THE MERRI CREEK : POEMS & PIECES, #16, February, 2010

SERAPH BE


LOVE, LAUGHTER AND LIGHT


I dream of Jeanie..Major Nelson in black and white.
I dream of Jeanie naked in her timeless bottle..
washed up in Barbara Eden's backyard.
I dream of Larry Hagman..old and tormented by
nightmares of J.R.'s assassination.
Jeanie immortal for the ages..
bewitched with Bewitched..jealous of Samantha Stevens
and her life as wife and mother, two radiant women
subservient to a fifties mirage..galactic time-travel,
stellar avenues of infinite delight, pale to a life
in the burbs with the love of a good man.
Poor Jeanie..the bubble-head of blink and wink..
Tony hedging bets, lame to the core..obsessed with
flight paths, blind to the bottle rocket orbiting
his living room.
I dream of Jeanie..of Aladdin and Ali Baba..the buried
treasure of childhood midday movies..of pirates and
exotic shores. I dream of Tony and Rodger secretly gay..
using Rodger's place for hapless rendezvous..poor Jeanie
without a clue.
All the world's a stage of faceless celluloid wishing,
boxed lives of sixties re run tv.
I dream a heaven of Jeanies..a sanctuary of Samanthas..
a generation of Tonys..a swag of Darrens..peace to all..
blissful delight to children..wistful Arabian nights.
I dream of Jeanie and Samantha walking hand in hand..
dream from within..imploding in showers of love,
laughter and light..

(1998)

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GLENN COOPER


RIMBAUD'S VALISE

I am afraid to open Rimbaud's valise for fear of what it might contain. It lies there silent as a stone, a museum-piece from another world, tempting us. Heart thumping, I run one pink fingertip along the metal fastener with all the nervous intensity of a teenage boy struggling to unclasp his girlfriend's bra on the back seat of a car. The valise does not respond, does not groan in anticipation. I examine more closely the fastener, observe the rust that has long ago begun its relentless encroachment. Some of it has rubbed off on my finger - the same process, I imagine, that liberated Rimbaud first from his leg and then from his life. I wipe it off on my shirt. I want to open the valise; my hands rest on the sides as though on the shoulders of a dear friend whose eyes are full of the vast melancholy of departure. Already the rust has penetrated my shirt, burning a hole over my heart that roughly approximates the shape of Africa. I realize there is no need to open Rimbaud's valise.


oOo

HEAT

Didn't someone once say that if you don't want to drown you must become like the ocean? There's no use talking about the heat in the desert - it becomes you, you it. Resistance is futile, even for Rimbaud, alchemist and seer. But what did he expect to find when he came out here? A new life? A new identity? Certainly a new climate. Heat. Then, after eleven years in the cauldron, he is back at the farm in Roche, leg gone, spirit mutilated. It is only the heat of north Africa that can cure him, he believes. Heat: the same thing that brought him to this sorry state shall be the thing that heals him. It is a strategy that only Rimbaud could entertain. On his boyhood bed he lies, loyal sister Isabelle tending his every whim, the cancer spreads through the wreck of his body like ink poured slowly onto a clean sheet of paper. Maybe he regales her with stories of strange people in strange lands. Maybe he plucks sadly a melancholy melody on an Absyssinian harp, his childhood dreams of adventure, of a pure and astonishing new world, obliterated! - his drunken boat sunken, gathering barnacles like tumours in some cold, dark sea.



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CAROL JENKINS


BURN THE FLOOR
(Burn before Eating or Burn't Offerings)

Written for the occasion of Julie & Moray McDonald's Burns Night
23 January 2010



Coming up the road

If a Moray, met a motor
coming up the road -
if a Moray raced a lorrie
and a few red lights -
would a copper book a Moray
or would he vanish straight from Sight?


Till the tyres gang flat

Oh his love is like a red, red bike
that's newly bought in June
Oh his loves are really two red, one white
that sweetly spin in tune

How fare thy wheels, my only loves
how fare thy brakes and gears
Oh I will love thee still fair bike
Until some time mid next year


Right gude-willie -- waught
Or the haughty overdraft

Should olden debts be forgot
In any agency, or bought or sold
or traded on, or left unsecure to go to pot?

Oh here's a block, it's Bessemer
the mortgagee cant sleep
a loan's a cup of kindness
with crack that always leaks.


A Lousy sonnet

All impudence, the louse may sleep
in Melbourne nights on dames hats
in Toorak street, but if they raced
our lad would place a bet, perhaps, upon it


Scotch Eggs

Let other nations raise daft chickens
that peck at corns, we start from scratch
our good scotch egg is boiled
and meated shortly after it is hatched.

So drink to Scotch eggs
that fill the wame, clad in crumbs
humble ovals, first friend of the whisky keg.


To Old McDonald's Clocks


The McDonald's terr-
Orr souse
Clicks and ticks
And teams with clocks
Some second hand
Most, alarming, a set of pendulous
Feckless old timers
Waiting for a Burn-ish rhymer.


To Our Julie's Haggis

Our Julie's rushed it
From the shop
Chopped its tiny feet off
Squeezed its neck
Full out of breath
And filled its heart
To treat us.

