Thursday 31 December 2020

CLARK GORMLEY




Clark Gormley is a poet and singer-songwriter based in Newcastle, Australia. He has been involved in organising and promoting local poetry readings for over 20 years.He has been published in several anthologies including Visions From the Valley, A Slow Combusting Hymn and Brew 30 Years of Poetry at the Pub Newcastle. He has written and performed three nerd-themed one-man shows, and is working on a fourth.  He’s also written a bunch of wordy songs, most of which he has sung in the duo Nerds & Music. Gormley pursues these creative endeavours in an effort to counterbalance the stodginess of a career in chemical engineering.

 


His flying islands book, Not What You Think, was published in 2019.

 

www.clarkgormley.com

 

Panda Onesie

 

you get home and

run to the wardrobe

before the shopping

is unpacked

the onesie goes on

 

and there you are

a befurred cherub

in black and white

happy as a folivore

in a bamboo forest

 

the onesie stays on

until you go out

home being your

natural habitat

a tiny enclave of

 

Sichuan Province

cos you’ve read that

the species doesn’t

fare well elsewhere

so you need to wear

 

your human skin

as protection when

venturing into

outdoor captivity

this huge open range zoo


MATT TURNER

I'm the author of Wave 9: Collages (Flying Islands, 2020) and Not Moving (Broken Sleep Books, 2019). I am the translator of Weeds, by Lu Xun (Seaweed Salad Editions, 2019), and co-translator (with Weng Haiying) of books by Yan Jun, Hu Jiujiu, Ou Ning, Mi Jialu and others. In addition, essays and reviews can be found in Hyperallergic Weekend, LARB China Channel, Cha, Bookforum, Hong Kong Review of Books, Asian Review of Books and other journals.


At present I live in New York City, where I work as a freelance translator and copyeditor. Prior to that I spent nearly a decade in Beijing, where I taught literature at several universities, where I met my wife, and where I found my dog in front of a McDonald's.


Here is the poem "Parable," from Wave 9: Collages.

the mountains open

with a very wide mouth

 

back then, thinking

through clarity and

saw it was

made of dried

wax

 

a still face

 

––––––––––––


arms and

legs wet

 

*

 

fruit

wet on the pavement

and from a similar height

 

*

 

basket

treacle

false answers

 

*

 

you’ve misheard

how

is?

 

*

 

as for

being alive, it’s a

wet sleep of

questions asked to

my hand, grabbing at

a rescue

 

––––––––––––


out

the door, I

fly up,

like a snake

 

*

 

a baby doesn’t come out in

broad daylight

 

*

 

would out

day and night


–––––––––––––

 

fire

and beat me

 

I intend to kill you

but saying it

what else

 

*

 

the bride

said:

 

a mistake has

become to

go, and to come back

 

no one had 

an idea what that was

 

*

 

medicine hates passion

 

*

 

cry all night until,

having eaten enough fruit, the

illness is cured at last

 

a slave

builds up the

eye

 

we all laughed and

went our way

exactly as foretold

in the Book of Unhappy

Skills


And, from the same manuscript, this is the poem "How Can You Face Them."


each revolution of the

soul

 

*

 

imagine that

everyone you hate has

come, you’re related to

them

 

but nothing happens

how can you face them

 

as a

being

 

on your own

case

 

would you

turn around

 

–––––––––––––– 

 

the subject here

is a person

maybe not one person really, but

it’s common sense

 

you’re seeing this, thinking

about it, using the facilities

then 

break off

 

*

 

get a phone, no not

a phone, a phone call, say

here’s something new

your agent calls you, must be that

 

*

 

et cetera

 

*

 

over the phone you

say it’s already done

you’re not there in

your not-there

 

like

 

–––––––––––––– 

 

some debt has been

evaded, an open road

the leaves

roll across the still wind

 

what normal state

up there, to

find abandonment a mere life

 

*

 

oh consolidator!

 

*

 

I did baby things

 

out, deleted

the new life, old

debt on the loan

 

*

 

oh consolidator!

 

*

 

tenor goes up, up

into my first

life

 

rattling off some trivia about

my family. Place

and station, et cetera

 

no annihilation

no eternity

came in sleep and stayed

 

––––––––––––– 

 

therapy today

 

*

 

we’ve got to

connect with each other or

we’re just two topics

 

*

 

“I,” “mine”

should appear to my dreams

as predicates

but Being is not one

a predicate, I mean

at least it’s two of them

 

*

 

a perfect

account of what I

never accomplished

 

*

 

a new note

who hears it

sound

in the inner ear

interring itself

 

