David McAleavey, 1st post: "Resolved" Jan. 1, 2018

Resolved

The stone axe on display shall not lose its power to hack, to act. Gadgets shall not gag. Deliberation shall not devolve to delay. Having mated, the lions shall rest, loyal and mute. Frozen waterfalls shall neither swoon nor sway. News shall neither enervate nor enfeeble. Robots shall not lobotomize. Flies and silverfish shall neither flame nor shine like the sun. A digital assistant shall not direct his assets when its master has died. The restaurant “One Vie” shall only succeed by reclaiming, restoring envy. Envy shall never envy envy.

Cui Yuwei #2-A Translation of Kevin Brophy’s ‘Kangaroo’

Cui Yuwei #2-A Translation of Kevin Brophy's Kangaroo

Kangaroo

Written in English by Kevin Brophy

Translated into Chinese by Cui Yuwei

At ten minutes into the year a ghostly kangaroo stood in the road in the lights of our car and looked over its shoulder into this dazzling apparition floating towards it, and it turned back into the path of the light now upon it, its grey self smooth, unknowing, detailed and ready to go back that way across our path to the ones in the dark that will know its smell, its breath, its way of nuzzling into the warmth of the earth as we glided beyond it following our lit up world to a corner of it where we could put our heads down and dream of other places we somehow mysteriously keep arriving at.

《袋鼠》

還有十分鐘，就是新年，路上立著一只鬼鬼祟祟的袋鼠，被我们的车灯照著，它扭頭看向这个正朝它飄過去，刺眼的幻影，接著又轉身走上亮著光的路，它身上光滑的灰，無知，精細，它准备好穿過路面回歸黑暗中的事物，它們懂得它的氣味，它的呼吸，它在溫暖土地中擦蹭的樣子，而我們在明亮的世界里輕駛過它身邊，去往一个角落，在那裡我们低下頭，梦想著那些說不定就會不可思議抵達的地方。

Kevin Brophy #1 Kangaroo

At ten minutes into the year a ghostly kangaroo stood in the road in the lights of our car and looked over its shoulder into this dazzling apparition floating towards it, and it turned back into the path of the light now upon it, its grey self smooth, unknowing, detailed and ready to go back that way across our path to the ones in the dark that will know its smell, its breath, its way of nuzzling into the warmth of the earth as we glided beyond it following our lit up world to a corner of it where we could put our heads down and dream of other places we somehow mysteriously keep arriving at.

Kerri Shying # 1 three sun bakers

three sun bakers

a Sydney morning herald story

        of the beach in peril and the press at a distance

baking nothing

  but the brains inside the heads

is what I read 

degradation of the press

now that’s a topic   for the new year

but I digress

three sun bakers and not a lot of bread

one tent  six ropes  a lady    (not a man)

to trip on that  unreasonably long 

guide rope  

tripping ladies   make the blood boil

(then go a light brown)  

after all it is

 a beach story

bread butter sand 

that grit between my teeth

sparking the electricity on the  mercury

fillings   and still

the mercury  up high

raising   the ire

rising 

 what about the olden days

kid  heads the shape

of  beachballs

the esky

 the lazyboy 

fairy bread

the daisy pole umbrella

it got taken by   

the strong  onshore  breeze and cartwheeled

until it stabbed a surfer through the giblets

    I want that back

    be that Sydney

blue-striped tent people you

shit me to tears   and

it is too crowded

    this is all I can do

 to express the way

it is

 to say    some of us

must move

or die

Ian Humphreys # 1 – ‘Back to where we came from’

Back to where we came from

I’m caught off guard as the train slides backwards from Bradford Interchange. That often happens here, but it jolts me every time. Fellow passengers swap anxious looks. A Polish woman asks her neighbour if this is the right train. Even though I know we’re continuing on to Leeds, I’m rattled. The urge grabs me – to stand up, address the crowd: Things don’t always move forward, sisters and brothers. Societies can stumble. Rights erode. Can’t you see we’re going backwards? Instead, I say nothing. Doze a little as the world unzips. Two seats ahead, a plugged-in suit grips his newspaper while softly crooning to the carriage. Analysing his reflection, I think I can just about make out the front-page headline: ‘The Earth is Flat.’ Of course, it’s a trick of the light. Out there looks much the same as ever from my over-heated seat. In field after field, cut outs of black and white cows line-up like target practice. Across the aisle, a young girl finger-paints a stick-man on a misted window. The figure’s hair stands straight up in comic fright. It’s my granddaddy, she tells the Polish woman. Don’t talk to strangers, the girl’s mother snaps, pretending to read a text. And we enter a tunnel.

Anne Kellas #1 - As with a mantle

As with a mantle


The cord of my life needs adjusting
like a kite-string

the long white of it
uncurling

light as cloud
easily travelling with light

serenely gentle.
Waves of peace

have banished unkind thoughts.
Do no harm, no harm.

Uncover, protect
protect, uncover.

Sunrise
and moonsink.

The moon slips
below roofs

People move about their day.
I too am leaving.

May you be wrapped in garments of healing
with no pain, no pain.

Peter Boyle #1st post 'The afterlife of a genius'

The afterlife of a genius

On the third floor

in dark suit and jester's cap

Kafka protects the family silver.

Orange and green parrots,

escaped from Paradise, pass

in and out of the veils

that flutter over the windows.

On this side

all the writings of the past

have become these floorboards

where life flows effortlessly

back and forth across

the simultaneously unfolding millennia.

The hunter Gracchus, cured,

is taking a long cool bath

after a spell in the warm summer nights of Italy.

The travelling grand Nature Theatre of Oklahoma

with its ballerinas and dancing horses

is now a music box on a small stand in the hallway.

Red Peter has moved into the bedroom

overlooking the fairy lights of the inner courtyard.

Enthroned in state, he receives the visits

of cousins and grandchildren as, one by one,

they materialize on the living room rug.

Meanwhile at the head of the dining-room table

Kafka lays out each place, apportions

the vegetarian feast and

in his delirious hands balances and pours

carafes of water that transmute to wine,

wine that transmutes to water,

perfected, completed at last,

his flawless body the other side of pain,

in the afterlife of a genius.

Andrew Burke #1 MY FIRST POST response to Kit Kelen's THE FIRST POST

I is
the First
Post-Gestation
cry in
a language
few understand

I is
for Impulse
the primary
pulse of
the intimate
systolic
diastolic

a tall
raven flies
to rest on
the upper
arms of I
and harmonises
with I's
first cry