Canowindra

Canowindra (pronounced Can-noun-dra, not the commonly used
Can-oh-win-dra) is an historic township located near Cowra in the
central west of New South Wales, Australia in Cabonne Shire.


Captured by Ben Hall and his gang - the story says, to show contempt for the cops & troopers. But let us imagine a bit more - let us imagine that the Hall Gang captured the town in an attempt to create the First Lachlan River Valley Soviet.

---

---

Late it was in the day, the bright sun
Setting off flies and floating soil
Spring Summer melting slide into one
Each other framing ceaseless toil.

Bold daring-doo this was the brashest
Dance ever sung in New South Wales
A cloud of horses to raise more dust
Blinding covering the sands of tails.

The one lone duck taken in the increase
Stampeding horses screaming voices
Not one hurt marched into jail the geese
Open a new world with our choices.

Benji strode jet a steed flame red eyes
Killed a half dozen mounts or more.
I would not have, with out me mud pies,
Believed, Flash Gilberto. Sure as sure.

Riding stride for matching stride always
Rode hard straight razor totin' Red Biddy
We have your town and we will for days
More are coming something like thirty

She rode back and forth, impatient
Stepped her mount, wild valiant colored
Chestnut wind burst with dust and urgent
She laughed not boasting - you're captured.

Our hero steadied his horse, sat tall
So he could well be seen. We will not hurt
One of you. We know you have naught to steal.
We have thought, It is time to invert.

My friends and I, under the milky way,
We cose for sleep, doze of a better
Break up all the things brought to the day.
An equal share, not all to the banker.

So I want 5 stout men with Jacky.
And men who are good on back with Toby.
Spread out! You know where there are tracks
Allow quiet raids of squatters bounty.

The rest will stay here and open
We will the telegraph office,
The bank and we will hunger dampen
With these few head we duffed joyous.

Start feast cooking. See here we are paying.
Red Biddy let fall a splash of money.
The sun light falling the coins, playing
Bush lives so tiring and dreary.

With a rushed assent the town's people
Set off to work preparing a feast
To out do any of the town's bridal
Parties - more food, more stout, deeds unleased

Consumed in the great fire the people made
All such documents destroyed - both here
And on the properties. We will lead
The squatters from morning to sundown

They still will only know one thought
Ownership, they will not give up the land.
Now falling into hard times we are taught
To move forward means to make the stand.

Twilight

An old poem (written some 5 years ago) i guess it is about the war on terror.

---

The twilight exhaled
A sexless sorrow

But our leaders heard
Only meaningless rain

Wealth devoured the obese
Commuters carried bombs

Infants were born grew and died
This infinite war

Laws hammered the lonely fire
Intensified the endless war

Sorrow floated the sickly wind

Butterflies

I fell asleep on the grass in the afternoon - the hot sun on my skin. And then i woke up...

---

As he slept
He felt a fluttering
Of butterflies.

Butterfiers

Summer wind burns wide the wood lands
Lightning fire flames oily tops of trees
Racing all before - desolate gales heated
Embers ballon tumble the heavens - whirling flames
Cyclones of orange, of red, of blue, of yellow
Blinding smoke bursts alight
Flame jet jutting from trees
Shadowing the sun - darkening the earth

Crowning curtains of orange flame rushing skywards
Dancing from tree top to tree top clouds of flame
Parched black blankets of ground - death gives life
The heat opens the hard casings and the seeds fall
Times are a burn makes what it needs and rain falls

(equal death life)
> true

His true Penelope was Flaubert

"What seems beautiful to me, what I should like to write, is a book
about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would be
held together by the strength of its style, just as the earth,
suspended in the void, depends on nothing external for its support; a book which would have almost no subject, or at least in which the
subject would be almost invisible, if such a thing is possible."
Gustave Flaubert, Correspondence.

Substituting poem for book, I find this quote very liberating to how I write. However some may say this is a very bourgeois manner of
writing. Setting myself up a straw man for the sake of this
argument. Let me try to explain how I oppose this idea.