*

 

these appear to

be like pairs: no, yes

if, not always






ANDREW BURKE

In 1950, Andrew Burke wrote his first poem – in chalk on a slate board. It was variations on the letter A. In 1958 he wrote a poem modeled on Milton’s sonnet on his blindness. Luckily it is lost. In 1960 he wrote a religious play about the Apostles during the time Jesus was in the tomb. It was applauded. He wrote some poems influenced by TSEliot and Gerard Manley Hopkins. They caused a rift in the teachers at the Jesuit school because they were in vers libre: the old priests hated them but the young novices loved them. It was his first controversy. (The only Australian poet in his school anthologies was Dorothea Mac kellor!) Around this time, Burke read the latest TIME magazine from USA. It had a lively article about the San Francisco Renaissance, quoting Lawrence Ferlinghetti who wrote: Priests are but the lamb chops of God. This appealed to Burke who became a weekend beatnik over night. When he left school, he hitch-hiked a la Kerouac across Australia to Sydney where he worked in factories, on trucks, at a rubbish dump and moving furniture. His poems appeared in these early days in Westerly, Nimrod, Overland and the Bulletin, and he returned to Perth to regain his health and joined a circle around Merv and Dorothy Hewett. A local poet William Grono hit the nail on the head when he described them as ‘I am London Magazine and you are Evergreen Review’. Long story short, Andrew Burke has written plays, short stories, a novel, book reviews and some journalism alongside a million advertisements and TV and radio commercials. He has also taught at various universities and writing centres and gained a PhD from Edith Cowan University in 2006 when he was teaching in the backblocks of China. As a poet he has published fourteen titles, one of the most popular being a bi-lingual published by Flying Islands Press in 2017, THE LINE IS BUSY (translated by Iris Fan). He is retired now but still writing and lending a hand to younger poets. A small selection of poems follow.
Going Home 

As I exit, I walk by my books in the uni 
library. There is a shorter way but I 
choose to hear my old words whispering 
off the shelf ‘in the swarm of human 
speech’, as Duncan said. On my way home, 
in the safe bubble of my Japanese car, 
I take the tunnel and in the humming 
dark inexplicably think of 
my White Russian friend naked on 
his chopper, whooping loudly in his flight 
across the desert, ejaculating in ecstasy 
on his fuel tank. Those were the days, 
my friend. Now, my tunnel breaks 
into sunlight. The poet I visited today said, 
Even the poems are chatty now, and he 
was right: at the red traffic light 
lyrical lines come to mind and I hurry to 
write them down. The lights change 
and my pen dries out. Diesel fumes invade 
my thoughts as I drive so I turn the volume 
up on ABC Jazz to drown out my 
annoyance. That motel has been there for decades. 
I remember the one-eyed 
mother, with her baby in a cot, offering 
me her love, or something masquerading 
as that, in dusky afternoon light, a room 
rented after fleeing her husband, the sound 
of peak hour traffic slowing as it banked 
for the suburbs. I’m off in a dream world 
when the car behind me toots, and I’m 
on the road again. Her name has gone 
but her eye patch remains and the baby’s 
sweet snuffling. I change to a pop music 
station. Get out of your own head, I 
advise myself. It’s not safe there, the 
past is corrosive. At home I park 
and leave the bubble of car and poem 
with its own centrifugal force.


Have a Nice Day

 

Driving to the shopping centre,

Bukovski rambling in my ear,

I’m glad to be sober

and anonymous. When I was

young, all hormones and energy,

my poetic was all about

getting laid. Today I step

from my Toyota, head full

of Buk, and grab a trolley, swearing

at its bent wheels. That’ll help,

my sober brain puts in, sarcastic

as ever. I push and the old desire

to be listened to comes back

and I’m impatient at each counter,

waiting for this, waiting for that.

They’ve got machines now,

not people. Just key in

your late mother’s hat size

and, voila, the money is out

of your account and into theirs,

Messrs Coles and Woolies. Warmly

I remember the décolletage of

Sandy with the metal in her nose,

tongue and ears. Where is she today?

At the scrap metal yard?

This machine doesn’t rock my world.

It doesn’t have Sandy’s knowing smile,

asking sweetly through banded teeth,

Any fly bys? It’s a drive-by, fly by,

bye-bye whirled. Who’ll enjoy

fly bys on my funeral plan?

Buk’s buggered my mood, but he’s

dead and I’m still here, so

who’s to complain. The machine

says, Have a nice day with

a metallic twang and I

kick the trolley straight again.

 


 

The limits of my language are the limits of my world. Wittgenstein

i.m. Tony Statkus


As bit players, the limits

of everyday activity

are the limits of our lives. You are

half out the door, going

who knows where. Perhaps you can

tell us when we meet again.

We don’t expect cards or letters,

emails or texts, and only our

limited senses would ask for

photos of the other side.

 

Did you leave your watch behind?

I picture Sue running

after you, shouting, ‘You forgot

your watch, you forgot your watch.’

Time is only for us now,

empty arms of the clock

hold us back from joining you.

When you were sick

and tired of it all, you left. I can

understand that. Mind the step,

wipe your feet. I expect we will follow you

in time. They chisel years

on tombstones, don’t they, yet facts

are putty in historians’ hands after deeds

are done. It’s a variety show, all this song and dance.

