saturday jacarandas
line up for the tour bus
twenty-one tongues
groove words in old queensland
floorboards
today is wind
coffee prices
need picking up
Tag Archives: Brisbane
there are there there are
a million things
on in Brisbane right now. this
is one
shameless self-promotion
Brisbane Fringe Festival is in it’s second year. I really wanted to perform some poems on this river of ours. Partly to interact with the river in a different way, partly because it devastated us not so long ago and I want to learn how to love it again and also maybe just because we can get in a tinny and read some poetry (and that can be fun). If you’re interested… I’d love you to be there.
It’s this Friday night.
Two sessions – 6pm and 8pm.
or reserve a seat here: Brisbane Fringe Festival – Riverwords. and here
is a poem I’ll read on Friday night (first published in fourW magazine 2012)
In need of a poem
Fingernails full
of river can’t be
explained.
Thoughts seep into the carpet.
I want the nose of the knee-deep
throwing wet bags of stand back.
They bulldoze novels into a council pile of lounge chairs.
In need of a poem that’ll break the silence
with the river we loved, point out
we are still deeply in love, but don’t
know how. Like Grammar girls first time
back, stroking 5am oars.
Because it drifts past like a dog at the back
fence wondering
what it did on the carpet.
In need of a poem
so I asked some buddies, who
shared their river.
run around renku
Turning Japanese lately with the traditional form of renga or renku. Yes, it’s related to haiku. It’s a collaborative series of linked verse. Here’s part of a summer renga I wrote with jDub which we performed at Speedpoets last Saturday. Enjoy!
I’ve been writing with a bunch of other Brisbane poets in a renku called ‘Snake Weather’ and the first three parts of the poem is over at Another lost shark. Check it out if you have a moment. ‘Snake Weather: part 1’ – ‘part 2’ – ‘part 3’
Wagtails
build a nest out of 2am humidity. She’s pulled all the sleep across to her side. Why should I give a toss, I’ll only kick it off anyway. Burned-out mozzie coil on the sill lets in a dozen thoughts. They scream in my ear till I give up, give them a pencil, then step outside. The street is lit with steel light, all the driveways tucked in and snoring.
Call-Back-Poet! Yeewwww!
Speedpoets Call-Back-Poet
Hop over to the Speedpoets website to check out my new poem ‘The home midwife’ I read at Speedpoets open mic last month. I was stoked to be called back up to the mic again to read a couple more poems. August Speedpoets happens this Saturday 4th at Brew, 2pm.
QPF Interview
The Queensland Poetry Festival is just around the corner. You’ll find the interview with Tiggy and I over at the Queensland Poetry Festival website. Click on ‘Program’ to find all the brilliant artists performing at QPF later this month. I hope you come along to enjoy the weekend festival of words and sounds. It’ll be spectacular.
ginko – a haiku walk
walking in thongs
along the track
every stick slithers
For the months of October and November I’ve been writing haiku with a group of poets in different locations in Brisbane. Here’s a few of mine and a link to some of the other ku by the group.
longevity bench
the old man
smokes a packet
white stains
by the ice cream stall
sacred ibis
Here are the links to some of the ginko haiku over at Another Lost Shark. Kurilpa Bridge City Botanic Gardens Brunswick St Southbank Mt Gravatt Mountain
Speedpoets November 6th
This Sunday 6th November I’ll be performing at Speedpoets as a feature poet. Yeeewww! The always encouraging Graham Nunn of Another Lost Shark gave me an invitation and I’m really excited about stepping up to read a handful of my poems. It’ll be the longest set I’ve performed. I’ll also be reading haiku and senryu as part of the set (with a little harmonica help on the side from Sheish Money). Can’t wait!
Also performing on Sunday is The Stress of Leisure with an old friend Pascal Burton (poet, artist, musician) and Ian from their recent residency at the Brisbane Powerhouse, AND a new friend (who for some reason insists on calling me Dustin) Michael Cohen who is the other local feature poet performing his humorous poetry.
There is also the open mic, free zines, entry is a gold coin so hope to see you there for the final Speedpoets for 2011 at Brew, Lower Burnett Lane, Brisbane City 2pm.
Finally a ku:
quiet all year until now
jacarandas
See you in Brisbane’s words
There is so much going on in Brisbane over the weekend and coming week. I just found out a good friend of mine Aaron Nebauer is playing at Black Star Coffee tonight. Aaron released ‘New Age Neanderthals’ late last year and I missed the album launch so I can’t wait to go and watch him perform. It’ll certainly beat waiting around all night listening to ‘Welcome back, we are just five hours away from Kate walking down the aisle.’
Black Star Coffee 44 Thomas St West End 7:30pm Friday April 29th $10 entry
Big Thoughts from the FRIGHTENED Well
Something else I missed last year was the Brotherhood of the Wordless performance at the Queensland Writers Festival. This group is made up of people with Autism and other disabilities that preclude speech and use alternative communication methods to convey their needs and wants. They’ve been working together with Ghostboy to put on this spoken word event Big Thoughts from the FRIGHTENED Well. If you’re interested it’s on at the State Library at 4pm Saturday 30th April – Entry is free but bookings are required through qtix- Big Thoughts from the FRIGHTENED Well
Speedpoets on Sunday, at a new home, Brew, in Lower Burnett Lane. I can’t wait to see the crew, listen to some great poetry and I think I’ll read a flood poem. I’ve been wanting to for a while.