One of the definitions of the word bourgeois is one whose interest it is to support the status quo. It is this usage of the word that is of most interest to me in this exercise.

It seems fairly obvious that the ruling classes control language and
that they use this control to entrap and downpress the working
people. One of the uses of language is the relentless demand on the
narrative flow. This counterfeit river that flows from A to B, that
moves from rags to riches.

Life, however is a much stronger stranger than this simple narrative
arc will have us understand. Language creates consciousness, and it
follows that this bourgeois hegemonistic control of daily life and
culture controls and moulds language and art to suit their own ends
(indeed this can be seen as a definition of hegemony).

It is this bourgeois control of language, and therefore consciousness, that creates the mind-forg'd manacles of our oppression. It is these manacles that we must self consciously over come and over throw. For it is precisely this mental slavery that causes the great mass of working people to think that without God there is no morality, that without work they will have no identity, that without coercion there will be no happiness.

Language, a poem about nothing, a poem that hangs with no support in
the void. This is what I am striving towards, this is what John
Kinsella and Tracy Ryan refer to when they say "every poem we write
should be a form of resistance, an act of linguistic disobedience."
This is what will allow us to write "beyond good and evil", this is
what will allow us to move beyond imperialist ideas of ownership and
coercion.

Time, history, relationships are the matter of literature, and in some ways literature is greater than nonfiction or even philosophy, for only literature can talk about how life really is, how life should be. Time is not, history is not, the straight and narrow journey from breakfast to lunch to dinner, rather it is the dream distortions of Finnegan. History does not have as its horizon the simple Aristotelian unities of the television studio and of market based book publishers, but rather a deeper understanding of history and relationships can only be found in the convoluted signature of Shandy.

I write, as do all artists, mainly for myself, but also for self aware proletarians. I write in a way that is often called pretentious. (A label I am happy to wear, for to be pretentious is to pretend, to play, and if a poet can not play that what is a heaven for?) I write in a way that allows me to survey all of the history (natural and human) of language and appropriate for my art all 'that which being seen pleases me'. I write in a way that, in defiance of the petty academic poetry cliques, is not direct nor aimed for 'working people' (all of which is code for banal and trivial). I write understanding the unity to be more than a mere harmony, but rather a complete interpenetration. I write in a manner which says proudly, 'let the common reader be damned'. I write knowing that the artist is meant to be something more than an entertainer.

Polish Nail Polish

An attempt to create a literature about nothing, a work with no reference, that hangs spinning in the nothingness like the earth hangs in space with no support. His true Penelope was Flaubert.

---

Skyup hisses evergray
Sometimes early sumfin oily
Rede reeds brushes of banks
Lending reeds rude of windie
Reeds on board bandy banks
And the reedy thin swampsweep
Of the streaming creek.

Teamroads meat odors

Cry crying cry again
Swamps weep and bubs bauble
Bible spittled ruler
Of the bubblebile crier
Town ways sunnydation sedition
Sunne day addition sedative
Sedation.

O' weave willed reckoner o'
Wounds of whorlds of
Whirlygig girlish giggle byte
Pterabyte of lambing flight
Terror bite of effing tea
Heat the rode jack off the lamby
While brauny glasses of winteressa
Tumble down ads foggen my eyen even

The Change

We have to
believe in.

Dig it! Live it! Love it!

a quote from

http://poetsvegananarchistpacifist.blogspot.com/

..as poets, every poem we write should be a form of resistance, an act of linguistic disobedience. States murder more than they protect.

Dig it! Live it! Love it!

Remember to Kick It Over

I & I might call dis a collage, being an old timey web 1.0 sort of guy. (or maybe even a punky reggae party). Younger gen Y types might refer to it as a mash up. (Still others might just be honest and direct & call it a big old ball o' crap!?! (a pox on 'em i says)). Marley, Blake, Strummer, (ply upon ply), Dedalus & a bit of Lawson all hacked up together as a treat for eye and ear and brainpan.

