
ground and hidden
places, elephants clambering
with their great sensitive feet
away away
from the trembling earth
and the demoned sea. Juncos
peck at the seed
I've scattered on snow.
Siskins wait at the feeder.
Will those who are left
grow into disappointment
that none are who
they lost this day?
Or will they find
in each other
some consoling love?
Sharon Brogan
Four days without cigarettes
and how can I whine when dry
snow drifts in the cold and the sea
takes one hundred thousand leaving
survivors to the care and predations
of strangers. I pull my quilts
around me, this knitted scarf, this
crocheted hat, these dogs to keep
me warm with no need to think
of eating them. The sea now
peopled with inedible creatures,
half-fish half-human. One does not
fork the flesh of one's brother. The
animals ran before them to high
ground and hidden places, elephants
clambering with their great sensitive
feet away, away from the trembling
earth and the demoned sea. Junkos
feed on the seed I've scattered on
the snow. Siskins wait at the squirrel
feeder. Will those who are left grow
into disappointment that none are who
they lost this day? Or will they find
in each other some consoling love?
Sharon Brogan
***
attacks / tsunami
politics / world turns careless
tsunami / attacks
Douglas Barbour
***
BLOODLUST
I was in Providence only once but
I remember (Diane Arbus would be ashamed of me)
walking through a riverfront park
standing a respectful distance
from a guy in the bushes
when I realized he was taking a leak
that day I proved to myself that I
was not cutthroat enough to be
a street photographer because
I left the Rolleiflex capped.
I had Diane's camera
but could not play her tunes
any more than a 5th grader with an alto
can play "Confirmation."
Is life limitations or a failure
of nerve?
Kenneth Wolman
***
THE HAUNTED CASTLE
[via F.W. Murnau]
You forgot to invite me.
So youre staying then?
Well, you will bear the responsibility.
In expectation of the Baroness . . .
But I know more, sir. I can read secrets, too.
Today I will reveal everything.
Barry Alpert / Silver Spring, MD US / 1-5-05 (8:39 PM)
Four stills from the 1921 film can be viewed at
http://www.sloppyfilms.com/murnau/castle.htm
***
my leaves turn, my lungs need polish
skin drops to the ground, memory sticks to the wall
there's nothing in the master narrative that beats death
posters peeling from their dates are yellow
somewhere the old rectangle of the book
is porous and the words feather in the rewrite
Jil Jones
6 January 2005, Marrickville
***
THAT BIG WAVE
she said
terrible!
a disaster!
that big wave!
mega tsunami
phone lines
all jammed
every-one ringing
can't get through
to the agents
it's awful
we had our
best holiday
booked at
yes Phuket!
now we shall
have to find
somewhere else
the Caribbean
or something
but sadly he is
so disappointed
but luckily we
were insured
and we can
get a refund!
pmcmanus n590
reported conversation
from my allotment
posted before but still my snapshot cheers Patrick
***
Snapless:
Stephen Vincent
***
To Leeds 1964 [a sequel to last week's 'Zabaione']
[remembering Bill Pearson (1922-2002),
author of 'Coal Flat', 'Fretful Sleepers'
and 'Rifled Sanctuaries']
On overseas sabbatical,
Bill Pearson meets me
(shy, ill-read product of Auckland)
in Edinburgh where Iım now a student.
Iıd re-elect him mentor, but he treats me
(and everyone) always as his equal.
Not being a driver,
he pats my new Cortina,
sits beside me meekly
with a map on his knee.
Southwest through the Borders
we head, keen to look about us
and sense historical links,
though neither he nor I are clear
how to pronounce more than short chunks
of the regionıs ballads we revere:
and what will ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
when ye gang over the sea O?
The worldıs room, let them beg through life,
mither, them never more will I see O.
The Borders grand country where
itıs forested, grand where itıs bare,
here and there reminding Bill
of his South Island (which Iıve yet to see)
which so many Scots,
landless, self-exiled, land-hungry,
found so congenial
for kirk and sheep and oats,
their practical knowledge
and their own Knox College;
Dunedin, Otago, where
lately Billıs friend James K. Baxter
plays both bard and sinner
like a Robert Burns reborn
with Jungian tartan on.
And the ruins a wrecked castle with moat,
hereıs an old abbey open to the sky,
and that stone sheepfold, still on guard
just what Wordsworthıs Michael lingered by.
Somewhere here Walter Scott wrote
those many long books Iıve yet to read.
Further over, off our route, must be
Ayrshire, Robert Burns country;
of him we can just recite
Wee sleekit timırous cowırinı beastie
and something about a daimen-icker ....
His loves and all his bairns so needy...
to think he nearly left for Jamaica!
If itıs Leeds weıre heading for,
soon thereıs a junction to be navigated.
Billıs pilot finger has hesitated
before and does so now;
ignoring his slow advice,
I plunge (I trust) southeast.
I was right but did I offend him?
Darkness falls, rain sets in,
talk flags, wide English
counties slide by featureless.
Threading Leeds, we find the hostel
where next day is the conference.
Dumb at breakfast I admire dozens
of vibrant laughing delegates.
From everywhere in The Commonwealthı
theyıve come to discuss the new literaturesı.
Can they have read enough books?
Could New Zealand interest West Indians?
Billıs paper assumes so, modestly
mapping the region heıs traversed,
inheritance and adaptation,
both as scholar and novelist.
The man from The Guardian
assumes so. The West Indians
discern historical patterns
and living links quite unrehearsed.
Attempting conversation
among these cosmopolitans
from such scattered regions,
I try out my new word: dia-spora;
silence, laughter, then:
sounds like a disease, ratherı
says a poised someone.
Do I conceal my chagrin?
O what a panicıs in my breastie
tongue-tied I lurk in bookshops,
dipping, never finishing a single book:
ballads, Burns, Scott, now a commonwealth
of unmapped new writing, the worldıs room.
So long, Bill, safe home.
My Edinburgh time
expiring, Iıll find somewhere some
congenial situation.
*
Melbourne it turned out to be,
another, prouder postcolonial siteı,
roomy enough but not quite
(failure to adapt?) for me.
Diaspora simply means dispersion.
Forty years on, pensioned off,
still behind with my reading,
and missing Auckland, I seem a case
of one who has mislaid his situation.
So long, Bill. You knew your work and place.
[Max Richards, Melbourne, 5 January 2005]
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