Shoot the DVD Player: a film podcast co-hosted by yours truly

Hello there, remember me? I've not been using this blog much - essentially because I don't really have any idea what to use it for any more. Remember when blogging was a real thing?

Anyway, if anyone is still subscribed to this dusty old blogspot, I'd like to let you know about the film podcast Tim and I have been making. It's called Shoot the DVD Player (geddit?), and each week we review one new (to streaming or DVD) movie, and two others drawn from the mists of any-old-time.

We're a bit erratic on posting it sometimes (who would have thought that university, full time work and several children would get in the way of cinema??), but we've just reached episode 21 (reviewing A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Sister, and The Riot Club), so now that we're of legal age in the US feel free to give it a listen. I have yet to swallow my own tongue on-mike, but who knows, this might be your lucky week.

The podcast is available to stream here, or subscribe here on iTunes. Please review us on iTunes if you subscribe through there! We like stars. You can also follow us for updates on Twitter at @shootthedvd.

And with that, er, bye again...

The Writer's Blog Tour

The writing life: artist's impression

I’ve been tagged in the Writer’s Blog Tour by Tim Sterne, author of many fine blogs, articles, reviews and my heart. Also a very tall man.

What am I working on?

I’m not working on anything specific at the moment, in terms of ‘a project’. I still write my book reviews to deadline (good girl, ARPy), and sometimes I write a poem or two. I’m always in the cycle of sending stuff out to journals, receiving the responses and sending stuff out again (I’ve always been a bit of a submission-junkie). Sometimes I go through all of the poems that are “in circulation”, edit the crap out of them, tear some to shreds, ditch some altogether. Being vicious is kinda fun.

How does my work differ from others in my genre?

Reviewing: I guess as I only review children’s and YA books, it means my criticism falls into a fairly narrow genre. I feel like it’s the only genre I can bring enough back-reading and critical confidence to, without feeling like I’m talking out of my arse. I like to feel like I know what I’m doing. So does my arse.

Poetry: This is a question doesn’t really apply neatly to ‘poetry’ as a genre, but I’ll have a crack at teasing out some common threads I notice in my own work (in the Cliffs Notes, this will fall under Themes and Motifs). I mostly write poems that are ‘stories’, I like a narrative. I rarely write imagistic poetry and even less experimental/abstract poetry. A few non-writer friends have told me “I don’t like poetry, but I like yours”, which probably means they’ve just had the wrong poetry inflicted on them, but I think if I’m telling a story, everyone can access that, and not have to worry they’re not picking up on Homeric references.* I like to write with restrictions on both time, form and content, as in the years I have done Month of Poetry – if I have to work 12 phrases suggested by 12 different people into one poem overnight, it makes me feel a bit like a magician (I am also a show-off.) I’m interested in how the Big Things like birth and death are intricately bound up with the mundane, domestic and trivial. The slow death of a loved one is tied to the sense memory of uncomfortable cups of hospital tea. I’m fascinated by how we struggle to create meaning out of a kind of sensory Gestalt – the interconnections of perception and memory. None of this is ‘different’ to other poetry in any unique way; it’s just where my interests lie. I also like to make jokes about cocks.

Fiction: It happens rarely, though I know I should make more time to try to write it. When I do write stories, I often write about children (though not really for them), especially children in the twilight of childhood, not quite teenagers, but just old enough to begin to notice things about adults, the things they say, the things that don’t quite add up. I can remember eavesdropping on my mum and her friends talking when I was about 11, and realising they were talking about how one of their husbands was having an affair. There’s a strange door of awareness starting to open at that age, and it feels really weird.

Why do I write what I do?

Reviews: I’ll be honest: I write them mostly for the money these days. Writing commissioned reviews is hard because you rarely get sent the books you’d really like to review (both on the positive and negative side), and I’ve been burnt by reputable journals treating their reviewers like crap (not publishing, not paying, not answering emails, dragging this out for over a year. Really poor form. You know who you are.)

Poetry: I can actually answer this one properly. Poetry is the only creative endeavour I’ve attempted where I’ve felt that the end product actually mirrors what I wanted to create. I find the process of writing uncomfortable and messy and it makes me feel fucking stupid, but in the end I can often look at my poems and think “Yes, that’s what I meant”, even if I can’t say why or how it works.

