the home page of david prater

Ian McEwan, Atonement Jonathan Franzen, The Twenty Seventh City Todd Swift, Monsieur Pigeon's Best Machine Ku Sang, Eternity Today Ko Un, Ten Thousand Lives Simon Armitage, Kid Clive Hamilton & Richard Denniss, Affluenza Bruce Cumings, Korea's Place In the Sun: A Modern History Ntozake Shange, for colored girls who have      considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf Ha Jin, War Trash Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy Dai Griffiths, OK Computer J. Niimi, Murmur Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of Ambiguity Yang Gui-Ja, Contradictions Pat Frank, Alas, Babylon Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities William Faulkner, The Wild Palms Shin Kyong-Nim, Farmers' Dance Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism Tony Tanner, Thomas Pynchon Walden Bello, Deglobalisation Italo Calvino, Difficult Loves Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production Phillip K. Dick, The Man In the High Castle Jonathan Franzen, Strong Motion Haruki M

you never did cross it but still it remains a pair of spectacles submerged in the river on one side lies the pleasure district: neon and ribbons, arc-welded limbs the scintillation distractors on the other: some home or one light that was gutted then torn down extinguished by passionate hopes between them, one heartless bridge a fiction beneath expatriate memories the mind`s dim canals ... of course being fake you`ll make a wide circuit round it beating drums to scare mild geese before dawn can catch its breath but grim hesitation tracks you down makes your heart skip beats tripping over cracks in streets sorrows like snow on an iron horse.

cold sweats in an immigration queue i`ve everything & nothing to declare hand trembles as it pushes a passport over the ledge into the hand of fate a process designed to inspire nervous twitches/ recognisable warning signs asked for evidence of forward journey (as if mere mortality were not enough then subjected to a crotch pat-down luggage rearrangements & repackings an apology & our tidy duet with zips questions as to future itineraries - drinking habits employment situation sniffing at feet & padded jackets ... is this why they call it "customs"? shoes removed & arms outstretched ... some meditative pose while minions search your person for spirit-ghosts a hushed quiet hanging over us all passing through a cold unassuming concourse (all memory of your past life erased every cavity aches for fresh air (or death/ this country whose culture you hope you`ll never have to fully understand let alone experience ... the attendant smiles as if we`re frien

ian fleming eat your heart out a beetle hits the lane running then bursts into the blue road all its legs up atomic powered sound a whee! about to explode three hours flat busan fukuoka along this navigator`s spine - past those sea anemone islands ploughing up the roadstead like nobody`s dymanic business multi- currency bi-lingual & all edges not a plume in sight (even the sun sets in a corner & behaves tvs propagate morgenland`s top news story: tsunami anniversary or hwang`s stupidity (all our shrapnel deposited inside that terminal hours ago between an epoch of regret at leaving this electrifying nation in which i no longer live (slowly melting away ... concrete rivers carry flows of nature`s snowy tears.

Okay, so I've already posted this on the PC Bangs blog but once is never enough. I'm very excited to say that there's an article in today's issue of English language newspaper The Korea Times that profiles my PC Bangs project here in Seoul. You can read the article online here . Big thanks to journalist (and artist) Bridget O'Brien, who definitely has a love of poetry (boy, is that a nice change!) and to photographer Kim Hyun-tae who managed to make me look cool in the pic (above). So strange to be in the newspaper - it's my first feature profile ever! Zippedy doo dah!

loading sheherezade into a humvee for her next press briefing bricks & shattered glass at her feet we stop off at the px for space food sticks this has been going on now for more than a thousand days all the quaint denials deferrals & cryptic demands wrapped up in one tress of her hair in this green zone we talk of many things without rush or interruption after all we've got a millennium to sort through our stories & alibis we were never here (special forces it's all too plausible (elections we've made a difference (coalition we'll see it through (presidents sheherezade slowly washes her face knowing that this morning may be her last chance to pre-empt their empty statements & gravity bombs the tigris & the euphrates confer with her thumbnail dipped in tar & now it's time for dates & blogs & book deals hey woody harrelson! one thousand and one nights away a ghost sleeps in fallujah where another tale is being spun fro

go on uh huh hit delete nah nah go on do it hit the button waha hit delete hit delete make like babyshambles pete hit yer headz then be dead hit delete forever pete make believe uh huh uh huh go on & do it delete forevers & still be clever as pete deletes his band & his mates his arms & go go pete girl get deleted oho pete & i were gunna get deleted forever! gunna die forever well maybe pete uh huh delete i dont really wanna know (uh huh oases of rehab shimmer in the mists o albion pete yeah what delete ah what a waster pete go on hit it delete forever pete why not who cares uh huh can we just have a g pete before you delete a beat or bleat about forever pete aha hit it pete! drive blind & then repeat pete crossfade the snowz pete delete forever make it hit pete hit it pete forever delete

Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! He's just a wee one he's not a biggy! He's not a tree no he's just a twiggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! Don't ever start on those evil ciggies! Eat too much you'll turn into a piggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! You'll be a truck driver in your riggy! In the Lord of the Rings you'd be Viggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! He's not bald he doesn't need a wiggy! Yes he's just a superstar called Ziggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! He's just a wee one, he's not a biggy! He's not a tree no he's just a twiggy! Oooooooooooooooooooooooo Ziggy Ziggy! Zigmund aka Ziggy aka Zigster Robert O'Shea, one year old December 3 2005!

I have a couple of poems coming out this week. One's in the understated and unpretentious Tasmanian literary bi-annual Famous Reporter , and it's entitled "There's A Wild Jack Russell In the Moon". I'm really happy that this poem has found a home (and in case you haven't noticed by now, I am obsessed with the moon, birds, planes, spaceships and little dogs). You can view details of the issue's contents (plus some of the poems) here . The other is a poem called "City Slacker" that will appear in the (Australian) summer issue of Overland . I'm over the moon (ha) about this one - I've been trying to get a poem in Overland for years, and they set a pretty high standard, I think. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Overland is one of the few Australian cultural and literary journals worth reading (oh no, I can feel another testimonial coming on). You can view details of the contents of the issue here . But I'll have to wait u

This morning I was walking down to Jongno-gil in downtown Seoul to buy a ham, cheese and egg toasted sandwich thinking "Gees, it's cold!" when all of a sudden, it started to snow! Well, it was more like miniature specks of ice but how fitting, on the first day of winter, for the rain to turn to ice! Although it only lasted about ten minutes I wanted to go and visit the old man with white hair in the grocery store (who has been telling me every night this week - "Tonight, snow!") and give him a big hug. I then got a text message from a friend who was at that moment (I think) on a train heading to Seoul and she said: "It's snowing!" Yippee! I haven't really done the whole snow thing in Oz, apart from one trip to Mt Buller, a family holiday to Talbingo and Thredbo and a hazily-recalled winter in the NSW town of Orange (I was four, and almost completely deaf - I think this has affected my memory somewhat). Today, as the little balls of ice ski

"One of the thirty six or seven greatest writers alive today aged between thirty three and thirty four." "This book made me late for work again today." "I have read this book." "One of the six or seven must-reads that I have been forced to read this year." "Can you please buy some milk on your way home? Thanks." "Crying out for an editor. My number: 010-8288-1091. Regards, David." "I would very much like to kill the person who wrote this book." "No wonder you hide behind anonymity." "Is this your book? Oh. Sorry!" "Possibly the most gifted child in his kindergarten class. Only time will tell." "David is distracted too much by his peers." "You should loosen your belt." "I believe this to be the work of another author." "Everything that could be said has already been said, except this." "I dread the day this author learns to spell.