And I hope I can get along to Black Dove Members Night on Wednesday next week featuring Nick Grivas, Trudie Murrell, Eleanor Jackson & special guest Candy Royalle. Here’s the link http://betsyturcot.wordpress.com/what-i-do/black-dove-members-night/
See you at something somewhere.
Brisbane’s pesky locals
For some reason this week there’s been some poetic interest in the feral, good for nothing, ugly, will pinch a chip out of your fingers, sings like my great aunty, local Brisbane birds (no offence aunty). Here is a sensational poem called ‘Why do we hate the crow?’ by a new blog friend Gabrielle Bryden. Click on the mp3 recording. It is well worth it.
Lee-Anne Davie has been writing haiku and you’ll find this (as well as plenty of others) at Another Lost Shark Sandgate Ginko: Lee-Anne Davie
a lone ibis fossicks
in the mangroves
nothing
I had to laugh at the misfortune of the old ibis but there seems to be a great deal of sympathy out there. Here is John Wainwright at MirrorMosaicOfSounds :
noisy bird
enticing me
no-one else
For some unknown reason, I’ve been getting cosy with Brisbane’s ‘pests’ – I wrote this last week:
during smoko
collecting nearby twigs
tones down his aaark
And here is a ‘fresh’ Saturday sequence of my own:
early morning car park full of sunlight
at the truck stop
morning birds
pick at a meat pie crust
I guess there’s no rush…
a crow walks
across the road
each time another
joins the banquet –
magpies lift their song
—
Peace to the pesky Brisbane locals
To the bloke dating my sister,
.
When we heard you were over
a decade older than her
my brother said something
about ‘Uncle Dave’ and I must admit
we all laughed a little.
.
Two migratory birds
flew into Brisbane last Christmas, white
as chalk cliffs; their bones grinned
in the sun as they anticipated our eyes.
.
And we watched…
sunlight playing in her hair,
her travelled heart
no longer searching for repair.
Cracking a Gold we drank agreeably
about Kentish ales and how you met:
in grey twilight
picking up the clarinet
next to her car
Last night, placing bets
about why you asked us to huddle
around the laptop, we watched
a grinning British bowler hat
beside our sister, your new bride.
And we hooted like drunken yobbos
from The Hill at the Gabba.
.
screensaver puddles
for Leah (waiting for paint to dry)
.
sometimes
the rainforest
comes off the mountain
and tours
Brisbane’s suburbs
playing its music
bringing the earthy smell
of moist underforest
and clean decay
.
the unfamiliar band sit in trees
playing foreign chords
and we turn our music off
to listen
their sounds seems to call
the mountain weather
down off the
Border Ranges
through Beaudesert
across to the Bay
.
rain falls like a slow thought
rain falls through an invisible leafy canopy
drop by drop
unlike those handfuls
thrown down
in angry Summer storms
.
each drop has its own name
the terracotta tiled roofs shrug
without much comment
tin roofs gossip
exaggerating the heavier showers
giving each drop
its own microphone
.
a bed reading atmosphere
painters complain
construction sites stand
in yesterday’s footprints
.
clouds cuddle into isolated hills
Mt Cotton, Mt Gravatt, Enoggera Hill
awkward, not used to intimacy
.
all of Brisbane drinks for days
not in gulps
but lifting the schooner slowly between
telling old stories of fishing
in Moreton Bay
.
gum tree silhouettes
and bright grey sky
light up puddles on the road
making screen saver circles
never on a loop
.
Brisbane Ekka haiku/senryu
Brisbane’s Ekka is here again. The city folk line up to taste the country. The country folk suppress their smirks at city folk standing in wet cattle dung on the pavilion floors. Dagwood dogs, fairy floss, show-bags, sheep shearing, live lamb births, children milking cows… ahhhhhhh. Here are a couple of senryu from our Monday visit and also a link to great Ekka Haiku by Brisbane poet Graham Nunn here: Ekka Daze . Love it.
.
city bound train
young girl with mum and nanna-
playing I-Spy
.
.
Ekka feeding yard
the bigger ugly goat
receives none
.
City poetry! – regarding an apple
On a busy city corner stands
another Brisbane city man
waiting for the lights to change.
Patiently he slips his hand
into his satchel. Picks an apple
then gazes at it. Looking strange.
–
But he didn’t think it strange
as his attention rarely stands
for this long upon an apple.
But he wondered about the man
who farmed and picked it in his hand.
‘For me to buy with pocket change’
–
Still waiting for the lights to change
romantic thoughts appearing strange
of a straw hat farmer with careful hand
on top his wooden ladder stands…
“Don’t be daft and stupid man.”
“That’s not how they farm an apple!”
–
Polishing his Gala apple
still waiting for the lights to change,
“My farmer is a gritty man.
Hard as a spade and slightly strange.
With legs like apple trees he stands
and a shotgun in his hand.”
–
‘Or maybe there’s no dirty hand.’
Turning skeptical at his apple
‘In a boardroom… my business farmer stands.’
‘Pokes his head out to see the season’s change!’
Then laughs at the roaring traffic. Looking strange.
‘But I’d like to thank my farmer man.’
–
‘I’d really like to thank the man
or woman, working hard in hand
with soil and trees and climate’s strange.
Thank you for my tasty apple!
I hope you get most of my change
each time I buy from these fruit stands’
–
In Brisbane city a strange good man
stands holding, gazing in his hand
his apple. Waiting for the lights to change.
–
pied hill prawns 