Poetry Slam Review Or There Is So Much More To Be Done

Went on Friday night to the regular poetry slam at the front cafe. This evening had a different format than usual. A woman's only reading. The night was very, very cool. Indeed one of the most interesting, exciting poetry events i have seen (heard?) in many a dreary year.

I was able to see my town in a new light, indeed it was as if a entirely new Canberra, shiny and bright, was unrolled in front of me. An entirely different feel to the normal events.

Mixed up with these feelings of newness and excitement was a certain sorrow and disappointment. It seems the vast majority of the same old crowd could not be bothered to show up. Sexism? Quite likely on one level, but let us be generous and define the no shows as narcissistic. (if I can not read my tired arse poems I will do nothing).

There is also an undercurrent of this sort of activity causing men to feel as if such an event was unfair to men. Poor middle class white men! I can feel your pain NOT! One woman's only reading in four years of these events, such a burden to the men! <sarcasm> How can such inequality be explained or tolerated </sarcasm>

Or this rather lame attempt at humour

"I cannot condone this harsh discrimination towards woman who are women on the inside, as opposed to women who are women in the pants."WTF

Speaking with some of the regulars, who could be bothered to show up, during the evening there did seem to be an opposition to the attitude that performing is far more important than art.

As always with poetry slam/readings the evening was a mix of good works and not so goods works. I got to hear a poem from Carol Ann Duffy England's new 'Poet Laureate'. A poem from e.e. cummings. A half forgotten rap which the ending rhyme, (something very much like)

You may think that we are good friends
But we are really lesbians

And then there was more of Helena's terrible beauty. Which makes me ashamed to call myself a poet.

Julia from Julia and the Deep Sea Sirens played and sang. There was an exhibit in the gallery for the Art for Aid auction.

(Sorry for leaving many poets out, but i did not take notes, so am relying on my notoriously fickle memory)

And then after a while I realised I was nothing more than a big graceless oaf, so I caught a cab home. Still it was a most enjoyable evening and one that, if given the opportunity I would encourage the organisers to repeat at least on a quarterly (that is 4 times a year) schedule, as enjoyable as it is to read one's poetry real understanding only comes from listening, and experiencing the new.

The Starvation Army

The salivating army doles out
(So so sad) poor chook chook feed 
To all the free cluck cluck peepole.

Furious Orlando (king of this island of flours)
With a click and a stroke 
Of his tutu pigpen is a-macon
Such Christian chair a tree ill regal.
And the pissy peon smurfs cuddle
Up with such pow pow power
Sifting through the lies

Knowingly
Finding the ones to best match
Narrow prejudges

He said She said 
Down by the sea sure

Dream

went to sleep, woke up and wrote it down. there is no castro street in canberra, nor northbourne avenue in san fran.

---

Typical weather pattern for the time of year
High pressure systems spawning beautiful clear
Hard half moon crystal stars fall earthy down
Sparkling dew drops melt rosy fingered dawn

Under my feet the road falls away
Under my feet, leading down.
A small valley soft, formed,
Over nameless years or more,
The freshly minted and named
Ginninderra Creek.

Slow wide valley, now
Gurgling simple, now pestered
Of storms, now restrained
Consulting town planners.

The wispy clouds of mist
Roll along the meandering
Water, spreading all ways
Of the now gurgling simple
Ginninderra Creek.

Line of Sight Blocakage.
The sharp hill from water
Rising. Where Castro St
Intersects Norhtbourne
Avenue, an obsured
Train chug chugs steep
And tugs and tussles and
Struggles pumping and puffing
Glowing thick black brown smoke.

The New World

This is, for some unknown to me reason, called The New World. I guess it is about science creating a new world and then the tension between the new world and the old. I guess.

---

Interface between the surge 
And the Christ
    Alone on the bus -
    I look out past coverts
    Of trees an 'arsh eroded
    Gullies - maybe 'alf a kay
    Away or so.  South west.
    
Two men bored digging
Old yeller faded plant
Her the interface
Of tech wild add the mild 
(man made - artificial)

Interface - Eaterdeath
Enter fade - Over & OUT
Yes interface of Air and Breath
Huh Interfrance of fist and flesh
Life and death - crunch and munch

And your  everywhen
All around is torn down 
Mangled spindled ripped
Apart asunder.