usually a footnote explains the words or meanings in the poem - but in this case the opposite is true - see below *across the breeze/ birds fly/ foam in their beaks/ silver wings/ radar traces/ trans/ lateral/ trans/ am/ take me away/ silver bird/ foam in your beak/ across the breeze/ trans/ are/ we flying/ the friendly skies/ am/ trans/ am/ silver wings/ disappearer/ traces/ wingspan/ mighty clouds/ flying blind/ anvils/ am/ trans/ dam/ birds foam/ flies in their beaks/ are we trans/ or trams/ am/ erica/ n/ air/ line/ s/ am/ dc/ trans/ tran/ trans/ late/ nation/ trans/ lation/ s.

eh! the plane! the plane!     come to rescue a princess          hoju bihang-gi like silver   birds above our skylines over the wires        a plane! a silver plane! coming to             save their hoju princess   to fly her to hawaii! or                  anywhere but here! her fur     coat trailing in the dust on the sleepy seoul tarmac          silver plane full of furs! come to rescue her again               this time - from us! but     we're just kids! running  around in the lanes or looking up at the sky -         to see planes! not like     the black planes full of    fire - hoju bihang-gi ! big silver bird     glides             across the sky the sound     of trumpets -    ta-da! it's a plane! eh! an     australian     aeroplane - full of hoju birds & soft toys - the   plane! come to rescue us?      or a princess? who cares! it's a plane! silver winged            bird of prey! liberation    all over again! goodbye    syngman rhee! goodbye too   to your au

building a spaceship      to take me to a moon made out of makkolli*         a dead sparrow falls through the window i     left open overnight   in case it snowed ...    the sparrow's white beak & feathers are           frozen (made of snow    i hold in my hands   as if it might melt & outside even the          moon's falling down like snow or a bird        in the darkest days (when the spaceships            first landed here i used to trap birds      sell them for spare            parts & makkolli now i can't remember   why birds fly or fall & i'm stuck down here        in a metal workshop trying to make another     spaceship to fly us & the frozen birds home *trans: fermented rice wine.

I got my haircut just before leaving Australia on July 1 and, until last week, hadn't had it cut since. Okay, so it's only been four months but as you can hopefully see from the image above it was developing nicely into a Steve Winwood style, with a touch of bogan at the back. Normally I keep it pretty short however and the major question was whether I would be able to stop myself from getting it cut before returning to Australia, presumably looking a little more like Tom Hanks in Castaway . I needn't have troubled myself worrying about it. Last Thursday night I got a call from an American friend named Sean, with whom I share quite a few musical tastes, and with whom I had some great conversations that night in the suitably-named Ho Bar in Hongdae, including one where we assigned 1970s bands to colours of the rainbow. Six shots of tequila, five beers and two gin and tonics later, I asked him whether he had a pair of clippers. Answering in the affirmative, he led me ba

Well, like most blooooogers, I sometimes wonder whether anyone actually reads this stuff. While I have a site counter that gives me a lot of fascinating information, I'm noticing that most visitors to this site stay for one second or less, then leave. I'm sure a part of it is just people clicking the "next blog" button at the top of the page but I'm also sure there's more to it than that. Recently I've been visiting Ron Silliman's blog quite a bit and am envious of the way he manages to combine the poetic and the personal, without going overboard. He doesn't seem to post much of his own poetry on his site either. However, posting poetry here was one of the reasons I set up this blog in the first place. I just wonder whether anyone really cares? Even my PC Bangs blog , which I intended to be a travelogue/ diary type site, has degenerated into prose poetry, an altogether unexpected turn of events. I'm going to try and start posting more of my

The year 1905 began on a Sunday. If you had been born In Korea you would already have been one year old then. Instead you chose Australia as your entry point into life, Just weeks before the founding of Sinn Fein in Ireland - Surely these things are connected. This is your century: The following year radio first burst onto the airwaves. A poem was recited and I wonder if upon your birthday Someone else was also inspired to sing a song, as you Lay in your crib in Bittern? Perhaps you don�t remember, Being only one year old, or two, at the time. Does the Batsman remember every run he makes to reach his Century? Perhaps he does. Your stamina astonishes Us all. You�ve outlived Bradman, seen off Deng Xiaoping. For you, the Great Depression was eighty years ago But nevertheless a real, tragic and desperate thing. Perhaps it�s nothing to you now. You�ve never driven A car which is, I�m sure, good. Now I remember the Blue Volkswagen in the garage of your Mildura house. Only recently have

I've just had two poems published on a US-based blog called PFS Post . They're called "Dying On The Vine(s)" and "Eight Miles High". You can view em here . I've also got two poems, entitled "Avalon V" and "Inna" in the forthcoming Future Welcome: Moosehead Anthology X , edited by Todd Swift and published by DC Books out of Canada. The blurb on the website states, amongst other things, the following: Future Welcome includes daring and often thrilling new writing from some of the 21st century�s best prose and poetry writers, such as: David Wevill, Sina Queyras, Raymond Hsu, Robert Minhinnick, Annie Freud, bill bissett, Patrick Chapman, Meredith Quartermain, Jason Camlot, Liane Strauss, Todd Colby, Jennifer K. Dick, John Hartley Williams, Louise Bak, Hal Sirowitz, Adeena Karasick, Mike Marqusee, Kavita Joshi, Stan Rogal, Tammy Armstrong, Richard Peabody, Jenna Butler, Ali Riley, Jon Paul Fiorentino, David Prater, J. R. Carpenter, David

I'm now back in Seoul after a week in London. Highlights included seeing Sarah (of course), catching up with old friends including Kathleen and Mark and seeing fellow-poet Todd Swift. Oh, and I watched a bit of darts on the TV too. The task of putting photos up on this blog is so laborious that I'll just grace it with a few iconic snaps. For more details, see Sarah's blog - she's much better than me at this sort of thing. Must go: jetlag beckons. Sarah scoffs afternoon tea at Harrod's (Dodi and Diana shrine not pictured). Some bridge in London. Doctor Who's new residence. The London Eye (as seen in War of the Worlds). Umm ... Not happy, Jan.

Hi to everyone in cyberland. I've been too busy to put anything up on here for a little while, as my energies have been directed towards getting my head around Seoul , trying to reign in the creative excesses of Clint Bo Dean , the world's worst-coiffured superstar and cataloguing the vast output of Davey Dreamnation's record company, DNRC . The Cordite Newsblog has also been revived, after months of wrangling with MYSQL database tables. Grrr. Nevertheless I have had some good news on the poetry front, with a poem accepted in The Age in August ( read it here ), another forthcoming in Famous Reporter in October (link soon) and a third in Overland, due out in December. I've also pretty much completed transcribing the poems from Abendland, all of which were written in Europe and America in July and August this year (scroll down this page for the full listing). Expect another fresh batch when I hit the road again in December. Until then, stay well and eat yer greens. Oh,