Fiction: Up front: I haven’t written a short story since 2010, and before that I hadn’t written one since 2008. Perhaps I should come back to this one when I’ve made a bit more effort?

How does my writing process work?

Reviewing: I read the book (usually advisable), fold down a bunch of corners, bitch/gush to Tim about it for like a really long time, then finally sit down and write the review in one go. Quick edit the next day, send it off. Brutal.

Poetry/fiction: I used to joke that I’d write a “brilliant” last line of a poem first, then write the rest of the poem, then cross out that last line. It’s not exactly true, but often the word or line that inspires a poem will be cut out by the time I’m finished. My writing process for poetry and fiction doesn’t work in any structured way in that I don’t have time allotted to writing. I’ll write at various times of day or night, when I’m sick, when I’m drunk, when I’m at work, when I want to (fun!), when I don’t want to (less fun). I take notes of ideas and lines of poetry in far too many different places and eventually drag them together. If I want to write a poem but I can’t think of anything to write about, I steal a phrase from a random book off our shelves, and go from there. I also don’t like to leave things incomplete – I resent any unfinished poems or short stories languishing on my computer, and try to make sure I go back to them. Those words are there to be submitted, and they gotta earn their keep.

When I decide a poem or story is too old/not as good as I thought it was, I cannibalise it for lines and phrases to recycle in another piece. Sometimes I rewrite a poem into a story, and vice versa. I write by hand, on computer, and on my phone. Once I’ve finished writing a poem or story, I give it a rest, an edit and then I send it somewhere. I like my writing to be ‘out to work’ as soon as possible (hence my submission junkie status). When something is rejected, by the time I send it somewhere else it’s usually had another edit. And another, and another. This constant editing has resulted in me not always recognising my poem or story if it’s published, as the first draft is the one that tends to stick in my mind. When I read the printed version (sometimes edited and rewritten over 10+ years), my first reaction is usually “Hey! This is much better than the one I remember!”

In general:

Over the years I’ve gotten more comfortable with the fact that sometimes I am writing, sometimes I am not. It used to scare me, like if I stopped I would never start again. But I’ve gradually become more chilled about the idea of peaks and troughs in my output. Because there’s always other stuff to be doing, and if I’m not writing ‘for publication’, I’m still always keeping my diary and corresponding with my 20 snail mail penpals. I work a full time job, and I have a wonderful boyfriend and children who I want to spend my best hours with. Writing for me is something I stuff into the little gaps, something I do around the edges, and I think that for me, that’s just about perfect.

Tag time:

Sean Elliott: Writer, very tall man, explainer of science in amusing and inventive ways.

David Witteveen: Writer, very tall man, tactfully fixes problems with the library computers when it turns out I just haven’t noticed the plug has fallen out.

Alice Cannon: Writer, not a very tall man, publisher of the fantastic journals Materiality and Crank (the former whose Pozible you should totally throw money at).



* There aren’t any.

Recently I did...

At the request of two people (overkill really, one is all I need), here a round up of my last few publications (excluding reviews, as I put them on Goodreads after a bit anyway).

Most recently, my poem 'Evicted' appeared in Epigraph Magazine, a US online poetry magazine you can read for free!

My short story 'Human Surface' appeared in Atticus Review, another US online journal you can read to your hip pocket's content. I love Atticus, I'd recommend reading it even when I'm not in it.

My short story 'Only After School' appeared in issue 6 of Tincture Journal, an Australian epub journal (issue 6 is currently on special for $5, so get to it). I know - what's with having short stories published? I don't write many, so I'm as surprised as you are.

My poem 'Footprints' appeared in The Gap-Toothed Madness, a US print magazine with an excellent title.

My poems 'Tropical Fruit' and 'Soothe the Savage' appeared in foam:e, an Australian online poetry journal that's free to read.

My short story 'Delivery Day' appeared in Materiality: Precious, an excellent themed Australian journal piloted by the lovely Alice Cannon. Incidently, the next issue of Materiality (which I'll also be in) has a Pozible running, so fling it some money if you can!

My love poem 'Enough' appeared in the Poetry D'Amour 2014 anthology - it sold out but I finally got my hands on copy, so those of you who asked to read my poem now can. Guess who I wrote it for.

