Published 14 April 20227 June 2022 · Poetry / Friday Features / Friday Poetry Poetry | MOOT, the other t-shirt Pam Brown 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. Pam Brown Pam Brown has published many chapbooks, pamphlets and full collections of poetry, most recently Stasis Shuffle (Hunter Publishers, 2021). She lives in a south Sydney suburb on reclaimed swampland on Gadigal Country. More by Pam Brown › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. 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