Q, you built a city inside my heart And now I�m trying to make it back. Do you remember what it looks like? What we did there? Where is it now? In this city there�s a lake that�s filled With fish & fountains powered by Your laughing soul - we�re creating Plans, our soundtrack experiments; Organized sports cannot be found in This brand new city, its living memory (I�m putting off returning to the plans, Although it�s getting crowded here). It�s easier to draw a lake, a fish or House, the view of a mountain hut; A native flower�s sleepy bloom or Night inside some inner city bar � Though words are never pictures They can contain this feeling�s arc. Something in them returns to you & makes me listen to your voice. I catch the subways every day & See in signs your famous designs: The freeways look like fret boards On that old guitar we used to play. In every city, every day, you walk & talk about the people living out Recycled dreams & even there we Hop

there's a boy leaving home on the train - i can see him see his mother on the platform trying not to cry - the boy knows no restraint too young to hold it in he's bawling - for a moment he is me & i can feel that sad old fear of separation grown into stoicism followed by pure obliviousness - you grow up not to cry you leave so as not to give up who you are - your stories jokes hobbies - but it's a lie a cruel hoax - because one day it won't be you who's leaving - no it will be your own mother getting onto that train to leave forever to pull away in that black carriage the pane of glass making final chats impossible & tears? well they're for boys or for grown women & yet there they are - on your own face small & soft but still there for all of your bravado - it is a form of sickness after all whose remedy is the act - & later after several stops you look over at the boy who's now wearing headphones & he's not crying anymo

all the concessions have finally closed the luggage tags likewise now unravel - i've spent the night in an airport alone even the cleaners have all gone home ... out on the tarmacs the rain is a canvas the planes are invisible up in the sky at every counter the shutters have risen only perfumes of the flight crews linger the terminal's redevelopment is complete now there's nothing left here to expand & duty-free shops disappeared long ago inside the food court a fake fern sleeps departure boards flicker like r.e.m. dreams but the gangways are empty of tired feet the veins of the airport throb in safety nevertheless i will practice my tai-chi i use smashed windows to create my murals ticket stubs provide my small fire with fuel i walk naked through the abandoned latrines in arrivals halls i will begin planting trees

i thought i smelt bad on the outside! now with this insufferable goon solo hacking my insides away only to reveal this succubus (this blonde boy tintin i will revise the absolute truth of that observation - phew! not a good start i'll say - & how he'll go on to blow up the death star (well that's anybody's guess ... whistle, snow-soaked winds! hoth will turn my jellied intestines to marble or glacial glass ... within its arctic embrace this taun-taun lies in stasis waiting for jabba's blowtorch to thaw my ice-ripened scheme (yes his daring shall be the subject of works by post-soviet sculptors in a primeval soup version of the earth (should its release date ever come to the attention of the censors ... they're everywhere here you know even these snowy wastes i call home (i'm sorry did i mention milou? inside my cave grave i am a sole tear whose trajectory is the radiance of my native field (but he will melt into being inside their mini-planets

two intersecting lines radiate strings of heart beats in four times double the directions secreting small agents into the surrounding streets & lanes transfers of desire stilt-legged voyages hour-burst rambles freshly-bottled smell of the underground random splices of muzac shred the dark corners of an interruption clock's soundless alarm men follow women towards escalators triggered by their muffled boots the station entrance collapsing out into the waffle prints of passing tramline desires meanwhile you're down there stroking tokens that get stuck in the machine above our heads amongst the stars giant pulsing nuggets of steel erupt in longing while the red lights blink delaying our union by variants of minute-long bursts of motion this is the station called silence at which i long to get off with you so as to emerge into some blinding shower of certain life-affirming illuminations as blades of wet rubber hack away at the heads of screen actors we shoot our own minimalist

look up to the sky and phone me ... don't leave home without photographing it ... never wake up when the stars are text messaging ... just hang up when the delay starts messing with your head ... all your italian credit is dead ... gone to the great numeral zero in the magnetic strip sky ... trying to reach that number only lovers call ... jamming the sunet's network ... some giant oak split in a diagram ... radiating waves of coverage & false debris ... stay connected for me ... don't cry out unless the chorus calls for your participation ... my straight-edged blossom arrow of hopes that tingle ... showering the room with keystrokes from a slowly-revolving death star sculpture ... or bogus html ... dead links to a long-extinguished star ... no hope now for the wholly-darkened skies ... a band of eight string numerals teleports dawn ... the sleeping airliner tracking russian airspace ... a dragonfly on a rollercoaster ... picture this when the batteries are dead ... all

in abendland our eyes only reflect the windows of real estate agencies couples roam there; small dogs shit wherever they like; everyone has a slightly bulging belly in abendland & guitar music is de rigeur ; words like de rigeur are never used; rivers flow & wood are pictures hung up in galleries frequented on sundays & feastdays only; post offices never close; old audio cassettes remain relatively unavailable sought after only by newcomers; phone calls are monitored & can only be made from inside hastily-assembled booths; & there are no television channels - only movies with in-built & hard to avoid advertisements; girls wear stripes & old boots that make their ankles look skinny; boys maintain a gruff persona only enhanced by their permanent thirty six hour growths; love is an absence, or closing time; garbage piles up but nobody seems concerned in abendland; beer comes in bottles that the homeless can collect & then exchange for pennies or one m

i hear lady vader's footsteps clang on the stainless steel gangway; i look busy attending to my knobs & flashing buttons but the dark side is so strong in this one that i am forced to switch on an emergency power generator - red lights bleed across my console & i swivel in my chrome-plated bauhaus / ikea captain's chair to face her wrath should it ever come there is another death star i explain it contains no flaws unlike its predecessors into whose plans lord vader for some reason saw fit to introduce design elements that would make a first year engineer blanch; perhaps he knew even then something of his fate - or else at central casting he overheard a script development meeting ... were those two hideously greige orbs a kind of metaphor for his own body's penetration fantasy a slight shudder as the x-wing entered the duct? how else to explain the ridiculous ease with which those rebels identified our killing machines' weakness - other than by referrin

took a photograph of sunday night then blew it all onto a wall in paint something stirs in the brittle light - almost like your first vacation's abrupt denoument; studio sounds erupt into white (the power's down) this wasn't scripted neither were your forearms' shudders - closing in on abstract stalks that make a silhouette in green a single figure walks on your microscopic moon but he's a fake the painting's done in someone else's living room now on corsica perhaps in a sun room or brightening the concrete day ... alone at last in a private church where guardrails keep the volk at bay or catalogue this desperate silence that makes photorealistic snow swept the candles gutted or a chair pushed back like a lock of black & white hair; poised for an ironic pose jackie onassis is becoming bored reading newsprint on the freshly-plastered walls ... inside an album sleevenotes keep their peace; & revolutions occur on a momentary basis swinging on

Sleeping through the pouring rain Filling up the lakes and rivers she Came to my dark dream bed & Read me stories from a strange Book (turned the pages like a Grave & held me close under the Nightlights smoking marijuana in My mind � trucks speed onto Autobahns while phone booths Hold the sodden homeless pity Breathes all through the fog but Sometimes life just doesn�t hear It (got a message from a stranger Held the phone until she hangs Up smoking marijuana in my mind � Radios are all tuned to static in the european union traffic cops hold glowing beacons if the time was ever slowing (did I hear a baby crying dogs on leashes are street- sweepers / trams are cancelled parties starting in the pawn shops money changes hands - & in the market stands but I�m smoking marijuana in my mind � emails from the great spam merchants in the sky the old clouds flutter past then dump their share of rain yesterday�s was just as drenching (cities in the sleeper�s eye windows sl

