Monday, January 30, 2017

Magdalena Ball - City Child 6 - Memory and Sleeping Pills

Memory and Sleeping Pills

Not everything in the memory
banks is linguistic

tapping into pre-language experiences
requires a different mode
a blurring of the distinctions
between speech-specific processes
and other forms of perception.

I wasn’t quite one
I had a few words

for example, I was able to shout “Mommy”
while banging on the bathroom door

I was able to walk, label things
to clearly articulate what I wanted

I didn’t know the word for fear
it was more of a smell, a colour, a sensation
with its origins in the stomach
rather than the prefrontal cortex

I felt it coming on
a buzz through the skin
a sensation I could do nothing about

my mother was tired, pacing the small apartment
not cooking, not eating, just crying
I was too little
aware but not aware

in the moment when she disappeared
into the bathroom of endless sleep
I knew I had to get that door to open

so I banged, chubby fingers blackening
against the solidity of that door

I shouted until the sound of my voice was 
pure vibration

I don’t remember what happened
beyond that point
help must have arrived

at the hospital
my grandmother spoke sharply
to my coughing, teary mother
about my future and her obligations

she took over our house
cleaning, cooking, sorting, smoothing
the smell of fresh coffee 
penetrating my pores, teaching me 
what safety meant


after that language flooded in
and everything changed.

Chrysogonus Siddha #5 - asmaradana

asmaradana
~ fifth song ~

give me a word
for this

when morning drizzle
drops like grains of salt

falling nearly
silent

a thousand flash kisses
wet my window

they roll down
making lines

like tracks on a face
tears etched

after hearing
a simple I miss you

the meeting of lovers
long overdue



Kit Kelen - for godsbother - roughly #10? - looking forward to extinction


looking forward to extinction

you only get to imagine now
so make the most

the gods expire
they have use-by dates

any doctrine does

we're characters

no single truth outlasts
the world it circumscribes

the limits of my language
are

pillar of salt if you turn around
it's only a matter of time

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Rachael Mead #4

Adoption Day, 1978


I remember my cream polo-neck was itchy as hell
and wishing for a groovy velour one just like yours.

But in the end, it was fitting. Nothing about that day
was what I wanted. When the social worker asked me

we were all in the lounge, Mum perched on the edge
of the couch but I didn’t need to see her face

to know what I was meant to say.  Dad, you didn’t
say much. Start as you mean to continue, I guess. 

Your parenting was defined by what you didn’t do.
No praise. No affection. No Speech Nights or Sports Days.

Sometimes music lies in the space between the notes,
but even so, all my childhood triumphs seem like

wild dancing for rain that would never fall.  Now,
here you are in ICU, hooked up to a nest of tubes  

feeding you blood, oxygen, everything you need except
nicotine and alcohol.  And still, all I can hear is you

talking over Mum out of deafness or disrespect. Or both. 
I’m almost snapping my Sudoku pencil with one hand.

It’s the same one I used while you were in surgery,
all the numbers blurring as I remembered that day,

all those years ago, when you heard Mum ask
for a father for her child. When you answered.


Saturday, January 28, 2017

Kit Kelen - for godsbother - blurt it out


blurt it out

as in the case of the country
you were brought up to love

words sink like stones
in the well of the heart
and one day
the world
goes without saying

still billions of years till then
still time to mean all that you must
to get the phrasing right

blurt it out

words on their death beds
will squeeze a last breath
out of the healthy animal

Nathanael O'Reilly #4 Alt-Facts Bio

Alt-Facts Bio

My favourite subject at school was physics.
I always wanted to drive a monster truck.

I play the harp, pennywhistle and bodhran.
I keep a rabbit's foot in my pocket for luck.

I am seven feet and three inches tall.
My hair is naturally curly, lustrous and black.

I speak fluent Icelandic, Farsi and Mandarin
and can order beer, ouzo and gyros in Greek.

I ran the Reykjavik marathon in two hours
and twenty minutes, setting a course record.

My first wife was Elle McPherson. We had a good
run, but I traded her in for a newer model.

I scored a triple-century on debut for Australia
during the Boxing Day test at the MCG.

1.5 million people attended my PhD graduation
and gave a forty-five-minute standing ovation.