Wrote it one morning while the kids ran riot throughout the house, and sally slept and jesus wept.

---

Emancipate yourself
From mind forg'd mental
Manacles of Slavery.

Stef, she tapped her head,
Her forehead, with her hand.
It is here we must kill
Both Rome and Babylon.

Faces in the street
From marks of Trenchtown
Ghetto woe to Gaza's white
Phosphorus tv bombs.
To London's charter'd street
To the beat of weary feet.

In here, again she tapped
Her forehead, inhaling deep.
Speed thin sheen of sweat.

She inhaled and coughed...
Can I see another's woe
And not be in sorrow too?

Emancipate yourself
From mind forg'd mental
Manacles of Slavery.

It is here we must kill
Both Rome and Babylon.

Eternity Rules OK?

Down in Sydney for a conference, wandering around martin place, drunk. the homeless, the war memorial, the dirt and filth, the towers to money of money. Lest we forget, so we never have to remember immolations.

---

---

Gaudy Gowdy Dowdy City
Intense full of holes bitterment

Old ad guy snuffling through holes
Old dull drab frayed cardboard boxes

    Streets full of lies
    Two shapes converging an alley
    Lights of powder and pain
        Still streets of lies

Inner blue monstrosity
The son shall set leased wee frogit
Never again shroud remember
Martyrs who protect Capital.

For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?

LeftClick: Gaza Rally Canberra


And this from the Canberra Times newspaper

On Saturday, acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard refused to criticise Israel's bombing campaign.

Suffering Enduring Urchins

Went to the rally in front of the Israel and USA embassies to support the people of GAZA. Not a bad turn out for Canberra. There were quite a few coppers of various types in riot gear and with tasers and with big hitting sticks and with pistols and with dogs and with cameras. the coppers scared my kids. the whole scene made me proud to live in a democracy. one that has to go to such lengths to protect the REAL terrorists from the people. So i got this old(ish) poem, a rather brutal SALO piece about rulers and priests et al raping and killing children. not a one to one mapping of the situation in GAZA - but close enough and more than most of my poet friends are saying...

We are all in gaza...

---

I find him 101 pence - dollars - pounds
Sterling effort boys - I seance him
101 years of community service.
Non stop - let 100 enticements bloom.

And the joyceful drudges
And the urchins of dickens
Rush the bench - chanting frothmouth
Flay Him Slay Him

What the Dickens: Flay Him
Drudges are dublin': Slay Him

Stab Him Jab Him Artful thrusting
Of the pelvis.
Drag Him Drug Him Dutch tars high on
Nutmeg jump into the sea.

Like David the urchins scramble after
A hung of corrupt fleshy flesh.
Adultery - Murder - the drudges
Sing out stiffening hands.
King of the Jews Hughson - they
Shout out in unison.

And the Judge General bangs
His rommy guild gavel
This hammer of justice smashes
Into One Million lilting pieces
Refracting Rainbows across the
Whitewashed (to cover the rupture) walls -
((But modern science of assembly can
Detect the splash of watery whey) (No
Matter how bleak or well washed))

Guantanamera - they mock and sing
Forming a Conga Line (Sing Cuban Pete).
Bloodletting Generals, Deceitful Lawyers,
Crooked Politicians, Professors,
Preachers, Advertisers, Capitalists,
Doctors, Managers, Journalists,
Dirty Faced Angels, Keepers of the dishes.
Smoking big fat cigars, Drinking hot sweet
Kill-Devil Liquor, Placing bets
With fat redfaced mafioso...

O Christ, O God, O Fuck my eyes,
The Prime Minster's eyes roll back...
O God Fuck, O Sweet Jesus - the judge ejaculates
Overflowing the arse of artful. The Cardinal
And the Governor each hold one cheek open
The Imam and the Rabbi dance maniacal
Around a table containing the bloody remains
Of the infantata disembowelled the dense inert blade.
Each hand tight around the throat of a young girl.
Shaking the lifeless bodies with delight.
How great is our freedom!!!

