the ratings icons have vanished

                             no one cares

 

yes     maybe     no

                    mostly no

 

—

 

how’s it going

 

bin night     bin night     bang bang

                          bring out the dead

 

—

 

& the mouse plague – how’s that going

                      

in the barren paddocks

wheat        &        endless glare

                 

awful murals mar the silos

 

—

 

who called the baby echidna

                                a puggle

& why

 

—

 

now as long as we have

left

         or

         as long as we have food

     &

                a few dollars

 

now if there’s anything

left over

              or     then again

                      if there’s nothing

 

—

 

ow

      a tender forehead

                      rubbed weary

ready to heave

             a few shallow sighs

    to sleeplessness

 

—

 

whoever told the whole truth

                        & nothing but

& why

 

—

 

how’re the rodent management traps going

                                in the swanky suburbs

 

their roller door lanes

 

—

 

once

           if we wished

       we could reach

              every point on the planet

 

points on the planet

      swept up this wish

with

microelectronic tracks

                                  that left none

 

—

 

we lend

an ear

        to the connected world

 

how’s it going

                     in general

 

—   —   —   —   —   —

 

on delay

 

any

tuesday or thursday afternoon

 

ambling around

  behind the queue at Phởtown

 

green tea     on the sticky table

    

chemtrails      & someone’s cat

      just there         out the back

 

menu book open

       fish sauce stains page two

 

—

 

july

 

          you send two messages

          from your waiting room

no beds available

 

stem cells on delay

     test blood count

 

—

 

we met

         in the neu berlin

 

once was ‘neu’

        twenty years ago

 

we were reading

                       the dream

the book of appearances

 

both         an other

 

—

 

loitering around

&

by now

          the poem begins

to botanise the bitumen

 

the carbon retreats

       to the brigalow

far away

             from Phởtown

 

—

 

an old newspaper page

        fading     tv guide

        free to air  &  pay

wrapped around

          fresh basil leaves

 

what’s on

           a week ago

 

wonder if

ways of watching

are different from

       ways of seeing

 

—

 

fingering

        the little relief triangle

on an upturned plastic bowl

 

—   —   —    —   —   —

 

an invisible mosquito

                  pricks me

a pink mound

     encloses a red dot

 

so    yes                 the humidity

    &

        the old crazed water bowl

        full of invisible larvae

        under the pieris japonica bush

 

—

 

that’d be them

   plugged in

   pressure washers  whipper snippers

   leaf blowers

              

                hedge trimmers    (cordless)

  

           always fiddling with the house

 

that’d be them

 

quiet-life

            shiny machine models of capital

emitting the adorable sounds of time-savers

 

can time

           be saved?

 

                                       not yet

 

—   —   —   —   —   —

 

bumper crop     &    no customers

 

emptying an idyll

                     told by an idiot

 

the sweeping plains having swept

                                         sweep on

 

brine dried pellets        dryzaboned

 

—

 

didn’t TRY

                  to think about it

 

there was

a local quandary

           for a fleeting luxurious instant

                      of thought

&   thoughts

 

like,

       not reason but <reason> is the fundament of power

 

then a t-shirt –

 

                  <reason>

           fundament of power

                   rules ok!

 

                                           sold out fast

 

(this was

              ‘back in the day’)

 

 

human resources      or       human rights

either way     we wore

                             that t-shirt  with pride

 

with    with    with

                      w   i   t   h

 

         well             w i t h o u t   p i q u e

 

the other t-shirt

with one syllable

displayed in caps –

                           MOOT

 

after the t-shirt

  with the line diagram flow chart

             predicting bottlenecks

             in the division of joys

 

 ‘the critique of pure reason’

     sliced through by a claw

 

—

 

pressed by competition

           everybody had something to say

 

principles aside

 

—

 

we gobbled

            pastiche baguettes –

                              tripe filling

           garni de crotté 

                              smothering

           le goût du sommeil –

the taste

             of

                  sleep’s powers

 

—

 

second guessed

                   the dream

 

   (&

       never said ‘desire’)

 

—

 

with the female gaze

                         glazed over

we ceased

                  melancholising

 

ripped up the prescriptions

     &

                

                         you tell me

            

—

 

the day the modem failed

we missed

          the french president

at G20

 

reduced to listening

to the stale tongue

of the national broadcaster

 

—

 

how was your sexperience

with your nbn technician?

 

hot spot service provider

you can track it on www startrek

 

—

 

we are in outer space – we are on a planet

 

—

 

speaking for myself

             practising seeing with the mind’s eye

is not useful

&

to be honest

                       i don’t even know how to

 

what?

 

an unaligned

                   sixth sense?        or what

 

—

 

so many plastic pumpkins

             floating in the sea

 

hallow evening        nothing for pigs or cows

                                    no soup for the people

    

—

 

everybody has something

 

to opt out txt stop

 

 

 

Borrowed lines:
‘“the critique of pure reason” / sliced through by a claw’ – Galina Rymbu, White Bread

 

 

Overland’s Friday Features project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.