a silent cartoon wanders the non-descript chaussee over bridges it casts its chisel comic-book shadows illuminated by a passing policeman's truncheon light as air; that withered stare turns flowerboxes to stones or the dogs to barking fruit stalls there in the internet cafe glare baudelaire calls burundi for twelve cents - resenting the booth's semi- privacy (one hand in pocket jiggling ... hear the retort of verlaine's little gun as though he's not there & the women are all black now in this frame; thought bubbles crammed with grammatical marks suggesting curses in parlour rooms filled with that unbearable sound of harpsichords playing french tunes ... & he sees in this zone between falling empires the rest of his days spread out like a cloak on a corpse then he sets to work on his autopsy classifies quickly my various welts & cuts - dissecting this version of humanity that we thought he left behind in his native hollowed city of whoredom; (it bec

harrison ford had it made in indiana jones part three fucking that austrian woman in venice - ah venice - as they slipped under that radar beneath all the clanging sunday bells of canareggio ... meanwhile sean connery (presumably touched himself or his manufactured wig knowing that once they reached the castle of the gestapo he would enjoy the last laugh or something. how do you say good- bye in austria as opposed to the reich? my german teacher was from vienna - i had a mild vanilla crush on her (dreamt of discipline all verbal natürlich ... the classroom put-downs then our more private humiliations ... just one punch would have been enough to force my quiet retreat to beat off in a lavatory (a goethe institut in a nameless & folorn balkan capital ... oh for an umbrella to scare the seagulls into a luftwaffe propellor or two - ah venice! stop me before the credits roll i'm fit to burst here with my leather- bound journal (i confused the berlin & münich olympic stad

What�s the story, Ludwig? Have you found a perfect View? What did you have For supper last night? & did The swans tow your body to Sleep? What did you find in The gothic skylines above Your wooden wagerian bed? Could you go once fantasy Faded? Did you hear music In the reconstructions of Tristan & isolde on the walls? Upon which bridge did your Sad life end & was that man Present there to take your Picture? Did the railings fail? Could you see that waterfall Between the planks, behind Your footsteps? Did you land Safely in the spruce? & do the Pines support your weight? & Do the swans know your name? & what will become of those shining door handles, forever cocked like loaded pistols? What is the time there & what are you wearing? Are the palace corridors cold? When will it be finished, your collosal tribute? Will they allow you to grow old?

round & round the imbiss i go scurrying hither or screaming thither wound on sugars & holiday gases with my turtle backpack & my plucky green hat they cannot catch me! cannot know my moves the yodels that maintain me i delight in my terror & underneath this shirt flabby muscles quiver (my brain goes tick- tock all through the high german summer! some speak of the sewers wherein i was once abandoned only to be found - i myself prefer to blast that memory into one big pile of rubble! or else a turtle dance w/ wiggles! my shell morphs into scales at the slightest threat - my arms & legs become fists & boots to break the glass! (small wonder i am kept on a kiddy leash - but their time will come when i have grown & so-called parents will feel all my fury as i toddle off (back to the sea

you can see my moving parts by lifting aside this curtain here where flesh is fused with my mechanical arts & all is encased in polished enjambe- ment ... tiny wheels enforce this rhythm trigger reaction maintain flow - while clock- works monitor internal pressure & signal the hours like early birds - i sing with steam this pulse enervates a quiet meaning (my labyrinthine hulk) & days disappear under time's resisting ladder scheme the wailing echo silver screws are my grammar & whistles my code - an abstract mechanic oils my pistons & my cogs until at last perpetual i shudder on my electric rails the countryside forms lakes of blue-green blurs while passing poems cause a bang & under us the track is glistening sweat creates a traceable trail (an endless journey to pass a line over a bleak white space where meaning terminates in cuckoo recitals worthy of the brochure or else rhymes from a motor age

there was no need to be told of the jewish custom whereby rocks are placed near graves instead of flowers (eg lilies in the place of the barracks we found an ocean of stones - larger than a fist smaller than a child's head just big enough to force one to walk more slowly than normal & to think with each step about a person who has passed on nothing is expected of us except understanding (& an opening towards knowledge - like the burgers of dachau whom american troops forced to march through these gas chambers saying look! look this happened in your town rocks grow in every country this world is filled with graves - one day they will return us to the rivers & smooth our sharp edges over centuries of soothing (easy for me to say on windy days i think of anton music who drew pictures of his living hell in charcoal & who is known today as the "dachau artist" born in slovenia & a student of fine arts in venice arrested & sent here onl

Do not throw anything yet, Albrecht; It is dangerous as well to lean out! Customs examination of luggage: Important notice. In winter, steam Macht (Thomas Mann) mobil. Also ... Kinder unter 15 fahren gratis. You Have no claims on the blue-green River waters flowing backwards to Trento. This is our Tiepolo. See Gerhard Richter (19-3 to13-12-2005) Run. Informazioni per il Viaggio: "The most brilliant SF mind on any Planet". (Rolling Stone). Read more Penguins online. With an introduction By Venezia, S. Lucia. Penalties for Improper use. Plus Blake Morris on The lost art of editing. One Saturday Poem by David ... "the art of hint". (5)

come one come all! to work in our factories! for in all of craptastica™ we do have millions! funnels & chimneys! plasticine assemblies! shift work! free health care! & twice yearly holidays! (see brochure!) we specialise in wares bound for two dollar shops or anywhere the crazy bargain prevails & you are an important cog in this wheel of fortunate gadgets & gizmos! artificial scents & tea- towels! - industrial strength citizens! will consume all you produce! & you in turn will also consume other crap! such as small plastic objects also wrapped in plastic! fine layers of craptstica™ will one day be discovered in bedrock! landfill perfumes! watches designed never to work! as selling agents you will be sent on junkets to your homelands! we will provide all the blank cheques you need! no dull stares now! impermeable surfaces! on impeccable whiteboards plan massive advertising campaigns! one day! you will emigrate here! & all of this will! be! yours!

we pigeons never need to travel after all we've got it made - an infinite pile of food to eat & tourists galore to feed it to us do not feed the tourists for our appetites depend on theirs - & once the feeding stops we know that that way leads to oblivion ... or worse to fights amongst ourselves & that predictable (horrible) cannibalism waiters waitresses chefs & cooks discourage your diners from eating here - for once they spend their money there is little left to buy us seed - we flood piazzas like the bubonic plague & fill the air like swarms of bees - we'd crack our brethrens' eggs if that was all that we had left to eat - we'd rip the feathers from each other eat our own shit our brains & our lungs - & then gorge ourselves on our own diseases until every street had been eaten clean - so do not feed the tourists for we like our humans fresh (not to mention lean

so this devil masks the smell of his portuguese hash with the mull of a gauloises cigarette while he walks along talking of cona (the slovenian word for zone which in his native tongue means cunt if you pronounce it right (& that i observe must be why they say it differently here at which he just chuckles as he knows he must � having already said the word pussy in english & having thus exposed himself to me in some way I can�t really comprehend. What follows is a frightening conversation r.e. the sexual & racial preferences of eastern european women (to which even a bloke from cornwall contributes admitting that these slovenian women do me right over & then the aussie girl chimes in about how (well -) everyone from denmark is just beautiful (before the woman from the hostel tells us all to shut the fuck up go back inside & retire to our separate beds

