Typewriter

The twentieth century tapped away

Its final draft, its full-stop certainty;

Ink ribbon extended into eternity,

Carriage of meaning pressed against the day.

Typewriter century caps and wingdings,

A roomful of clicks dots stops raps returns

Made it quite clear what were its concerns,

Sprayed the page neatly with its type of things.

Its secretarial sincerity,

Its Olivetti confetti hi guys,

Its machine-like dream-like dexterity.

Its concrete verse on feathery paper,

Release from keeping inside justifies

Drawn to something familiar here.

Photograph: two pages of concrete poetry by Keith Haring. There is a whole room of Haring's typed writings at the NGV show. It reveals his early fascination with words as images. He has obviously encountered the extra-marginal world of the concrete poets. Some of the poems are political, others suggestive and sonorous. It seems he let go of this form when he started his city art full-time, but it's a sign of where he was going to go. Fluorescent tubes are also very twentieth century.

Dust

The night to blow dust the driving rain

Melbourne orange where the desert landed

Every wrinkle in the roads newly sanded

Heat and wind’s gift, their immovable stain.

Permanent marker of nameless ancestors

Falls into the cracks, tinges every edge.

Orange dust-to-dust conté chalk message

Sets surfaces firm after dried waters.

Alert through summer bushfire smoke cloud

Please a clearing breeze. We listen to lies

Big money invents for the yeah-nah crowd.

But orange rebuts all such pleasantries:

Browned every window, dyed wide estuaries,

Ranked amidst wattle, worn atop plumtrees.

Above, bluestone steps at our backdoor this week. Below, the Free Tram Zone at Spencer Street this morning, a week after the dirt rain.

Oreja

flybuzz birdsong leafflutter catmew

alarmclick showerflower towelflick sinksuck

garbagetruck orangesqueeze cutlerydrawer phonecall

gasflue spoonclink kettlewhistle doorkey

carrev policesiren ringtones freeway

tramscreech hardbrake soundsystem talkback

jackhammer pulleytug cementmixer glasssmashv

voiceover plazapop firetruck paramedics

deepbreath oddyod clearingcough shortburp

ibeforee consonanaldrift flatchat lowhum

sweetnothings hellyells motormouth tonguetwists

nailtap funnybone beardscratch combtrack

footfall bottompop tummyrumble earplug

noseblow eyesqueak handclap heartbeat

Detail of a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat: OREJA, Spanish for ear. The sound of the city is very present in the work of Basquiat, silent upon the gallery walls. He uses words to effect in his paintings, as here where he is also doing another typical Basquiat thing, reminding us of the human body, vulnerable and alive in its intense physical urban environment.

Burnt

Drawn to something familiar here

In this burnt out burnt down burnt through place:

Rock keeps its cool, its hard meltdown space

Wherein equally cold and heat appear

Ribbed like sunsets or smooth young night sky.

And here creatures four-limbed two-eyed died

Or alive yet head on to a safe side,

Human-shaped some of them walking like why.

Something familiar on oblong screen

Away where stingy light breaks dingy smoke

In city certainty still talking green:

Water, first specks flecks then torrents then floods

White out hail white white right through creeks broke

At impressionable speeds where white floats.

Photograph: detail of a b&w work by Keith Haring currently in the safety of the NGV.

Oil

At impressionable speeds we have floated

Through months of our lives never lent a thought,

By waters of Babylon booked flight to Zion,

Compiled worldwide playlists that sing its dream.

Uncoiled from beneath Arabian nights

The stories assuring us of comfortableness,

Rebel yell at fresh sight it’s Texas tea

Groundwards downwards soundings everywhere.

The meaning in the arguments of parliament rows,

Black trails beneath headline’s latest ink

The word war to end all wars, for liquid.

Rock roll tycoons give the sheiks a shake

Comes washed down to us behind the wheel, sponsor

Of this month’s championship games and playoffs. 

Details of a joint painting by Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in the NGV show. The two artists made several of these works on white paper. The tanker truck is by Basquiat, as we can tell from the line but mainly because of his signature crown.When Basquiat died, Haring painted a tribute. I will copy it in here from online. It is a mountain of crowns on what must be intentionally a Give Way sign.