Total it up: More love than hate,

more laughter than tears. Do you need

a torch? Or is that light at the end of the tunnel

light enough? Perhaps you can send us

a clue or two, telling us, What happens next?

Eh? Tell me that.

 

 

Taibai Mountain Poem

for Jeanette

 

I saw a shining moon last night

through leafy poplars and pines

on Taibai Mountain

and thought of you awake

amid the lowing of Brahman bulls.

 

I thought of Li Bai

spilling ink down the mountain

leaving black stains

and wondered whose Dreaming

spilt red on The Kimberley?

 

 


None So Raw As This Our Land

for Mary Maclean

 

Many have been more exotic places, but this

you offer us, a taste of our land. The air

so crisp with chill we wear entire wardrobes

like hunters’ furs—jeans over track pants,

footy socks, beanies, scarves. Mary’s roo dog

does our hunting: an emu caught at the throat,

plucked and thrown whole on a cooking fire,

smoke full of singed feathers and flesh

stings our noses. We wrestle with tin-canned

standards in words the wind blows away. Huddled

round campfires morning and night, we go where

the sun breaks through as day unrolls. Breakaways,

mulga bush, a never-used dam a hundred years old,

this place of bleached bones and broken glass

queries our presence, unwashed, awkward on

its unpaved ways. Marrakesh, Katmandu—tales

of former hikes, but none so raw as this our land.

Whose land? Our week is up; we take away

film rolls, rusted horse shoes, ochre rocks.

 


Wednesday 30 December 2020

Rob Schackne


 

Born in New York, he lived in many countries until Australia finally took him in. He was a Foreign Expert EFL teacher in China for many years. He now lives in Castlemaine, Vic. where he enjoys the blue skies, fresh air and the birds. There were some extreme sports once; now he plays (mostly) respectable chess and pool. 

A Moonbeam’s Metamorphosis/The Parachuting Man (with Nicholas Coleman) was published in 1979 by LEFTBANK PORTFOLIOS (Melbourne). He published two poetry collections in Shanghai: Snake Wine (2006) and Where Sound Goes When It’s Done (2010). A Chance of Seasons was published by Flying Island Books in 2017. 

More recently some of his poems have appeared in The AnthillOz Burp (Five) zine, Ariel ChartThe Blue Nib MagazineBluepepper, The Rye Whiskey ReviewPink Cover Zine, The Raw Art Review, Outlaw Poetry, HUSK, the Sappho Lives! Anthology (2019, 2020), Taking Shape (Newcastle Poetry at the Pub Anthology, 2018, 2019, 2020), and the Messages From The Embers bushfire anthology (Black Quill Press, 2020). 

When he’s not writing, he likes taking photographs. He listens to the Grateful Dead. Some days he thinks there is nothing easy about the Tao.


Some recent poems...


SPOT ME


My strength ebbs away

like a grip on the tide

dangerous invitations 

I counted most important

rucking forever, battling

sunrises and sunsets

past the moments 

I might've stopped

working up the plate rack

what was I thinking

small animals press 

a hundred times their weight

now watch me blow

ants have no problem 

cats vault fences 

I used to measure 

now measure other things



TOMORROW


Some carry everything 

even their survival

dragged till sundown


just imagine it

all the food in the world

and the pockets of nothing


eating bitterness

hold yours tight

never let me go


imagine the pillow

beneath your head

the limited supply


deal with it they said

can't eat any more

have another bite


imagine Big Got

clean clothes well fed

his children wait


the pie in the sky

sits at the rainbow

gets on the next bus



CLEANING MY IGLOO 


The violence of noise

music as a place to think

the wind is howling

call it peace

cleaning my igloo

the desperate times

that are returned to

their prepositions

or call it protest

against a war

I cannot fracture

however gently

revisiting the light





From “A Chance of Seasons” (Flying Island Books, 2017)


She Saved My Ass 

During an altercation
in a bar one night
she saved my ass
my back was turned
he came up with a knife
she hit him with a bottle 

she was from the mountains 

they believe in hard things 

it was then I fell in love 

big arms and shoulders
every inch of her 6 foot tall
it was such a simple thing 

when we were leaving
she stomped hard on his hand 

after that the graceful years 

Lord she was so tender
her feet were lovely &
she loved me very well

 

 

A Soldier’s Cough 

 

Head sounds like a drum when it’s scratched
Left ear still sore after a blow 25 years ago
A throat that lost its whisper song and shout
A lonely whisker creeps to just below the eye
The neck that shook the bridge for days is weak 

The old chest looks full but the heart is hollow 

Old comrades say that vitamins will put it right 

(A pity the right side doesn’t quite match the left) 

Broken leg the pelvis spine back my knees and feet 

Sore from a million steps in the wrong direction 

A cough that alerts the dog who begins to bark 

The doctors say there will be no more fighting
I climb the stairs slowly to my small apartment 

Grateful that my eyes can still see you waving 

While you hang the wind in your white clothes.