1. the boy reading on the road at the railway station & the boy sneering at him, having hidden his copy of the same book in his travelling bag (both of them heading home). 2. they have just met, this couple with their hands all over each other - they mistake freedom for the right to paw & moon in public, here by the fountain, where everyone else pretends not to look (disapproving). 3. nuclear families in ideal mode, the boy's face lighting up when he discovers he may order fanta at the cafe; while the little girl takes her cue from her mother who, like father, looks at her watch (then the map). 4. these two highly experienced backpackers only dream of having seen it all, of never having to find the train station ever again but they know the world is still a big place and bow to the task (together). 5. the girls pretend to be lesbians in order to avoid unwanted attentions, then split up so as to double their chances later on; who can blame them? after all, it's su

kids wear raincoats & play in fountains in the ljubljana rain lovers don emergency ponchos in the ljubljana rain streets are slippery & cobblestones weary in the ljubljana rain maps turn soggy & poets wander in the ljubljana rain when the rain tumbles down in july ... lake bled fills with stones & sparrows' heads look stylish in the ljubljana rain mist makes a milkshake of the sky & words fall like acid in the ljubljana rain like a train in vain ... listen to the backpackers snoring in the ljubljana rain send it all home on a postcard in the ljubljana rain well i'm sleeping in a hotel doorway ... (i'll blame it on a certain fame) in the ljubljana rain in the ljubljana rain yeah these lonesome petalled shambolic mystifying sweet deep breaths of ljubljana rain

dad gives me the signal & so i walk slowly towards the table at the outdoor bar - my mum's already there so we sit down & order drinks ... it's all normal but i don't look coz dad said just act natural ... out of the corner of my eye i can see him focussing the handycam on our table (a perfect family scene) & then comes a long slow pan across the other tables the street the city - finally it's over & he comes to sit with us obviously 'a wrap' ... he smokes cigarettes settles the bill & then it's time to move on - he goes first leaving an unextinguished butt in the ashtray - i stare at it until mum leads me away ... little to i care but as we walk back to our pansion i'm imagining the smoke rising from the table the ring of empty drink bottles then finally the waiter coming to clear it all away leaving not a trace of our transaction & no proof that we were really here

polish paper-cut art doesn't move only intersects with light or beige backgrounds - in fact depends on them as accents require the noise of pub chatter ... meaning only comes through reinterpretation invention or else all life is a museum a display ... leather-bound irish boats on the other hand possess an abstract magic when transported elsewhere & today st. brendan lives on through someone's crazy re-enactment of his impossible arctic journey - kind of like the north's answer to kontiki or la balsa ... taking photographs of headless models sporting the latest slovenian fashions seemed a good idea at the time but now it feels vaguely pornographic - listening to croatian tambouris likewise reduces folk music to an HMV listening stand (still there's the nativity scenes to go and find or re-appropriate somehow in muenchen if that is your desire ... but reindeers dis- sected in the snow or black & white images of the finnish hunt - that's something else co

a fine place for a village she turns the first clod let it be here & so it comes into being with the barest fore-planning to be truthful yet soon enough the characteristic boulevardes thoroughfares cross-town tunnels appear dictating future streets lanes & public spaces though who will build them isn't quite clear so slowly surely a city breathes & lives despite the intermittent natural disasters power failures riots its shape endures within its walls our new community & culture is created similar to yet sufficiently different from those other metropolises that its name becomes known its parades & summer festivals the envy of other cities (people begin to migrate there pull up their roots & start a new life & they are all welcome the city grows & grows then bends two ways the first an ever-spiralling sprawl the other its antonym the dystopia the smashed windows & abandoned cars underground solicitations & street closures midnight rai

the hands that made the hands then passed her to the second set the hands that plucked the human hairs & threaded them into a wig the hands she passed her to then sewing on the little yellow jacket passing then to unknown hands that gave her eyes to see herself mouth to breathe in cotton hands to hold her head until she fell asleep two hands that made her cheeks pink in case she was called upon to blush the hands that filled her little belly full of spätzle or gruel hands that kept her upright while they sewed her tiny feet into place made her shoes & then left her there wobbling but alive alone but made of human hands of hair the petite skirt to hide her girlhood hair combed then platted maybe depending upon her mood & then the hands that transplanted the still-beating hand-made heart into her chest her covered breasts & silken brain with which käthy produced her first truly human thought: their hands have stroked my arms & legs my doll's face into

bad boy scouts wearing red bandannas & hiking boots prowl the outdoor bars bringing alpine airs to ljubljana - i won't be climbing the steps to the castle won't conquer what's not even there (the view the haze) instead i'll walk around photographing pink buildings for you ... do you remember that cold afternoon at sheherezade after the mallarme gig? i can see why you liked it here where the boys ride bicycles & sit by the river smoking long whites joints - & even sparrows sport beckham spikes & boys bum cigarettes from strangers for a lark - i missed primoz by two weeks but there's poetry here in the inventiveness of the street performers or the flowers on the cobblers' bridge ... i know that somewhere here there's a boy you once loved if even for that one short visit - it's summer & all the pastel's aglow despite the crumbling flaking skins i can hear you & only wish these few photographs could capture their audible

so i made some tapes from sonsg i ripped off the internet fed the cabel from the computer into my [pre-ipod] walkman but the songs all came out mono got the wrong stereo jack so now i listen to the songs in one ear while the other tries to hear leans in yearns for the music & my brain too (this interface) tries to reconvert to create a whole town or district from the one channel i've given it on the ferry i felt like belfast like a city caught in the cross- fade that moment between beats when anything could happen - if violence erupts i will think of my brother & of sinn fein - of murals of armagh & of the bloody weekdays/ weekends yearning for stereo sanctity cursed by my own lack of tech (my pre-digital tape deck ... boys whose anthems need no vinyl no top of the pop-offs & with this wind in my hair or these drunk americans who believe all croatians are up themselves i'm listening with that other ear to music: the peacemaker & the mix-tape that saves

zaboravljani hitovski / forgotten hits obscure releases/ cocks & tits trophy girlfriends/ love hotels apartment farewells/ shower scenes warren beatty/ madonna bombs roulette tables/ passport songs slippery marble/ jadrolinjia sunday evenings/ predictable buskers where are the bands?/ where are the rebels? life's all ordinary/ transplant palms little venetia/ terrible pizza another old city/ next to the new city slime/ bikinis on extendable clotheslines switching languages/ bisexuality waitresses in pineapple tops/ wharves diesel fume & gelati/ melting holidays dirt-cheap brandy/ marko polo get us out of here/ busting boys coastal horrors/ marble cliffs swere whiffs/ roman catacombs vulgar postcards/ damp hvala satellite air-con/ red-wine ice cubes daily telegraph/ get me out of here beige monotones/ misplaced arrogance the music stopped/ the sunday shops split 7"/ unknown bands (too bland) ferry oils/ zigzags on the ocean

well it's summer in sipan & the town is full of models they're all at the restaurant but they're only eating entrees while the eunuchs dart around making stressful little sounds in the leafy hotel grounds we ate dinner then we ran yeah that summer in sipan well it's summer in sipan we go riding with maria she's got white bleach in her hair she looks like sinead o'connor & it's thirty eight degrees & we can't find any trees by the end i'm on my knees holding ice cube sin my hands yeah it's summer in sipan well it's summer in sipan & we're kayaking together through a turquoise coloured sea full of motor boats & fishes & the boats are making waves & the bay becomes a grave for the kayak we can't save time to make another plan yeah it's summer in sipan well it's summer in sipan & we're swimming off the jetty with the girls all deeply tanned & the guys with giant six packs next t

