Danny by Stephen Emmerson

In your house the doors keep the water in,
Brass knuckles on the side drip with green skin.
The directionless manoeuvres that you make point all ways
Except north, north being reserved completely for your
Indiscretions, your powdered crepuscules, your whisky
Ringed shirt and tie, your resin gunked thumbs
And lungs. Streams of marbled sodium crystallise
And abrogate the drunk compartments that divide stairs.
Alone in your collapse, the living room turned upside down
Magnetic tape hung over your hair, unshaven for three days
Of booze and empty headed grin of aphex twin parked
On your face like a tow truck dragging a ford fiesta
Through the rain. I remembered you walking down
Engine gate, plastic bags from Woolworths full
Of dog food in each hand, headphones in your ears
The jack plug hanging loose as if plugged into the air,
As if plugged into that divine brilliance of sunlight you so
Often screamed about. Now you are ready to be part
Of that noise, a trunk of pastel sketches and some poems
About dogs. You are ether rising into your own eyes, and piss
Sprayed over the holding cell bars, the stench will stay
For days, will ignite wisps of willow in the marshes by
The pond where you wake up one day, thoroughly drenched
In death but still awake, and know for certain that life
Is more a poem than a film.

From: http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/se7.html

Date: 2011

By: Stephen Emmerson (19??- )

Threads of the Purest Gold Cannot Outdo by Luis de Góngora y Argote

Threads of the purest gold cannot outdo
your beautiful hair glowing in the sun;
whilst your white face, in absolute scorn,
stares down at the most beautiful bloom;

your crimson lips are now eagerly chased
by many eyes like a spring carnation;
as your exquisite neck, in elation
overpowers the radiance of your necklace;

relish neck, hair, lips, brow, savour them all
before the pass of time destroys the lot:
gold, lily, carnation, necklace, all shall

become bleak silver, blossom that will rot,
and hereafter you, and your body all,
turn into soil, smoke, a shadow, naught.

From: Salavert, Jorge, “Three Spanish Golden Age Sonnets” in Colloquy: text theory critique, 22 (2011), p. 278.
(http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ecps/colloquy/journal/issue022/salavert.pdf)

Date: c1582 (original in Spanish); 2011 (translation in English)

By: Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627)

Translated by: Jorge Salavert (19??- )

Guide to the Liberal Cities by Sam Riviere

tour the museums and charity shops
careful not to purchase anything
in case someone interprets it as art
do not read at the pub speak
of entities in need of authentic substance
be it souls gold or blood
try not to *do* anything
especially like linger
in the butterfly enclosure for a kiss
stay instead inside the reptile house
stinking of skunk
safe in the dry warm dark
don’t compare origins with anyone
but remember thinking
“peeling your jeans off each leg
is like skinning a leek”
ignore the prospective tenants
filing through your sleep
by all means make an intrigue of your partner
but remember the bedroom is a gallery
and you should draft an exit
don’t remain attached to any project
but defer indefinitely the work
towards your own capture
do not stain the toilet bowl
but taste your breath
and skulk across the early park

From: http://etceterart.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/five-poems-sam-riviere-from-81.html

Date: 2011

By: Sam Riviere (1981- )

Please Resist Me by Luke Haralampou (Luka Lesson)

Please resist me
Colonise me, compromise me, conflict me
Please don’t risk me
If you see me at the airport
please come and frisk me

Please resist me
Colonise me, compromise me and conflict me
Please don’t risk me
Please call me stupid
Because your resistance brings our evolution

Please resist me
Call me a ‘wog’
It’s brought us so close together I could call me a squad

Please resist me
Lock me in solitary confinement
I’ll close my eyes and admire the quality of the silence
I’ll write rhymes in my mind honestly and define them
Solidly redefine and memorise them
Until like a diamond
when I come out
I’ll be better than when I arrived in

Please resist me
Keep me under the thumb
Keep me down trodden
Keep me under the gun
Keep me working harder under thunder and sun
Son, haven’t you heard? I’m becoming a gun

Please resist me
Because resistance brings evolution
and you’ve resisted me consistently I thank you for your contribution
I’m a happy man
Your stupidity has made me strong
I’ve developed wings, a thick skin and this here opposable thumb
It holds my pen which loads my explodable tongue
So without loading a gun I’m killing high quotas of unemotional…
punks

