Pam Brown

This whole thing

bitten by the faux midge
         a raised round pinkish welt
    an imaginary link 
to scratching 
         the world beyond the capillary, 
     a curdled blood shake 
 interrupting
                  this whole thing, 
  
then              
                       a rainbow in the dark,
    solitude wrecked
                          by connectivity's
         insistent cursor
plus
    the pestering faux midge 
               whirring 
                     from the very bottom
     of entomology's top down
                                       trophic cascade

  *
             
looking at it
                 who will  ever 
             get
                   the rebuses
  (rebii?)                          or

the way
          Donna Haraway
                                invents
canny declarative statements

'Grammar is politics by other means' 
                       is one of hers

maximise your lifetime opportunity 
                               get over citation  

(who said that?)

  *       
    
(these
             ill-fitting
   American paper sizes
                         just won't
                                         do)

  *

the art
          will be shipped
                           separately

            is it sexualizable?

  *

maximise your contribution to society
                       dot connection 

  *

someone should have offered 
                                     a suitable quote -

     well kids, you tried 
     and you failed,
     the moral is
     'never try' 
                            (The Simpsons)

     money's short
     times are hard
     here's your fucking
     academy award
                             (Hallmark copy writer)

  *

if you support us we will give you something new
                                           fresh testosterone

  *

homozonic 
  ('homo' as in 'same')
never going elsewhere,          staying put
              in this faux midge swamp
    of perturbation,
                             marooned    
        like a beef bird 
                                  too grainy to fly

  *

this is your chance to maximise your potential
                                          give something back

put the potato chips
                           into the plastic bowl

                they're transitory too 

rethinking
            (you can't advance and escape
                                                at the same time)
stop that now -
                    take two of these before aperitifs

here in the midge world,             you're caught
           
                   no one's actually listening


At 'The-End-of-the-World-as-we-Know-it' Retreat

now the western sky
    was as the eastern    which was                    
as the southern      which was
             as the northern

two yurts & a composting toilet
      lined up 
 in sunny sun sunshine covered 
          moss & yoga

push me off
           clutch-start my libido
get this body
     right out of the neighbourhood

        you dream
 your unaesthetic testimonial
   has been adopted 
          as the standard in veracity
                  
time to lie down again      
on the royal stewart tartan picnic blanket
    in the shade      mottle   & so on
              the light dark leaf  

at the outdoor ecocide ceremony
     feeling foul
           after completing an atavistic circuit
muddy twigs smoke out the bonfire

in the end nobody wakes you
        & you miss whatever you knew
  reeking dead frozen fish thawing rotten 
                   you chuck your flux 

petallic dilemma      
            just change meadow to paddock
       & it will work
   for   scruffy fern   calla lily   stinking roger    

you should phone someone
                        NOW
       a fuss offensive       science can't save you
get good at collapsing

Pam Brown, poet and editor, has published many books, chapbooks and an e-book. Most recently, Home by Dark was published by Shearsman Books in 2013 and Alibis, a bilingual selection of her poems translated into French by Jane Zemiro, was published by Société Jamais Jamais in early 2014. Pam lives in Alexandria, Sydney and blogs intermittently at thedeletions.blogspot.com
 
 
previous page     contents     next page