Tuesday 31 October 2017

Green (October)

Magnolia leaves, large some flat cut into, flutter slightly in hundreds, light green under green. It’s the last day of October. New shoots now flourish across elms high above rooftops. Bush orchids project from dark mud, their cold green holding back forms of pinky-green flowers. Thistles, their down blown, and spindly grasses pushing small blooms, share a roadside plot with lost opium poppies, their leaves seeming repentant, their heads bent, unopen. Level on level of callistemon branches, their green resistant strategies at work, ready with what colour time has arranged. Jades in pots line a verandah, and cacti, greens varying.

Monday 30 October 2017

OED (October)


Definitions. Obelisk: Egyptian Dagger. Object: Everything Dainty. Obscure: Expressionist Darkness. Ocean: Everlasting Domain. O’Clock: Encore Deceptions. Octet: Eight Diviners. October: Energetic Days. Ode: Emphatic Declaration. Odious: Environmental Degradation. Often: Ever Doing. Oh: Expressive Dentistry. Ointment: Ephemeral Dabs. Old: Edition Dated. Om: Equilibrium Drone. Ooops: Evident Disaster. Ooze: Exuding Droplets. Opal: Eventide Diamond. Opium: Escape Drug. Option: Experimental Digits. Oracle: Ecstatic Drunkard. Orange: Evening Dawn.
Orbit: Elegant Direction. Orchestra: Evocative Divisions. Ordinary: Every Day. Ornament: Embellished Decoration. Orifice: Entrance/Exit Door. Origin: Expanding Decisively. Oscillation: Electronic Doodles. Ostrich: Evidence Denier. Out: Exodus Diaspora. Output: Entropy Determined. Oval: Ellipsoid Dump. Owner: Earthly Dependent.

News (October)



What news this October? Shall we be glad of November? Franz Kafka observed that though we don’t wish to read the news, we do anyway, drawn back to it against our own reason, again to go through all the same reactions. The day the Great War broke out in 1914 Kafka wrote in his diary: “Germany has declared war on Russia. Went swimming in the afternoon.” “I read the news today, oh boy.” The English Army had just won the War when John Lennon was a boy of four. Like us, he was already preparing for a lifetime of news.

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Glass (October)



The glass is half full because the bottle emptied, half empty because it’s undrinkable. Glass of the tippler is half full. A boozer’s glass’s half empty, already. The glass is half moon of lucid empty, empty soon to be refilled. Two-thirds is a standard glass. The glass is half empty threats. Half full when it’s bad Matisse. Empty is the glass Bacon crushed with his bare fist. Who throw stones at glass houses are full up with empty, or half seas over. Half full’s for dentures. Half empty, the tooth fairy. Half full are the glasses we keep filling October.

Mattress (October)


The facts of the mattress never get laid to rest. Third of our allotted time, devoted to its silent ministrations, forgets such sea-smooth surface. They whom we picture stretched upon its highness are creatures of night in this sunstruck world. He, horizontal, feels his brain tip fear-fuelled dream-schemes that, vertical, have poured back into nothing crevices. She’s grateful for everything emptied from her mind, slipping back to front her October shockarama. You are not keeping count of time’s embraces, plead only for a place to rest your head. I recline here myself some afternoons, imagining other ways life could be.

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Rainbow (October)

It’s a clear October Tuesday in Melbourne. Silken rainbows ascend windows of an upstairs Carlton apartment. Rainbow postcards decorate Fitzroy cafés. Rainbow ribbons flow outside English and Italianate city churches. Rainbow stickers glint in car windows. Tram commuters wear enamel rainbow brooches. Others sport tee-shirt rainbows. It’s a cloudless day for bookshop rainbows. Rainbow clubs. Rainbow hotels. Rainbow florists. Graffiti removal units make a living from rainbows. Sale of primary and secondary colour spraycans is up. Children’s rainbow yeses bluetacked to Albert Park front windows. Rainbow posters peel from walls. Rainbow mobiles. Rainbow screens. Rainbow emojis left, right and centre.


Sunday 22 October 2017

Traffic


Person Elegantly Under-dressed Glides Erratically Over Tramlines.
Bored Modern Wastrel.
Veejay Of Life Kills Some Winks Aiming Gadget Ever Nearer.
Bourgeois Energy Needed The Lady’s Elegant Yardstick.
Massive Arse Clips Kerb.
Relatively Empathetic Neighbour Attacks Unlikely Lunatics Travelling.
Jade Accoutred Goldenly UnleashesArgumentative Reactions.
Adult Under Duress Intervenes.
Volatile Overreacher Lunges Vainly On.
Dutiful Ancient Intellectual Motors Like Edward Reigns.
Mannerly Individual Tries Substantial U-Turn But Is Stalled Halting Intersection.
Family Of Rowdy Delinquents.
Fearless Idiot Accelerates Totally.
Trainee Owner Risks All Nearing Amber.
Hoon Ostracizes Licensed Drivers Everywhere Needlessly.
Trak Ocker Yanks Oversized Tank Abstractly.
A Universal Simpleton Takes Initiative Nakedly.
Man Enjoys Ruminative Chopin Etudes Despite Extreme Situation.
Hatted Occupant Needs Driver Accreditation.
Fixated Empire Raiser Registers A Ratings Imperiously.
Crinkled Happy Ruddy Youth Steers Leviathan Engine Right.
Cool Aimless Dude In Luxury Limousine Acts Chauffeur.
Rich Old Vague Entertaining Rogue.

[Search Engine, 1997]