My poem 'Treasure Maps' appeared in the Australian print journal Westerly. They still pay by cheque, which I think is the way it always should be. Cheques are so nice and tangible!

My poem 'Newborn' appeared in Tincture Journal issue 4, which is also only $5 to buy now.

And my poem 'A good nose for a road trip' appeared in The Age, which is always a thrill because I can say 'The Age' to old relatives and they know what I'm talking about.

Four-Sentence MIFF Reviews #5-8: I Hired a Contract Killer, Clara and the Secret of the Bears, Jack, Patema Inverted

I Hired a Contract Killer (Aki Kaurismaki)

 

Henri shuffles between his dingy apartment and his equally dingy job pushing paper from one side of a desk to another. When he loses his position at work, he tries to commit suicide, but can't quite get the job done, so he hires a contract killer to take himself out. This is a nicely odd film which manages to make something strangely lovable out of a series of deadpan encounters between unlikely people. It's the film version of a really dry, really crumpled, really black t-shirt that actually looks quite good once you put it on.



Clara and the Secret of the Bears (Tobias Ineichen)

13 year old Clara lives in the Swiss Alps with her mother and step-father, and is delighted one day to encounter a bear cub in the mountains. But as she is drawn into fraught disputes among townsfolk about the bears, Clara discovers her connection to a past wronging of nature, and to a ghost girl with unfinished business. The time-slip elements are perfectly handled, Clara's friendship with a new local boy is pleasingly unromantic, and the father-daughter elements are very touching. Twelve year old me would have killed to see this film, and thirty-three year old me loved it too.

Jack (Edward Berger)

When Jack's mum has him bundled off to a children's home for convenience, and dumps his younger brother with a friend "for the night", we work out that she pretty much sucks. But resourceful Jack believes against all evidence that his mum still wants them, so he takes off to find his younger brother and reunite the family. Wonderfully unsentimental, this is a film that never manipulates the audience or even demonises Jack's mother (though I would really like to punch her in the face). The moment at the end of the film where Jack ages emotionally a few years in a few seconds is a real credit to the film's subtlety.



Patema Inverted (Yasuhiro Yoshiura)

When a scientific experiment went wrong, half the population were suddenly inversely affected by gravity, sending scores of people and buildings 'falling up into the sky'. Those that survived retreated below the surface, walking on the underground ceilings of those left above. As soon as I saw the detailed animation of Patema's grimy, mechanical world, I was sold. Absorbing, beautifully animated, often incredibly tense and demanding full concentration - and featuring a male and female protagonist who were balanced in agency and importance.

Four-Sentence MIFF Reviews #3-4: Ping Pong Summer, The Galapagos Affair

Ping Pong Summer (Michael Tully)

Radford is on summer holiday and makes an instant best friend in Teddy (who is honestly what I imagine Luka will be like as 13 year old). There's girls, too much sugar, and naturally a pair of bullies who try to make Radford's life hell. The movie is saturated with 80s nostalgia and overacting in a way that the 80s never was (apart from possibly the overacting), but I happily accepted this movie as a feature-long cross between an episode of Round The Twist and Ship to Shore. Complete with gurning bullies and a freeze frame happy ending.

The Galapagos Affair (Dan Geller)

In 1929, somewhat berko doctor (and Nietzsche obsessive - always a bad sign) Friedrich Ritter and his devotee Dore Strauch embrace their shared misanthropy and move to the uninhabited Galapagos island of Floreana. It's gonna be great - then other people show up and things go bad and holy crap disappearances and possible murders and this shit is crazy. This documentary left me saying "wow, that was real?", and given how many fucked up documentaries I watch, that's saying something. The sheer weight of actual footage, documents from the islanders, and interviews with surviving family members are the only things that make this unbelievable story even faintly believable.

Four-Sentence MIFF Reviews #1-2: Life Itself, Irma Vep

Yes folks, it's that glorious time of year (otherwise known as about the only time I post on this blog any more), where I get to go to 13 films at the Melbourne Film Festival and post a review of each one in four sentences. You know what they say: "slightly longer than a tweet - it's the way of the future."