    Rold at in a trinity 
A tree facaded milky chai 
But even tree into won is not holeisit?
Rather still pater linear
    The Father = The Past
    The Son = (obviously) The Present
    Spiritus Sanctus  = The Future

Unknown unknowable

    And the interface of the old
(Accent on the first dare) and
The new (modern as tomorrow
afternoon) - One is ground to 
Powda (mode red-mixed with bland)
And high nigh into the sky
To girt girl wide contact
And flutter bye baby bird down 
Slowly over all days covering
The world with a thing coast of 
Dust, O'Halleron, California,
Texas in QLD.

A single tree growing 
Cork screw wise - a single 
Three from one base (interface
The dirt and sky) spreading into
Throe equal and coexistent breasts.
    The tree of the serpent (forever and on
                  you will toil for your food)
    The tree of the trinity

A hill rising up - rusting with 
Thrist - striving with hunger.
The rage - interfraud of land and law
The surface is the interface with
The devil. 

The double.

The Dead Bee

Waiting for the bus and noticed a dead bee in a spiders web.

---

A dead bee in an empty web - 
(Weaving as he goes) Appears at first glance
To be a magical levitating against all 
Rational thought sort of thing.

A closer look - I can see the thin
Strands invisible in the shadows 
Holding the dead hollow creature. 
(this is how it ends?)

A fine architecture of wealthy lies
The structure of our modern endeavour

And she was but a child atop the crow's nest
- The exulted call of the carrion eaters! - 

Suspended in a web above Gaia's child
 
   ((Meandering Mother) (Incest Lover)
   (Murderer of the Piercing Serpent)
   (Water Dragon of Chaos) (Demon of Envy))

A sprig of myrtle - And scattered salt
In her hair - and the dead hovering bee
At the bus stop - 

   And as she fell (with a whimper)
   She thought of far away green 
   She thought of her love.

Joy Delights In Joy

This is about how people who believe in god heaven/hell afterlife can kill with ease. let god sort it out, they say with a grim good humor.
A joycean pun on shakespeare and the opportunity to rhyme broken with bourbon.
Too Too Fabulous!

---

She dowsed him sweet knocked him flaton the ground
She regained he stood on his feet and yelled
In rage and snorting nonsensical sound
Head bone to bridge of nose and she he felled
Sweets with sweets war not she through blood spoke clear
And I moved forward sensing our weakness
Where stops the bus there shop I - laugh my dear
Once last time her blade plunged into my breast
Charming flashing red and blue filled the room
Still flashing splatters of blood and broken
Flesh and splashes of sorrow sadness gloom
And fuming anger soaped carpet bourbon

He can end as well she slays easily
Are we all not bound for eternity?

Virus

I was going somewhere or meeting someone - can't quite remember. I went down the town and was waiting in the square by the Legislative Assembly Building.
so that:

---

Virus makes satin for poison 
                          slimy liquid
Venomous sap spa
Melting away a gwy by the blutful

Language is a virus is a rose is a poison
                                       PHARMAKONS

Remedy
Poison
Charm
Drug

Numbing time mind of memory...

Watching the trees and 
               The leaves as they fall...
Fading light
Dull sleepy weepy blue
Gray bottle pink nose.
An empty fountain turned off 
After hours. An empty piazza 
And a statute shrouded in metaphysics
On Mort Street, banish mother of lain death,
Three AM drunken gibbering. A young family.
A young lesbian couple arm in arm in love
Turn and walk past. (The love that dares not
Erode all values.)     The space around the words
Is empty.    NOTHING.     Australian
Bird contrary not so much screade as sing song
Torn stripped long list of torn clothe.
Harsh calling forth the going down of day.

Lane way of heartless public arte,
A moth drowning, Death struggling listless
Water rejecting accents of light. Tip Tap
Tip tapping song riddim of a woman's shoes.
She has tied her hair back. 
                                        Her lover takes a photograph
As if affection    and the all at once    proof.

I sit on a bench and charm spells from outta lies.
Ancient plant so ill famed.    CRIMINAL.    And yet?
Leaf page cartwheels wan empty space. 

    Well Fed.
    Well Watered.
    Warm in house and dress.
    Vanity of giving. 
    And yet refuse to help.
    And extend three electrical cheers 
    For dem rulers what ax so little
    What allow 'em to be cruel, as they wanna be.

The rapid clicks and clacks
Of the bicycle tyre. A low growl
Electro dance rumba ramble.

The red of her land
The yellow of her sun
The black of her skin.

The Stoned Bus Station

One of a seemingly never ending series about public transport. it is all true.

---

The young women
The bus station

Stoned

One was wearing a hat
Made of a lactic bag
Torn and twisted into shape
Drunken DaDa - On her head

One giggling (and nothing more)

The third woman a vacant mark
On her face -
Absorb her own reald