Snapshots December 8 2005


The road steams up to hit me
and the steering wheel is a branding iron.
I am from the Double-Ouch ranch,
selling one stead to keep another.
They ask me what my concept of God is,
and I tell them about the tri-partite brain
and the spiritual-seeking brain and they
think that I am nuts. Any higher power is
outside of space and time and therefore
we can't comprehend it so why name it?
They leave me to my thoughts. But she
comes and buys the car, asking if anything
is wrong with it. It is 24 years old
and has been the car of a lowly paid poet
for six years. There is no doubt
something wrong with it, but
who knows and when will it show up?
$500 will not buy a Rolls. She phones when
I am back from teaching elderly people
how to write their best sellers, she phones
to tell me she has painted the back lights
with her art paints coz she didn't want to
go to an auto shop, and I think, ridiculously
looking up, Please don't let it rain until
she pays me the last instalment.
The day cools to a minimum
which the night sustains.

Andrew
Mt Lawley


***


     Initiation

     Don't be ashamed.
     I too am hanging
     on these words and
     pauses,
     each a choice precise portion.

     Don't be ashamed:
     I too am looking
     for details,
     backgrounds,
     marginata,
     accidents -
     each a mistake deliberately left.

     Don't be ashamed.
     Did you ever hug a book? I did.
     Ever lay your warm hand
     on cool printed gloss, or press
     your lips on glass? I did.
     Ever close your eyes and send? I did.
     Ever receive?

     Don't be ashamed.
     Did you ever dance? I did.
     But when everyone else was walking? Yes, I did that too.
     Ever cry, but couldn't
     explain? I know those tears.
     And did you make some art that no-one would
     understand? Show me.

     Come with us tonight.
     You are with us. You are one of us.
     We dream a big dream.
     We use all our senses, all our
     wits, all our
     skills. We are proud in our dance and humble
     in our art. Welcome
     to the temple.


Janet Jackson


***


A Present For Daddy

When I was a little girl my father had a pipe
and the tune it played was Gallagher's Rubbed-Out Rich Dark Honeydew.

At nearly-Christmas every year
we'd go with our mother to the small brown shop

with the bright glass cabinets and dark wood counter
where the air smelled of honey with liquorice breath,

and we'd say very carefully - If you please
we want Gallagher's Rubbed-Out Rich Dark Honeydew.

And all Christmas long that rich brown scent
would mingle with the smells of turkey and pudding

and our noses would be joyful too.

When I was a little girl my father had a pipe
and the tune it played was

Gallagher's Rubbed-Out Rich Dark Honeydew.

Joanna Boulter


***


my daughter enters
the room and finds me

on the edge of my bed

What can be funnier
than this, she said

I'm not ready for school


Frank Parker
Tucson, AZ 12.08.04


***


I was thinking about our bodies
and not the windows
drawn between the weather
and its ironies ­ a little rain
must fall, but on the outside
it¹s a holiday humidity
in here, well, tears which
bodies make of the split.
It¹s all the same and not
the same, L¹s toes which curl
like mine, strangely, and C¹s
regendered body, and voices
which catch on the truth
so you know the sound of it
not spoken. After, we smoke
on the words, gather the forms
grief and salvage, listen as
the beans drop from the counters
echoes we know, at last the floor
marble in my feet¹s mediated grip.
The lift swings out arms. And
there¹s reality again filling out
its report with a cranky hand.

Jill Jones
10.04 pm, 8 December 2004


***


ANGELLED


when he the

crabbed atheist

saw outside

his office window

an angel fly past

even behaloed

and well preened

he was certainly

rather surprised

even disturbed

but then twigged

that it was Fred

the window cleaner

just winding him up.





pmcmanus 10-50

raynesparklondon uk



***


POETRY BIRDS


flock

he saw

this flock

of birds

poetry birds

prima donnas

at the front

high flyers trilling

skylarking displaying

winging amazing

painting the heavens

completely bedazzling

followed by the

main talented flight

beautifully feathered

warm sweet voiced

good singers all

then far behind

an ancient silvered

almost featherless

last seedy member

winging it craftily

winging it carefully

from tree to tree

determinedly

steadfastly

towards the roost

cawing cheerily.





pmcmanus 9-19am

raynesparkuk



***


DANCERS

Inelegant, I watch

And the bell gongs:
"aglay! aglay!"



Mark Weiss


***


Poltergeist Possum Doggo
 
She woke me and the dog, saying
ŒIs that a poltergeist? Didn¹t you hear it?
Knocking the maracas from the ledge,
flitting stealthily everywhere.¹

Wearily I got up. Armed with a weak torch,
warily turning on all the lights.
Yes, the maracas were on the floor.

Oh the three windows were still open
which I should have closed before the storm
and now three puddles ­ don¹t step there.

In the far corner,
what¹s the ornamental plate doing
fallen from the sideboard
onto the vacant plant holder?

I lift the plate ­ not even chipped.
Curled in the pot is a small possum
far from mother,
lying doggo, playing possum.

Must have slipped in under the loose fly-wire
while the storm was on, blundered about ­
oddly concealed when the plate fell.

We carry out pot with possum,
place it on the terrace
in the storm¹s still aftermath.

All back to bed. Doggo.
By morning it is gone.
The pot can come back in.

From one end of the house to the other,
there are its little droppings.
It even explored the piano, silently,
which a poltergeist wouldn¹t have.

I mop steadily for a slow while,
then vacuum all those calling cards.
Mend the loose fly-wire?
It¹s been like that for ages ­
another time.
Sufficient unto the day
is the housekeeping thereof.

Maraca-player, plate-toppler.
Fur cap neatly fitting its hat-box.
Surreal fur-trimmed pot-roast.
Unexpected heart-throb, don¹t come back.

9 am, Wednesday December 8, 2004
  
Max Richards at Cooee
North Balwyn, Melbourne