Life Itself (Steve James)

An intimate documentary following film critic Roger Ebert in his final months of life, stretching back to cover his life, career, family and contemporaries.
The impact of Ebert's film criticism cannot be overestimated, but in this funny and moving documentary I also learned more about the circle his life encompassed: his friends, family, colleagues, and his perfect fit for the time he was born in.
It's a deeply emotional portrait of a man facing death, which left me holding it together (for the most part) but still shaking with emotion.
And the answer to why on earth a man like Ebert decided to write Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and work with Russ Meyer: "Boobs".



Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)

Maggie Cheung is flown to Paris to work with an unstable avant garde film director; nobody is entirely sure why.
There's interest and amusement in the chaotic scenes of film-making, but I found my attention drifting in and out over the course of the film, and overall it doesn't quite seem to make full use of the story it's trying to tell.
Also: if you're going to cat-burgle someone, a latex catsuit is the noisiest possible outfit you could choose to wear.
On the upside: Maggie Cheung in a latex catsuit.

The letters I'd love to write - letters to asylum seekers

The recent GetUp! letter-writing campaign to let asylum seekers know that we care, and that we disagree with how they are being treated, caught my eye. Not just as a regular letter-writer, but as a human being.

I eagerly read the instructions for the campaign, and was discouraged when I realised I couldn't take part.

Letter-writing for a purpose: you're doing it wrong. It starts well:

1. You're asked to write a letter to a non-specific asylum seeker: obviously fine.
2. You're asked to say who you are and make it personal, so the recipient knows that you're not acting on behalf of the government: also fine.
3. You're asked to include a self-addressed envelope so the unknown person you write to can see exactly where you live: this is not fine. If the person you are writing to is randomly assigned, wherever they are in the world and regardless of their status, this is problematic.
4. There are no details provided as to whether your name, address, details of your letter, details of who receives your letter, whether they respond to your letter, etc, are recorded by Julian Burnside, any government agency, or the companies running camps on Manus Island or Nauru. This is problematic.

As a long-time letter-writer to both private penpals and charity letter-writing programs, I'm both sad and annoyed I can't take part in something that could be much better organised with a bit more effort.

This is why, for example, child sponsorship charities have a very careful system of letter-writing - you write to a general office, and your letter goes through this 3rd party which strips the letter of your address on the way. It's not a particularly difficult system - and if, as with charity systems, it would cost me the price of an overseas stamp then I would take up my papers and write and write and write to asylum seekers who I wish could be treated better, and tell them how it fills me with disgust that they are treated in such a revolting way in our country's name.

But with this program, to say it again - you're doing it wrong.

Letter-writing charities have been doing it right for decades - if you can do it right too, I'm happy to pay double for the stamps. Sign me up.

Popularity contest

And the most liked poems from Month of Poetry were:

First days
Pit stop
Australia Day
Powerful element
Best spot near the box
Breadline
Winter

So if you couldn't be bothered reading all thirty poems, there's a shortlist instead!

Month of Poetry 2014 - vote for your favourite

Thank you all for reading and contributing to this year's Month of Poetry for me!

By popular request (of at least 2 people), please vote for your favourite Month of Poetry 2014 poem. I'll publish the results in about a week, yeah? (If you need to remember which poem is which, just click on the January part of the Blog Archive in the sidebar, and in theory all the links should be there.)

Thanks for playing :)

Your favourite Month of Poetry 2014 poem?

#1: How many

#2: Twelve

#3 Hog Calling

#4: Breadline

#5: Commercial service - 3 out of 5 stars

#6: Winter

#7: Ultimate floor

#8: Too close to home

#9: Shopping centre

#10: Red

#11: A natural death

#12: An attitude of existence

#13: Captain January

#14: At the museum

#15: Words on a hot night

#16: Hidden folk

#17: May as well be sisters

#18: Best spot near the box

#19: Rolling gallstones

#20: The first time

#21: Upside down

#22: Late for work

#23: Powerful element

#24: Party poem

#25: Australia Day

#26: Pit stop

#27: Melted

#28: First days

#29: From bed to anywhere

#30: The study isn't published

Poll Maker

Month of Poetry #30: The study isn't published

We could speak of it as inspiration or discipline,
map the process of falling in love as if an awareness
of the structure working behind it deepens one's
pleasure and absorption. We could compare ourselves
to plants, seeds heaven sent and homegrown.
But I don't want to talk botanically about it.

