turn the page

we're the cool kids sitting up the back. razor sharp hair, we don't give a care. faded old tees, and ripped up jeans, we lean out the window and wave at strangers. we daydream of candy striped corner shops, mixed lollies like we used to get back in the day. we hum, slightly out of tune, even moreso out of time, and we've forgotten the words - long ago. we make daisy chains together in the park, after dark, and we ride down the slide when there's no kids around to make a sound. when we head home, we rest our weary pretty little heads on faded pillowcases. damn fool, we don't give a damn.

c h a l k talk

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growth: lexi c

You’re swimming – learning at least
And while you’re paddle kicking,
Making splashy toes
There’s piped music,
It could be Beethoven, Mozart
I’m not sure, but it’s one of the greats
And it sounds sort of tinny
But at the same time, it’s great
- like a soundtrack for swooshing around
In all that water.

You occasionally glance at me
As though to elicit confidence,
I smile, I’m always smiling
It’s almost like a mask, my smile
Underneath this happiness,
I can’t believe that you’re paddling across
When once you were a babe in my arms
Floating with me,
Before that, you used to do laps with me
When you were in my belly.
All the while I’m dumbstruck at how fast time really does pass.
Lost in my thoughts, snapshots of memory -
Your class is over, you’re wet and shivering next to me,
I can see the pleasure at my praise in your
Sweet eyes, mine are damp.

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futility: wilfred owen

Move him into the sun -

Gently its touch awoke him once,

At home, whispering of fields unsown.

Always it woke him, even in France,

Until this morning and this snow.

If anything might rouse him now

The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds,

-Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.

Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,

Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir?

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth's sleep at all?
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if you want to tear out our pages, tell us. if you wish our book went on and on, tell us that too.

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one small hope is one big dream. i'm still sitting up the back, absorbed in somewhere else. i'm writing poems in my head, wishing i brought a book and a pencil. i'll etch them into my mind, but i know they'll soon be forgotten, those golden lines. i'll throw out a glance occasionally. but mostly, i keep staring at that blank wall, publishing my own poems.

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stealing from the back catalog: everybody's busy

so – everybody’s busy. everybody’s got a lover (boris, mitzi, derek); or a husband or a wife. everybody’s got themselves into some form of strife (parking tickets, no petrol, no money). everybody’s got a job (mummy, disco dancer, dj), everybody’s got a hobby (macrame, stamps, ant farms), everybody’s joining some political lobby (less work – more pay!). so the excuse of ‘I’m too busy’ doesn’t really stand, because everybody for that one can raise their skinny little hand. if everybody is so busy – then how do friendships ever get made. if everybody’s so busy – everything must surely just get waylaid. i made an oasis in my day to bring you an oasis in your busy-ness.
say no to being too busy.
HMPH!
c h a l k talk

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amanda’s painting: les murray

in the painting, i'm seated in a shield,

coming home in it up a shadowy river.

it is a small metal boat lined in eggshell

and my hands grip the gunwale rims. i'm

a composite bow, tensioning the whole boat,

steering it with my gaze. no oars, no engine,

no sails. i'm propelling the little craft with speech.

the faded rings around the loose bulk shirt

are of five lines each, a musical lineation

and the shirt is apple-red, soaking in salt birth-sheen

more liquid than the river. my cap is a teal mask

pushed back so far that i can pretend it is headgear.

in the middle of the river are cobweb cassowary trees

of the south pacific, and on the far shore rise

dark hills of the temperate zone. to these, at this

moment in the painting's growth, my course is slant

but my eye is on them. to relax, to speak european.

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teeth sensitive to the sand: matsuo basho

teeth sensitive to the sand

in salad greens--

i'm getting old.

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this is a photograph of me: margaret atwood

it was taken some time ago.

at first it seems to be

a smeared

print: blurred lines and grey flecks

blended with the paper; then, as you scan

it, you see in the left-hand corner

a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree

(balsam or spruce) emerging

and, to the right, halfway up

what ought to be a gentle

slope, a small frame house. in the background there is a lake,

and beyond that, some low hills. (the photograph was taken

the day after i drowned. i am in the lake, in the center

of the picture, just under the surface. it is difficult to say where

precisely, or to say

how large or small i am:the effect of water

on light is a distortion but if you look long enough,

eventually

you will be able to see me.)

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if you’re too busy to read this, tell us. if you love to pause a while for the cool air of a poetic oasis, tell us that too.
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i’m skeeeping town, moving to mexico so i can say all day long – heeeey gringo, why you look so sad?
morning time and we skip around in the leaves, crunch, kerunch, crunch. the bottoms of our jeans get wet with dew, my little man wears the radiant smile that beams as a sun, run out feed the ducks, run out into the sunshine, pick flowers, eat breakfast in the morning cool, wonder just how long this winter will take before it melts in the heat.

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