the planes fly well overhead now & couples no longer dawdle down by the jetty where an old dinghy rises & falls on the fluke waves of passing powerboats ... & now cicadas chorale across an empty bay old pipes protrude from the muddy shallows & the trees though blooming still billow untended & unloved (though the summer & this giant cross remain drifters are its only pilgrims - snorkellers scan the basin for discarded bikinis or martini glasses (the old wreck of a hotel still hopes for a reunion with its past loves the storms at sunset or the mock evacuations - shells bursting underfoot as the guys with their miniature five string ukeleles serenade two lovers demolishing a lobster - all gone to the great fairground in the sky now packed up like crates of beer bottles shipped off to another island another beachside retreat for nuns with cystic fibrosis ... now i hear the choppers swing low coming in for their daily sightseeing pass - dissecting sea mi

july has been a month of forts ... (i write out my self-imposed exile) from central park to sandy cove belgrade's citadel to old dubrovnik (but maybe now i'll write a modern poem disregard historical valour) i like the way joyce twisted facts made buck mulligan & the other one appear more evil than they truly were (although there's something of deceit in that as well of malicious intents behind that sorrowful eye patch ...) i prefer the fort that's crumbling whose original enemy remains unclear the one that oscar wilde's father had a hand in shoring up on the aran islands its stones sprawling now over acres of tourist-stamped ground mystical as the ancients (napoleon never did invade ireland) & now the martello tower's a museum but dubrovnik still remembers bombs medieval chic ... where is history hiding now? the pigeon squats in the shade picking at stones in the hope of a stray pistahcio shell ... likewise the cameras line up with the tower in

she emerges from the bobble- cordoned bathing area with her pigtails wet & sticking out like unicorn horns from the back of her head - instantly she's a girl again the shining happy memory of herself as a strong swimmer dancer & singer all at once like a sea monkey queen reacting with water swirled & sequined in the jar for all to see - i've been reading too much murakami not to understand what does drive the mind growing older what cues the eye interprets as "summer holiday": such tropes as chipped nail polish tan lines of a different bikini beneath the current pair we stretched out legs on a gaudy beach towel airport novel open at a random page & left there like the roof of a swiss house on the rocks ... sometimes i forget that i can't speak japanese that this book is just a translation irritating in its americanisms like this endless parade of paris hilton stunt doubles along the beach whose vacuous stares thankfully are hidden from

in vietnam of course we'd all be considered peasants up to our necks in sweat & sun cancers - our tans coooked in a coconut sauce the cannibal implications of which i don't care to explore but here where a thousand & one dalmations sizzle on stones with all the intelligence of their namesakes those spotted dogs to a soundtrack of oasis tom jones elton & george michael singing don't let the sun go down on me (i should be so lucky) that radiant far-off fireball sends its death rays across space to slowly fry us on the pebbled beach - sunbeds like flaming takitori grills an outdoor steak house where we liberally apply our SPF 0.5 marinades & then cheerfully head home to the ovens those airless apartments where we gasp the incendiary nights away - of course as an australian i'm in no position to sneer or feel superior - our melanoma-riddled culture taught the world everything it knows about "the beach" or so we suppose having faile

i could murder a cigarette but i'll hold off for now - the time is not right - & if i ignite here wow who knows what might go up with me there in the stratos, in the fear the wind-up bird that's growing old constrained at every turn the signs to left & right declaring rauchen verboten - except in open spaces where (we presume) one's less liable to hurts - subways & buses (natch) are right out & on holidays well it's understandably hard to resist sparking up - & yet you must for after brennschluss well what then? what ticket stubs from heaven will you produce to clear your name? of lines i'm careless still - we've plenty left to fill - but breaths? & words? how to enunciate these when your lungs are still the cilia have ceased their beat? without air bodies are mere meat & we just the memories of braveries dares - but still the trigger impulse or this drunken affair sitting on some backstep while smoke drifts in the london ai

the parchment's overgrown now & flies no longer buzz down by the hydro-electric facilities - the bus route's open for business all along it twenty four hour cafes spring up like pillboxes some people speak of screams in the night houses on fire & some barely speak at all just a fingerbone or shattered skull whispers eloquent poems from a time long past but still living along winding trails known only to animals & their shepherds whil miniature obelisks mark the cemeteries of the present tentse & crosses send down rays of pure conviction from the rock- strewn hills & miraculous shrines small wonder then that this boy on the bus who thinks he has missed his stop wakes up shrieking - trying frantically to get out (who knows what kind of bad dreams he's running from - we've seen it all before we reassure him ... we know why his mouth opens just there where the bones are only so deep where the mosque is a finger of warning now black & every

could you be flirting with me (tiny periwinkle of a trip-hop soundtrack? was that a smile (pretty vacuous air bubble at the bottom of this glass? come here slide down my throat (abstract freckle of a thirst quencher hobo of the backwash past (reboot the soda stream of our invisible passions (poet of the cafe bar menu (lifeguard of the frozen bottle (remove yourself from this moment (stolen password of my internet identities (echo chamber of my dream lover�s rehearsal refill this loneliness (unbranded apple flavoured liquid cinnamon doughnut of a daydream (drink me wearing sunglasses (crucial sunshade of a postcard meeting (intern of the hotel romancers change my channel (aqua blue but invisible shapeless nomad of my early morning coffee headband greeting (effervesce my face (pigtail non-plussed crude translation of a mineral (once more mit gas (repeat mit gas (i kiss your aerated body (pump the spray (ignite the liquid gel of your sihouetted trace in the neverending launch

(1) crystal: dignitary portraits his men clean-shaven the women stern children on sleds if you remember rightly panoramas of coal mine towns silly dogs chins pointing to the future the sun - gold haloes spirits with whiskers windowframes ... (2) crumpled: just out of bed or home from a long night of drinking all traces of artifice stripped away peasant loves more silly dogs the omnipresent minarets bulgarian eternities lifeless eyes trembling brushes a grandmother in every canvas ... [plovdiv, july 05]

you dispense with direct emotion/ experience & become the second person the observer - it's safer here you see & as for your reader well she's gone her own way she'll meet you later in the old town - for now be content to sit & watch as tourists wait impatiently for their boat to arrive a three island cruise you suppose - it's late & the harried salesgirl repeats in three or four languages - one more hour seven more minutes five more now - then someone challenges her in italian - that was ten minutes ago! she raises her hand as if to hit the sky & the frenchman looks at his poor tired beaten wife - at his command she rises - he flashes his ticket at the brown girl & demands the expected - a refund & while she's off to fetch it you see the sad look in that french woman's eyes the impatience in her husband's & sensing some small part of yourself there you close your eyes to the beautiful adriatic sparkle & sunshine &

we landed emus on the moon & fed them cake until they glowed until we could see them from maralinga or woomera (from whence they came) its petri-satellite dishes growing absurd corruptions of our original superpower dreams [hiroshima moruroa maralinga] a future where girls worry their bikini lines into shape formations of crystals metamorphose into undersea microphones in stereo & we are alone now on our rocky outcrop of a signal station babe did you see that flash? it's british aerospace dude & the natives can go walkabout (the ground glows underfoot persistent rumours of odd illnesses the dreamtime sicknesses [los alamos nagasaki yucca flats] somehow affecting even our general macarthur born in the loading bay that night in incheon he gathered mushrooms from the pacific theatre's map the optional korean solution impregnated like a microchip for lost dogs somewhere above another numberless parallel babes go topless in the radiant heat one size to reveal

in a scene from the cassandra crossing pitch black serbian night gives way to the acetylene of factories tunnels & dams ringed by lights blazing passports waving (facsimiles of concrete aqueducts soldered bridges inch over ravines & the night mists are pumped from some arcane machines we followed the blue line of the bosniak river through that notional republik stopping at magical intervals along our meandering switchback journey seeing the impossibly lush mountains (giving way at last to sandblasted hills - & the roman semicircular white stone bridges become perfect circles in dawn's reflective air all at once to be resolved in the new stari most winking in the fresh day glare peeking around the green river bend a new parapet from which to fearlessly leap (prove one's man- hood demonstrate whisper secrets a daze of new icons reconstructed in unforseen though shady places

who will give colour to joe sacco's black & white cartoons of gora&#382de safe haven - & who will go there is it needed are the people safe? when will the mist shrouds on the mountains give up their secrets these criminals those war dead & weary - which daughters sons? how are we to read the inverse braille of bullet-studded buildings riverside mosques that pierce the sky the river itself a great onward flow? what happened to the primitive generators the flywheels paddlesteamers hydro- power creators that fed the people juice to watch war movies in the dark? & where do you go joe sacco in your sleep - is it black & white or do colours invade that paperthin canvas & bleed the edges of your stolen dreams?

