2009 September « gingatao

a nice suit (for a peddler)

September 30, 2009 at 6:45 pm | Posted in australian poetry, memoirs, poetry, writing | 10 Comments
Tags: pirate poem, poetry, writing

something purple with lapels, flares and sharper angles,
a little abrupt but if you write a parody only to reveal how little and
surface is your knowledge of your subject then you shall be exposed
to ridicule from the gallery, vegetables
rotting which later can be gathered
and fed to the beasts
lurkers in silence most discrete

it was a foul and pestilent land
and one i am proud to have abandoned
and left ruined in my wake he said turning to me the scent of salt fish and speaking french i think originally or dutch these europeans, one never can be sure.

Rainbow Tattoo

September 28, 2009 at 8:23 pm | Posted in poetry, writing | 17 Comments
Tags: experiential poetry, poetry, writing

Stroking his outrageous moustachios, grey and straggling like some monkey magic figure from my childhood, there are no coincidences, especially not names, here here and here he says his stubby finger like it was trying to make holes in me, gaps in the filter.

All I had wanted was a tattoo but for some reason, caught between the ekphrasic and narcissistic, so a poetry slam heh, and you want a nice tattoo, well he said, I don’t usually do drunks but I’ll make an exception for you since right now things aren’t slammin round here, more drifting down in a constant beautiful drizzle shattering rainbows through the room.

It’s a wonderful life lived in gratitude

September 26, 2009 at 7:15 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, poetry, writing | 15 Comments
Tags: poetry, writing

He thinks stumbling over clothes discarded
suddenly his hands forgotten. His mind
flirts with larger words whose echoes
like redemption rarely now
ring bells like vindication
free from endless red horizons
picking up the phone
he realises he has no idea
what kind of thing she eats.
Room Service, one of everything
and turns again to sleep.

the ad hominem nepotism nexus

September 24, 2009 at 6:42 pm | Posted in antihaiku, contemporary poetry, poetry, writing | 12 Comments
Tags: ad hominem, nepotism, writing

There, certain confluences of forces
of which we must beware she says, son.
The blackest holiest of places, she hissed
some sound sheeva or some such never mind
sometimes she speaks the language of her ancestors
but i asked the drunken cartographer and he said
its the ad hominem nepotism nexus.

it’s not in the sky, it appears in the sea
and monsters arise dripping poison
appearing from silence those who dislike us
not because of what we want
because of what we are,
because of something we cannot control
the colour of our skin or the name of our god,
you see one, she says,
look up

your life is not an american movie,

September 23, 2009 at 6:46 pm | Posted in poetry, sheer selfindulgence, writing | 19 Comments
Tags: jewellery poem, poetry, puzzle poem, writing

living the cliche, the artist muse model cruise ship,
something has to sparkle, jewellery you recognise
from previous vague description suddenly alive
two silver wings in rhyme and no apparent ballast
in this ever wondrous paradox whilst
whispering the rope into ever stranger knots

fleeing in the third person

September 21, 2009 at 7:07 pm | Posted in poetry, writing | 16 Comments
Tags: writing, writing exercises, writing for fun

I wonder why they ask for bios in the third person. Is it some tiny test of writing skills. Perhaps they just want to make sure you have a third person in case the first two fail? (interlocking snail trails through mushroom forests seeking

I’m reconnected to the internet. I am lighter from exercise surprise surprise, and browner from sunlight. The invoices I mean envoys have been de-patched, despatched, unlocked, unpouched and ancient yet with correct accent.

Shall we extrapolate horizons
begin the study of the linebreak
silver across the darkness of the sea

The Overland Interview

September 15, 2009 at 9:53 am | Posted in australian poetry, blogging, writing | 22 Comments
Tags: career highlights, Overland

Overland is one of Australia’s oldest and most prestigious literary journals with a particular focus on the nexus of culture and politics. So I am proud as a penguin and consider it something of a career highlight to be interviewed in their blog by the incomparable Maxine Clarke.

click here - The Overland Interview