As handsome is the Haggis picker
So Handsome is the pudding
Go eat your fill of this good paunch
Just don't ask what's in it.


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ROBERT LLOYD


Three poems

*


ONE THING I ASK FOR

One thing I ask for, one thing I hope -

To live in your house, all the days of my life -

To behold your loveliness

every morning in the light.


Hear my voice, when I speak -

Be gracious and answer me. I wait only for you.

Without faith it's unthinkable -

without hope I wont see your face.


With joy in my heart. Whom should I fear?

My singing is all for you - my playing is gifted too -

I'm speaking in your voice.

Your presence is with me now.


[based on Psalm 27]


oOo

DAFFODIL DREAM


It's dusk in Paris, and the flower sellers in the old market
Are packing up for the day.

As they hose down the walkways,
The wet smell of daffodils, carnations and roses
Fills the air.

What luck!
They are giving away bunches of daffodils
To passers by.
I gratefully receive mine,
And wonder how long these vendors
Have been giving away flowers at this hour!

[8/11/04]


oOo

I GAVE MY RABBI


I gave my Rabbi a Leonard Cohen CD

which he plays in his car.


He called me while driving to thank me

and give me a blessing.


oOo

PSALM

Hear my prayer
listen to my song
I am in despair
from days of grief.

Gone are the times
of satisfaction in the ways
of darkness.
My hope is for an opening!

My voice rises up
like a candle flame
searching for your support.
Be with me now,
Be with me in my
time of need!

[2003]


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PETE SPENCE


Sonnet: Flat Evening Surface

long into a flat evening surface
the depths are in focus a supermarket
trolley under some bushes
glints in streaks of moonlight
through breaks in storm clouds
the air alive as a strong breeze
comes around corners straightens up
like water under a bridge
a rumble in shadow after the flash
the muggy aftermath as the breeze rests
hot & cold you mix them to have a good shower
the moon comes out as the sky clears
the storm recedes indifferent
over the rust of the future

[2/1/2010]


oOo


The Rocks

i snip then find
light traveling in
but the whirl doesn't spend
a moment away
from its shadow

from its shadow
an echo performs
like the lid of a thought
and thousands of homeless sheep
march on the capitol

the capitol is just
a pile of rocks
collected randomly
without haste
from a great distance

distance is full of errors
mostly the wrong ones
well snip the light
has gone from its shadow
filtering the air

the air stiffens
is cut into strips
and wound around the capital
with or without delay
or so you observe

to observe: BREAK GLASS
but avoid the sheep
nesting in the trees
there is no emergency
in a pile of rocks



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CORNELIS VLEESKENS


Three Poems

.

the wisdom and dignity
of lives lived on the street
and under thatch
tends to be practical
delicate and unperfumed

*

exiled from the sandcastle
some people discover
they risk a big fine
for a crisp freshness
and the ethos of giving
tomorrow's parties

rather than receiving
the final salute
in boyish classroom classics

*

we all say the same thing
about the tailoring

the architect of a new
crossing of the chasm
is effectively moistured

and it's all systems go
as fashion gets fast and furious


oOo

DARWIN

a tropical sweat
white ants communication

the books moulder


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CORRESPONDENCE

Karl Gallagher
[8-2-2010]

Yr site's last posting [see Being Here Retrieved, re- Alan Murphy & Shmuel Gorr] is terrific.
Funny thing about the passage of time and paths crossing - briefly - in 1963 Felix Werder came to 'A' Division in Pentridge Prison to conduct a weekly music class. After a few weeks we never saw him again - someone else continued with the class.
Adrian [Rawlins] of course I knew well - met him early '66.
[Francis] Brabazon I met in '75 at Avatar's Abode in Queensland - I had a few brief conversations with him. But I already knew a lot about him - and the early days (30s, 40s) through close frequent contact with an old pal of Francis's - Ozwald Hall (and also Stan Adams). Francis and Ozzie (a painter) had close contact with Heidi and the Reeds et al.
Adrian told me that - its on record - somewhere - that Sydney Nolan said that Brabazon, of any others, had the greatest influence on his painting.

cheers Karl


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CONTRIBUTORS

SERAPH B (aka Brendan Carey)'s poem is from the self-published A Joyful Noise (Melbourne, '98). The pseudo blurbs for that collection can stand in for his biog here : "Brendan Carey puts the beat back into beatitude!" -- "A celebration of mystic everness and cosmic beingness...From jazz to somewhere else..." His references from that time continue to the present : Sun Ra, Bob Kaufman, Mingus, Coltrane, Kerouac... His contact is,
jca82879@bigpond.net.au

ROBERT LLOYD is the composer, singer-songwriter now back in Melbourne after many years in Sydney & on the road. Writing songs, poems & a novel. Rock & acoustic background; toured with his band around the world. Has written for the Ohio Ballet & the Australian Dance Theatre amongst others. His discs include Robert Lloyd (keyboards, piano, percussion), 2001, & Songs of Robert Lloyd (guitar, vocals), 2007.

GLEN COOPER, CAROL JENKINS, PETE SPENCE & CORNELLIS VLEESKINS have all appeared in previous issues.

oOo

--that's it then!
18/2/2010--