symbolic of our electrical impulse simple swift & filled with dreams fast flowing rivers sweep away all these tedious fears & expectations & dump them at a delta somewhere marry them with saltwater tears then disappear forever rivers flood the villages irrigate graves flash like camera bulbs as in the olden days catch our passing in the picture cage & trap us there until the sepia fades away dust & highwater marks on bollards or levees - surge over the dry wastes of our skin our lips our hair & ears deprive us of light & bury all our memories under silt & rain - or else call it pain & pass over like the thunderbolts inside a storm from this island's past - we are a part of these silent rivers now - we are the same these streams & me until the next tide swallows up this flotsam we will not be free

here the stencil art seems more restrained or better placed (my favourite so far a do the right thing image: chuck swastikas in the bin but then there's the rifles silhouetted soldier slogans like 'make your own world' these meanings are clear: & all for a spray can or stains graffiti's private symbols i'm in no position to appreciate or decipher like city streets off the main thoroughfares their messages become tawdry old worn-out & finally disused

all the world's a beograd restaurant & everybody's smoking there before & during after dinner - no one stops to smell the air (which i guess is just as well it's full of lead besides the noise) you've just got to write on through it trust that one day upon your return you'll find a poem in the place of all these jottings decipher your own moods in your own hand- writing discover a mountain where once there was only smoke

hey sofia the beers were warm & you were smarmy I couldn�t care belgrade girls you�re disappearing underneath us beds are exploding plovdiv babe our time was short though not climactic poets writhe london darling just in passing shoreditch chicks I am alive & new york honey drop the mustard take a long look at your dirty boots yo d.c. women I�m disgusted no just joking nice to see you too sister cities this is my greeting coming over the busted wires time for the once-over recurring tourist's ceaseless playmate parade

for keiji (again) i compose a few lines - it's useless i'll never be a haiku writer (my destiny lies amid the cyrillic paperbacks the apartment blocks & spines of books i'll never read or pay to have published if we are poets then cities are koala strawberries rotting cherries in cardboard boxes: we'll write poems on them then laugh at ourselves we beautiful boys & girls as the autumn wind blows in from some obscure clime between seasons on the floor of the euro disco a sunspot on that wretched ikebana

the hotel bedsprings creak with her free rhythm haiku - it is morning it is night this weekend in sofia thousands of people are making love wearing out the beds the floors the sheets the sounds of lovers penetrate thick walls like doof doof or the ocean though not so soft as that her voice grows with tsunami passion wires da da - oh now she has fallen off the bed - i look across you're asleep but tomorrow morning we too will make love & i'll listen to our sounds melting into bedsprings

what has money done to you no one here has change girls & striptease club posters make us all less human oh bulgaria! your elevators have doors to trick foreigners pretty girls in miniskirts keep our change as tips they serve red beer & white beer & green salads and flags your children play hackey-sac in subterranean liquor stores can i buy a bus ticket? i try to mime a bus on the boulevard where i meet my haiku friends we are almost strangers

like me they cannot speak of the slavic memory soviet tanks so they bark all night the echoes emptied like the abandoned palaces of culture science & agriculture dreams of living & speaking again a slippery tongue translated into coffee grounds contact with nocturnal demolition crews the car wash & look! a dilapidated tram ozone washes bleeding off the bark some broken glass & a rusted monument hiding in a maze of nameless parks

Madam - most everywhere that ... when/if breaks ... clouds appear ... someone homestly enough exclaims ... their made-up tales ... instincts widely fields sown reaped ... loves lights crossed ... solemnity comes to us like consecutive lived truths ... we then made escapes ... reinvented ... for the wheels of death tracks ... wished rather ... wait for lives days slowly hereafter with burning ... the kindled to be carefully burnt ... over-wander to satsfy vows ... living surprises help & how is that ... says immediately ... suddenly through sunshine ... they find ... you peoples unfortunate? Yours, etc

a steady supply of singers songwriters buskers and dancers a shortage of accompaniment readers snall change and steps a melodious air of sorrows entropy usefulness and delight a shortage of handkerchiefs space horizons and encounters this entire (knows if a smile suggests tragedy broken glass betrays midnight solitary is the last aran wicker basket weaver the busker's very first coin dangled like bait in his upturned hat an atlantan breeze against an invisible harp string

18 fields (sites, battlegrounds) 17 banners (standards, uniforms) 16 bands (spartan, militaristic) 15 ribbons (loose, fluttering) 14 sashes (bright, coloured) 13 clouds (grey, foreboding) 12 drums (clipped, regimental) 11 fires (effigies, crackers) 10 rows (deep, breasted)  9 steps (slippery, barnacled)  8 hours (waiting, working)  7 days (blessed, counting)  6 rounds (fired, targetted)  5 friends (rioting, missing)  4 slogans (graffitied, shouting)  3 leaders (inspired, pathological)  2 winds (changing, dying)  1 blow (kingdoms, coming)

here - the incessant sounds of trucks reversing safety switches valves clips iron foundries kids nothing but the shields against a frightened forewarned oblivion - blast bombs spherical footfalls or death stars just as vulnerable to teenage kicks or malfunctions spare the women & the marshalls the ingominy of water cannons - let your fused chroming minds roam across deserted carriageways the parade grounds of historical accidents purposes stolen hates dim causes shadow boxing with kids who didn't go to peace camp

fur shore the sleigh bard conkle drum /bitter hens & dings this (the pier) /boy or no tone ever he won than hick hoes fur that icy tear /know bye hell her fainting quarry /bolster firm there dress the gale /fashed on pint in stretcher cans /vast hemp spires great nor wear nor hear /fool of shite my song burr heckles /wince hat both her pearse had ears - boye sigh ted lost cockles bray /sped end last threw hour finest gaeltacht eire

nor the key and the woman nor the girl and the moon nor the blindingly human nor the shard for the tune and the hill for the crescent and the pond for the scale and the continuous present and the smile save the braille in the table save billows in the mirror save clouds in the triumphant pillows in the bib it's the shroud it's the same now the ebbing it's the time now the most it's the estuarine webbing it's the girl and the ghost

not the tree but the man not the fire but the boys not the emergency plan not the silence nor noise but the swan or the glass but the time or the dream but the elegant trespass but the wings and the stream and the wind not the boat and the blood not the bay and the soundless float and the voice but the day or the nail nor the wishes or the tray but the ball or the unwashed dishes or the men but the all

i never did believe in sygnets nor families of swans but now both paddle up the canal beside me like the girls of my dreams ... downy fluffy beige & beautiful eight sygnets swallow stream water in long-necked gulps right legs stretched & contorted above as left flippers gliding on mother & father following drowsily behind nearer & further away white as wisdom gentle as the truths of birth growth & slow decline death the black swans feather sqiunting eyes that see it all & eight more stories to sing ...