Sorry – you also taught me to speak French
I learnt it when you kept keeping me at arms-length
And then I learnt Italian just to expand my head
And Greek to learn from where my ancestors had fled
And then I learnt some Yanyuwa just to show the people of this land some respect
You see it’s been your example that has led me to leave you for dead

So don’t trust me
I’m risky
Insurmountable, unaccountable
I’m an undeniable, unreliable, maniacal liability
I fire soliloquies and my liturgies literally leave a literary litany
You see
When I was little
They told me I was illegitimate, illiterate and limited
Little did they know that in a minute I’d be killing it
I’m vivid like in cinemas so my synonym is vividness
I stick it like I’m cinnamon and kill it like a militant
I live it like a citizen – you live a life like imprisonment
Besides Indigenous
immigrant might be the most legitimate of citizens
So it’s better to live a life like us…
Isn’t it?

From: http://rightnow.org.au/poetry/poem-please-resist-me-by-luka-lesson/

Date: 2011

By: Luke Haralampou (Luka Lesson) (1983- )

Taut Logic by David Rosenthal

Whatever has become, has come to be.
Whatever is to be, will surely come.
I only find such statements troublesome
because I find such statements trouble me:
the more I try to get to where I’ll be,
the more I find I come from where I’m from—
the addends always add up to the sum,
and I can only see just what I see.

And what I see most clearly is most clear:
no matter where I go, I’m always here—
an overused cliché, I know, but true.
No matter how I strive and persevere,
or slack and idle, I can never do
a fraction more or less than what I do.

From: http://www.the-flea.com./Issue15/TautLogic.html

Date: 2011

By: David Rosenthal (19??- )

On New Year’s Eve by Evie Shockley

we make midnight a maquette of the year:
frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize
the vows we offer to ourselves in near
silence: the competition shimmerwise

of champagne and chandeliers to attract
laughter and cheers: the glow from the fireplace
reflecting the burning intra-red pact
between beloveds: we cosset the space

of a fey hour, anxious gods molding our
hoped-for adams with this temporal clay:
each of us edacious for shining or
rash enough to think sacrifice will stay

this fugacious time: while stillness suspends
vitality in balance, as passions
struggle with passions for sway, the mind wends
towards what’s to come: a callithump of fashions,

ersatz smiles, crowded days: a bloodless cut
that severs soul from bone: a long aching
quiet in which we will hear nothing but
the clean crack of our promises breaking.

From: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/55670

Date: 2011

By: Evie Shockley (1965- )

Deor’s Lament by Deor

Weland the blade-winder      suffered woe,
That steadfast man      knew misery.
Sorrow and longing      walked beside him,
wintered in him,      kept wearing him down
after Nithad      hampered and restrained him,
lithe sinew-bonds      on the better man.
That passed over,       this can too.

For Beadohilde      her brother’s death
weighed less heavily      than her own heartsoreness
once it was clearly      understood
she was bearing a child.      Her ability
to think and decide      deserted her then.
That passed over,      this can too.

We have heard tell      of Mathilde’s laments,
the grief that afflicted      Geat’s wife.
Her love was her bane,      it banished sleep.
That passed over,      this can too.

For thirty winters—      it was common knowledge—
Theodric held      the Maerings’ fort.
That passed over,      this can too.

Earmonric      had the mind of a wolf,
by all accounts      a cruel king,
lord of the far flung      Gothic outlands.
Everywhere men sat      shackled in sorrow,
expecting the worst,      wishing often
he and his kingdom      would be conquered.
That passed over,      this can too.

A man sits mournful,      his mind in darkness,
so daunted in spirit      he deems himself
ever after      fated to endure.
He may think then      how throughout this world
the Lord in his wisdom      often works change—
meting out honor,      ongoing fame
to many, to others      only their distress.
Of myself, this much      I have to say:
for a time I was poet      of the Heoden people,
dear to my lord.      Deor was my name.
For years I enjoyed      my duties as minstrel
and that lord’s favor,      but now the freehold
and land titles      he bestowed upon me once
he has vested in Heorrenda,      master of verse-craft.
That passed over,      this can too.

