Ruby Street

I'm taking some time off and looking forward to some 'r and r' and some restorative space. I may or may not post sporadically, and I may or may not come back to this virtual space. Thanks to those who have checked in from time-to-time. My best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season.

OK, the people have spoken (not) so I've turned off comments from now on. (No-one has left a comment since 20 November.)

There's been a bit of mention about Ern Malley recently via email ( vis a vis Australian poetry), so it's interesting to see what the sons and daughters of Ern (and Ethel) have been up to on the Cordite site . Malley seems to be a site of endless recovery (or recuperation), which some think we should be over by now.

does the jingle in the air fresh solitude un- settle the coming thought

Ok, it seems that my old web site is still there, at least from this computer. Listening to Randy Weston Khepera . Hot and hard to think well

As it's the end of another year, a very weird, bad year for me, I'm in a reconsiderin' kind of mode, here in blogland as well as elsewhere. First, I've noticed something a little odd. Even though I've been posting some odds and sods of late, there's been no comments for quite a while. So I'm thinking of doing one of two things (this is the second time I've written this as my browser has taken to quitting on me - a sign perhaps - and I'm still tending this way). Least drastic would be to turn off the comments box so I won't worry that no-one is reading (hey, I'm human). I know there's some traffic through Ruby Street. At least my site counter says that but I suspect it's nothing more than click throughs. I was getting some referrers feed as well but, after a frustrating morning trying to deal with the TrueFresco site, I think I'll be removing that code and not bothering. Possibly this blog isn't the kind people want to comment ...

Of these hours and days of the minutes not adding up of the garbage going up the hill, our garbage of that kind of epiphany, so ordinary, the mix of food and fish and the decomposing flavour of life on and off with this dangerous government of Australians of the times that will hold our accounts of those who break houses and execute trees of those who rob the tongues of children of comanchero boys filled with flail and hurtle of a deficiency that fights itself of an o so average victory of creating duress with commands and errors - that one belongs not here of controls and dishonor with fists of newspaper and the uniform effect which ignites layers of this unreal war making its mistakes of its cowards who fear peace and skin in the sun for whom the hour has come - us protect us not simply of Sydney

I've just had an email melt-down today and have lost everything, that is 'every thing', in my In box (the other created folders are OK). So, if anyone has sent me mail recently and was expecting a reply or needs me to know something important, you'll have to send it to me again. Because it's all gorn. I've rummaged around in the System, especially the Library mail folders, but to no avail. I still think it's all 'there' somewhere, as my computer's hard disk seems about the same size (there was a lot of mail, let me tell you), but I can't extract it. Oh, well, move on. And hope nothing truly important has flown.

at its borders not by name but by numbers coming ashore faceless truths behind barriers belligerence don't diminish shameless attempt prevent working on paper see shadow cast unspeakable stories

What then is the moment of the poem? - the moment it speaks of? - the moment in which it is experienced? - the moment when it was written? The moment it speaks – may not be a moment, for a start. There are those poems which do not catch on the moment. They are static, monuments, or they run on and on. There is distance, a lot of run around, a heaviness. Can you write about a moment, write around a moment, within a moment, beside it? The moment of experience – if experience is continuous, how can you break the breath into each of its takes, in/out. But is continuous continuous? I think of Zeno’s arrow and the points plotted on the arc of flight. Of life broken like the line. Of parts like stanzas (rooms) and in each room is air and space but also doors and windows, legs of furniture. The writing moment – so many of these. The sounding in the head. The pencil or pen scratching. Typing, delete, return. Cut and paste. That may take an age. Currently I’m interested in the way that often the...

it's late in the day as if that's an excuse or the title of something) broader, straighter a big dip before it arranges your rolling wheels the other hillside green rises fences and not knowing how to get back the language however is there silvery, it hovers

streets, air's breadth water down buildings but come inside to discuss seduction, rather than sedition what's in voices heavy, lifting hoping this weather just another one of our tantrums walking out the door

It's that time of year again, for the 'best of ...' lists to be trotted out. The Sydney Morning Herald did its 'best books of 2005' today and, going on the comments below, you'd think no Australian poet under 40 (under 40 doesn't have to mean 'new talent') and hardly any women of any age had published a worthwhile book in 2005. Mind you, over at The Australian , no books of Australian poetry even rate a mention in their 'best of ...' list. "In a strong year for Australian poetry, the durability of seasoned performers has been more notable than the breakthrough of new talent. Kevin Murray's Geology (Domain) is an astringent account of loneliness in old age. John Millett's The People Singers (Five Islands Press) comprises vignettes of denizens of Surfers Paradise. Murray is in his late 70s, Millett in his mid-80s. The latter's career was given early impetus by service in World War II, as was that of Michael Thwaites, whose fin...

People ask me what my book is about I say ‘nothing’ as I called it ‘broken/open’ that seemed to be words for the nothing I know which goes out into and is patterned in language Then it may say It will become a book you can hold and turn like a poem a place to mark something that can be opened? Dissolved in doing? I’m going with perception which may be ‘going on your nerve’ jumping in the midst of the flow, experience in language underway But I have found I need more tenderness to pick up the pieces everything is broken – systems, gods, engines now it’s more fun perhaps against method/perhaps no project and going without some ‘reader’ that’s been made-up feeling my way again and the importance of wings the lake, rock and sand it all runs on the pink sexed skin a landscape like sound drips from my edges asking questions about how the pieces don’t fit shards alter meanings these shards are the parts ‘poetry is too important to be left to its own devices’ Charles Bernstein Are we at the en...

making things with words the difficulties and dangers in doing any such thing

Someone asked me a couple of years ago why I wasn't writing like I 'used to'. I thought it a strange question and didn't really answer them. In fact, it seemed accusatory to me. The reasoning, should I need it, runs something along the lines of I was starting to sound like myself, that no-one was interested anyway, that I was sick of 'good' poetry. All of this still stands, especially the last. Goodness has nothing to do with poetry.

crystal balls red and change colours get in and shake it liquefy there's nothing to be gained death row begins early shake it get in stand across the straits