in the bars & on the streets picking up where the lads left off filling buckets & gathering glasses/ stories together disapora of the unions past performing their apprenticeships at low cost frifting off to sleep after downing two three pints of the hot stuff love is work or the new life an exile from the new olympia harsh the memory of previous loves childhoods all gone now a void where snoring millions sleep on holidays now rested saving up for accommodation (two rooms)

twin shells at tiny ears siren like in stereo scattering this sky heard bombs dropped on the square two gulls explode into scent-shredding flowers singing the ocean that was always there just above this rooftop that line of terraces this millennial needle insomnia sugar crossed with shimmer bring down the summer house shorten the squall catalogue the furtive glance the doppler chill this shining squalor dance with the wind electric hasten that ineffable smear

yours the hidden skeleton key to the unmarked bar or stave blue sky is your modus operandi words your new indentured slave rusted car parts bark a melody whittled down thewood behaves noxious weeds crowd out their satdiums anthem as archetrave solemn night rides blow whistles dusted angels attending the rave elephantic eyes like goggles teenage flesh the ancient crave side by side the lyrics goose-step hinting at the right depraved honesty's the fearsome shingle airs come rushing from the grave

i sing the throbbing pains of your great nation's bad coffee hot plates keeping the entropy warm all along the turnpikes heroes' names dissected by the moon-like stares of motorists stupified by the concrete glare i sing the car electric may it render your oil wars useless though to be truthful walt these you never did envisage may the worn hands of peace close together over industries as the radio's turnpike downs rock us all to a gentle sleep to each of our final rest areas

you remain the least of their paranoid worries smouldering up the hudson flowing grey hair they paid for tips once now change is loose vengeance cold uniformed stares outside exits and gas stations over platforms red numbers an eye for a letter destinations yelp songs for the settled obvious melodies time warp plotlines distinguished by our humours ascend gently into that dim light hands stretching out to catch the glowing halos of redwood the liant laser beams (truths

the flow the scarper past rivers red with bombast my eradication plans did yield a smaller grain a compromise burst forth with sibillances scatter rayguns picturing the jetsons at LAX the fields of traffic yielding to the dollar scones with pearl jam or cream (clapton) appluading sorority blues grim dual under-carriage wayfarers snotty underfoot buried seeds bionic brains set to please from the get-go my go slow like a gentle maple leaf or yield.

This is getting a bit boring now - but davey dreamnation is sitting pretty at number 1 on the mp3.com.au lo-fi charts , again. Thanks everyone.

... against VSU in Australian universities. Check out the size of it - and the famous names on the petition - here . Yoiks.

i can hear union station pealing taking its constitutional in the green mile mall the siren has gout speculation rises to the level of the ambassador's ambulance driver rides the whoopy-whoo for some arcane reason cf dan brown i'm pole dancing electric ambivalence wireless hot spots the metro's early seventies concrete casting lights flash by the stage music's a genius you heard it once i've been here twice all sirens sound exactly the same these days ...

the side of a passing red bus who can discern what's now nuclear what simply oil or pre- digitail ladders elongated hopes quiet streets & busy boulevardes with disregard for the french speak slowly totally super is this power struggle between my own two hands we drive coast to coast strung out but tour- tight alternating headlines on midnight soundchecks set lists written in texta across some skinny groupie's breasts (no encores)

pale face never in control remember to cry it's a buzz we live for then we die or did i hear that in a song? pillion side saddle tempt the verge a highway's inside symbols leather road lights death is short only life lingers - maps of pueblo design evoke grander gestures sigh crossings from our reversed dispersal who's that diving in the river? shadow him follow close shenandoah

i'll slide off this face like the ice cream off your north base jump the perfect foil one side like a heat wave or marathon runner's pulse the slave to sunlight hiding drugs or coiled around the pit this far side cool as crisp fridge lettuce breaking into our conversations like some blip on the catastrophe as radar thin as paper wedged near perfection into domes alone helpless torn tarnished chrome

love thaws before freezing over setting twice as thick across following the bridges backs the rusted green lantern points like a dollar bill that never existed since this amnesty creates a frozen last option the flat bed journey of these days seeps down instead into the cooling water table where only yesterday things seemed fine though overcast storms hinted at did not appear - bridges ice before highways here

Here in Washinbgton DC it's muggy and my credit's running out so this is peppy: check out some of me poems online here at nthposition and here on Todd Swift's blog. Check them out. Back soon. Peppy pepys. Pepsis.

ira caplan's sonic squall rips new york's fourth of july gulls from the captivities of silence like a chainsaw through a bough of glass or chalk on yesterday's pavement; a soul possessed by demons determined to explode his body jerks with stock-market indices richter scale on jersey's fretboard; blinding sounds erupt then ribbon out dangling notes along the blue-green themes in a park for homeless evangelists shredding civic programmes deep in a feedback dream blooming into atonal squiggles of sound an express blast of manhole heat a peacebomb dropped on america heaving swollen thrashed a loop of pure non-violence & entropy a firework of stars & stripes tearing the sky a new arsehole

Experimental Travel , written by Rachael Antony and Joël Henry, is as the title suggests all about experimental travel, whether it be spending a weekend blindfolded, travelling to K2 on the map or wearing a cow's head. I'm lucky enough to have been a contributor to the book (which looks awesome, despite Lonely Planet's decision not to list the authors' names on the cover - bad, bad). My exercise was to travel around the world via a bookshelf. Probably not as interesting as some of the other examples in the book unless you're a bibliophile, like me. But well worth checking out. Double props to Rach and Joël!

The special editors' issue of Cordite is online and looking good, even if I do say so myself. I've even snuck in one of my own poems , to celebrate the thankless editorial tasks I submit myself to. Next up: the special Children of Malley issue. Yes indeedy, me.

I have moved the Clint Bo Dean story (Parts 1, 2 and 3 so far) over to Clint's own site , as he is getting a little lonely. I'll hopefully be adding more to it soon.

I'm off to Seoul, Korea in late August as an Asialink resident. You can check out my profile on the Asialink site . I'm hoping to set up a separate blog to document my time there. More on this soon.

lying on the beach i got hassled cheating's a way of life for some hating can lead men to violence stealing has been misunderstood shooting heroin sure beats guns tooting horns make no difference screaming is one form of release killing was a bad idea at the time lying's a way of life for some cheating can lead men to violence hating has been misunderstood stealing heroin sure beats guns shooting horns make no difference tooting is one form of release screaming was a bad idea at the time killing on the beach i got hassled lying can lead men to violence cheating has been misunderstood hating heroin sure beats guns stealing horns make no difference shooting is one form of release tooting was a bad idea at the time screaming on the beach i got hassled killing's a way of life for some lying has been misunderstood cheating heroin sure beats guns hating horns make no difference stealing is one form of release shooting was a bad idea at the time tooting on the beach i got

Yessiree, the 2nd EWF (Emerging Writers Festival) is on in a few weeks. Visit the Exprezz Media site for more details. I'll be reading poems from the now-very-rare The Happy Farang , and also I'll be moderating a panel on "first-words-last-words" and participating in a panel on alternative publishing.

Don't you just love it? This haiga was created by Kuniharu Shimizu (rosella) and myself (words). See it in its original context here .