ediacara

I light on the page
the stone page - a dull buff slab
and admire the pattern there
the traces of old intelligence
presssd leaf hard into a palm frond
(an frog = amphiborian)
those bitter ediacara days
were bellsweather of cambarian genesis
 you crawl out from under a rock
 and are crushed immediately punctured
 by the back hand of (r)evolution

translate that antient tongue
and it sounds like something like-
plasmosis egregious fidgit smearl
the trilobyte dial in a research laboratory
flickering - lobed antennae prehistoric
space vehicles their particular designs
 long out of fashion
badly parked and mysteriously
in the empty playground
bonnet up, half smashed
one is eating another one
was it a plant? was it a fish?


the fine sand brushes off
my skin like Aristophanes lantern
cold and pliant rolls of wiggly pinkish rubber
a giant storm front rolling over the tundra
of snowball earth
its oceans formless unwound clouds
a goddess large and multiformulae
pinching earwigs in molasses
perfectiform classic shapes
just like in class, the slight bob
of nugigerulous forms, heads, noses
ears, but never eyes -
though some might have had five eyes

we take but we also give

building a huge house - or is it a ship?
made out of timber beams, a little room just here
for you and me
and the baby three
mankind constructs his fire-stair into the sky
spirular in form, part gold, part airy matter
the code for many future things
is being transcribed today - it is only ever
transcription, never creation
blessed it is to be the transcriptor
blessed it is to understand the code
to unwind it and wind it up again
on this pink little finger
blessed.

losog Bron gone

a cup of tea waits
like a patient
before the fire

a clutter box
perched on a cold hill
full of noises

familiar groans
shake
the shady tree

its unique objects
before my eyes
are reorganised

but nowhere
do i see
the shadow of the tree

one molecule thin
it is smeared
across a lifetime

stanzas from the post Jennings bible

i long to taste and understand
the open plains like the back
of a lover's hand. the map groove
i run my eye along like some
song of forgiven tears run dry
          two hundred million years.

exploring all the green nooks and
crannies i untie your serpentine belt
and imagine the lava tumbling down
my breath catching on crysolite showers
as we pan for sapphires and diamond
          between your laughter.

i read, divining though ancient fog
landlocked reefs the car revolving
on over the ploughed landforms
by giant hands you grip and shake
fatter minds than mine
          still, post-man, go on.

i step out of the landrover in
khaki shorts bearded and white limbed
resiliently March across the lithology
oceans of wine mixed with time
loud is the laugh as she slams the door
          never never forever shut.

Poem written on opening of the new supercomputer 'raijin' at the ANU

the supercomputer
 is squared and black
with neon openings

her warm dark body
 shades the room
we move in and out of her

step inside and she is hot
 steaming like the tropics
cyclones droning all around


her flesh of mesh
 and flickers of data entice us
to slide open her drawers

green diodes blink
 like dispassionate thoughts
in a lover's eyes

as cool water pumps
 between her hot circuits
mollifying her temper

you see
the lucid and banal can coexist
even in this

she digests the weather reports
 over and over
like a grandfather

if you ask
 you might find out
whole countries in her

we attend the fire
but her brain it seems
 is not meat for us

 in the furnace of the future
she might consume
 all the furniture 

old goat

chewing poemry like a cow
that old goat
might make a nice juice
on the plate herself, you say

a incidental hierarchy
from the lowest amoeba
up to the highest poetaster

we only eat the lower orders
out of respect

but my ethical dilemma is this:

when you mince those words
savoured fresh from the lip
is that the only quip
that saves you from the roasting fire?

an australian yarn

miss Gillard
traffic'd in intellect
was deposed by the
great imposter Rudd!

the dichotomy being
Rudd is Gillard undress'd
& re-adorned in plebeian
largesse with crankypants

meanwhile Abboat throw spoon
at both - an oaf! lick
youR Master's shoe
and behove or shove ooff-

in minisculia is multitudia
as sao is AUSTRALIA
hello? you wake up now?
country is run by remote cow

emergency measure
now we must endure
to ensure no more
arrive, be sure

probably *maybe

i believe..

i believe that i know
so:

here listen to past times
longago
men o woman o wisdom
say to me
"long ago long ago
past time
we did see
a great sun
shining clearly
over the sea

"and it fell
into the sea
like an egg yolk
from a celestial chicken
and boiled all the
ocean there
the flotsam came
later and washed
overus

"and great past
times past times
before that
i heard a dream
piped from afar
ay, it blew.."

/*cutout static remote
control changed channel
nuclear test fallout
bespattered plutonium
there hydrostatic discharge
microwaves soh-nic boom!*/

"..we the old ones
knew before there
was knowledge there
after is always such
knowing. believe.
the facies where the head
meets the feet
is where all is meet..

"boiled away brains
become one
with time and
fastfood asking questions
subsides into deep
throb of deep time
where we sleep
and wait
foreverafter.

/*microphone click off .ssklik
expanding cytoplasm ina
cut glass prism obsidian
scalpel metred obsession
the g'nome of reason
fast explodium*/

thank we for the present, the riches are all in our hands
&here today