From: http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/heaney_reads_deor/

Date: ?10^th century (original in Anglo-Saxon); 2011 (translation in English)

By: Deor (?10^th century)

Translated by: Seamus Justin Heaney (1939-2013)

Runic Signature for Cynewulf’s “Fates of the Apostles” by Cynewulf

You who please      your keenness with poems,
read closely here:      can you discover
this verse’s framer?
      
finishes.
Nobles enjoy it on earth,      but not without end,
worldly ones.
      
must fail
      
in our strongholds      once our bodies scatter
their loaned treasure,      like
      
trickling through fingers.
Then
      
and ear      require
      
skill
in night’s narrow cell;
      
drives your craft,
a kingly servitude.      Now can you see
who shrewd words have      shown to men?
Remember my name,      O you who admire
the sound of this song;      help succor me
and pray for my comfort.      Soon I must pass
alone, away      to look for a dwelling,
must travel so far      (no telling where!)
beyond this world      to a yet-unknown
place in the earth.      So must each person,
unless he is granted      God-sent grace.
Let us call to God      again, more eager,
begging his blessing      in this bright creation:
may we be welcomed      to his warm halls,
his home on high.      There is holiest happiness,
there the king of angels      crowns the pure
with a perishless prize.      Now his praise endures
masterful and marvelous,      and his might extends
endless and ageless      over all creation.      finit.

From: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/54752

Date: 9^th century (original in Anglian dialect); 2011 (translation in English)

By: Cynewulf (9^th century)

Translated by: Robert Hasenfratz (19??- ) and V. Penelope Pelizzon (1967- )

Challenge by Janet Alexa Kenny

Come out you psychopathic creep,
you heartless mystery who needs
to frighten children out of sleep,
whose monstrous ego daily feeds
on supplications from the sick
and promises from desperate souls.
Come out and show yourself, you prick
whose victims writhe on burning coals.
Come out, pontificating ghoul
who fattens on the rising praise
of flatterers, whose pious schools
inculcate lies, whose dogmas craze
the simple. Come, expose your face,
that vile reflection of our fear.
Know now, there is no hiding place,
mass murderer, no welcome here.
What have you done with it, you thing,
that spirit whom you overpowered?
The one who made the birds that sing?
The one for whom the fruit trees flowered?
The smell of burning flesh exudes
from all your deeds. Your cloven feet
scorch divots as your will intrudes
and mothers cry for milk and meat.
We stir beneath your brutal weight
and creep like prisoners to the light
to stretch our limbs and celebrate
our liberation from the night.
Who dares to name the nameless? Who
lays claim to know the name of You?
Your armies vie to shout your name,
replete with certainty and bile.
The women hide their heads in shame.
It’s you I blame. Your work is vile.
Whatever caused young love to glow,
and buttercups in dewy grass,
and trees to rustle, streams to flow,
it wasn’t you, you horse’s arse.
You are the baby in the lab
with test tubes strewn across the floor.
With random goofiness, you grab
the nearest toy and roar for more.
Larger forces have no time
to notice our catastrophe.
The mathematics is sublime.
We are your past apostasy.
The broken eggs you cracked and used
to make an omelette, and we grow
with you, ambitious and confused,
performers in your cooking show.
Yet every morning hearts expand,
though heads can never understand.

From: http://www.the-flea.com/Issue20/Challenge.html

Date: 2011

By: Janet Alexa Kenny (19??- )

A Miracle Occurs by Lachlan Brown

Somehow I have made an astounding return:
the alps rise against a blue sky, the sun streaks down the valley,
a meadow feels those mountains pulling skywards
and lets its daffodils run into the light.
Yes I have seen this place, known it before.
In my childhood I was taken to many fabric shops,
and as my mother made her purchases
I would weave my small frame through the rolls of material
into a soft world that did not begin or end.
In one store a picture of this setting was fastened to a wall,
and I stood spellbound, until my name was finally called.
Now, so much later, I am here and cannot help but smile
at that younger self pushing through a forest of silk and cotton,
only to be held, silently, captivated by a scene.

From: http://mascarareview.com/lachlan-brown/

Date: 2011

By: Lachlan Brown (19??- )