They so hate our freedoms we must curtail them
They chant - subjugating with abandon.

So our scene fades to gore,
As does our future?

Slave of the Slave

The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave. - James Connolly - and Yoko Ono said...

---

God Damn you and the child!
Shutting the slamming door
Thin light strand falling 
        The lonely floor

    And slamming shouting door
Sitting dark alone
Alone in the dark

Softening full of outer space
Cooling gin wettening cheeks

        And the darkness fading
        The stars one after another
            Fading and blinking out

Till the wild east rises a new dawn
Red is the East
    Rosy fingers dawning and the 
    Crescent half smile translusing 
        To nothing

And the cold metal 
Upon flesh 
And the red sun rising

Groping towards the light

And So:

Let All Malthusians Go Hang!

OK! this one has it all! From the Korean Police Action to Shane Warne to Dave & Ansel Collins to Elton John to Hamlet to Venus in Furs to The Oxen of The Sun - it just goes on and on - and all along it builds up a hatred of Capitalism and Militarism.

It is not just greed, like some say, that has caused the down turn.
Economic crisis is not a moral equation! (we must live beyond good & evil).

It is deeper, it is the very logic of Capital that leads to these wars and these down turns and to this world of macho hero bullshit.


For what is a bayonet, if not a tool with a worker at either end!

---

Let All Malthusians Go Hang!

She incheoned her loafer
After sum Khe Sanh halt months
Man she led her sway - by
Indirections etc
    Hambonelet - ham it shut slut
Of ham lust - slam it hut!

Stinking dave dove son of 
Gratitude - 'tis gunners 
Be a long long trireme
I am a rick rock let us be man
& Mars bars a place to raise 
Your kit clubbing kats.
    She salt hummed and
Sealed one inch of the sobbing
Bastini life of lies.

And she let mat lush her
Cocksacs upupon his ucrank
Poldy land (sledded and none such)
All wit furry fairy head hits
Loud whoreson cries of whippets
And long wimp its wimp it good
Ground zero of the magnificent
Life drawing warne time
Severin AM - I am the magnificent
(She pissed posh upon his
Aught ought workswerving) She shot
And hauled at the lunatic tuna
Tic tank dough of your 
Dribble drabble. She larfed
His hat slum salt hum into his
Burning hot sun eye balled
And sheer sworded never to swear
And hit him agin gain this on 
The lam thus two Severins 
And two strep troats accosting
Strangers for accounting.

Be Gone!
    Monocle Theists
Gee Borne!
    Monocle Theists

This time she found one
From Aria loud land - gave her 
One good old smack, a virtual
Paddy whack, upon the guild
Of her girdled muddle draped 
In like a barb marley snack 
Of pasta spud a Doodle Doo 
Unless and until the first Sargent 
Left tenant Piggy O'Piggies 
And Cuntstable Clitoris 
Apprehended dis here red ulcer
Farce forced ulster red hand.

Faux Be Real (or Raid on a Chip)

I am not sure - Just having some fun i think. you can be the judge (as always)

---

The Faux Is Real; Bad.

Good marrow, she sed,
    Glutting the excess off her skin

Good gray rage maintains 
Range three quatre centre
All misty pithy eyed fat
    Around the middling

Distance - He used
    The formal reply
As she twere
His better.

All a sodden storm of failing
Down a chaos of dorics
Rose petaled from the grunt.

From the sweety sweaty chops
Of old Medusaula (Grunty
Crunchy the old trainys 
Gov bull fullish voyeurgins
A wight royal rooking ober)

    Bone Up Win Now Bone Up Now Win
Incessant Doric chaunting.

    And she pulled the flat 
Of the pork bone essence out
The floods of 'erobe 
    Awl drippy droopy with fig paste
And appletdumping snores.
    (Sharpened for days
    Rubbed against the rood
    Of the mystical rukh)

She plungerd the sparkling
Bone intwo yon yore eyen.

    Gut winnowing my peat all
    Pedaling...

    (Fore now she used the formless
    Parting speak - 
    She is your butter).