There's always a way to be scientific about
emotions. Cow hormones have the young
people all fucked up with lust, bovine eyelashes
fluttering with whatever burger they had last night.
I do what I do not because of steroids, but I do
because somehow I like the pain, the heady fumes.

Madness to compare the frightfully delicious
deliriums of how rapture repeats itself, first time
as a kind of mania, later an unknown
compelling force where nothing rips your skin
apart like a formal airport farewell. My lovely
hand on yours, guillotine departure gates.

Academia hasn't graphed the cliche level of
saying we laughed til we died, of feeling something
changed, of first I love you. The study isn't
published yet on the slow ride to comfort
where we laugh at farts and you let me pee
with the door open so I could watch Grey's Anatomy.

We could assert commonalities, piss off new
couples with references to The Honeymoon Period.
We were all undergraduates once, but terms of
analysis shift and raise eyebrows at old essays.
Once frantic arms, relaxed with everyday
reassurance that we are here, we have all the time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Includes suggestions from:

@josie_is: frightfully delicious
@ernmalleyscat: but I do because somehow I like the pain (TISM, Mystery of the artist explained)
@sleepingdingo: farewell my lovely
@spikelynch: inspiration or discipline (year 11 extension english assignment)
@attentive: repeats itself, first time as (attr. Marx)
@matchtrick: an unknown compelling force (official cause of death given by Soviet investigators into the Dyatlov Pass incident)
@urbabe: but I don't want to talk botanically
@JayJayCee1: and we laughed til we died
@timsterne: cow hormones have the young people all fucked up (Donald Ray Pollock, Knockemstiff)
@MissButtons_: heaven sent and homegrown
@GretaPunch: you let me pee with the door open so I could watch Grey's Anatomy
@ReadingSheilas: an awareness of the structure working behind it deepens one's pleasure and absorption (Julian Novitz on The Luminaries)

Month of poetry #29: From bed to anywhere

It often felt a long way from bed to anywhere.
Closer each day to leaving blinds shut,
letting sheets weigh everything down like
they're never gonna give. You, up and about
on a mission: killing baby cockroaches in
the bathroom, scrubbing at corner grime
until you gained thin ropes of muscles between
your thumb and forefinger. There was no item
you could not fetch. My octopus partner, blurred
hands tidying in circles around the static bed.

When I first got stuck everyone took drama for a bludge,
advised snapping out the happy, preached that
to recover one has to be mindful.
Of the structural features: I had all the work sheets,
can rattle off CBT like a third year psych class.
That Aaron Beck, apparently he's a kind of saviour
for times of intellectual distress, though he's led
to a lot of useless photocopying.

Late afternoon in a parade of what I used to do,
a palimpsest of forgotten enthusiasms,
shredded layers of posters advertising joys
that quietly erased themselves.
When it came to a choice between phone box
or shower I glazed with endless scrolling,
dampening the lack of movement.
There'll be no sudden Pixar moment,
I'm just a squirrel trying to get a nut-case
mindset in my grasp and kick it off
like a doona on a hot night.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Includes suggestions from:

@sleepingdingo: killing baby cockroaches in the bathroom
@chantarelle: closer each day (Home and Away Theme Song)
@pinknantucket: I'm just a squirrel trying to get a nut (Boyd Crowder)
@matchtrick: fetch my octopus
@spikelynch: everyone took drama for a bludge (year 11 on the first day)
@JayJayCee1: gained thin ropes of muscles (Lisa Gardner, Say Goodbye)
@ernmalleyscat: never gonna give you up
@attentive: one has to be mindful of the structural features (opinion piece, The Australian)
@ReadingSheilas: he's a kind of saviour for times of great intellectual distress (Bourdieu on Wittgenstein)
@timsterne: a palimpsest of forgotten enthusiasms (Boyd Oxlade, Death in Brunswick)
@MissButtons_: phone box or shower

Month of Poetry #28: First days

Asphalt and tan bark, small hot hands.
Big hats and shorts at ankle length:
no way a kneecapping could work
scabs onto those invisible knees.
Neither one of us knows which track
to follow to the classroom. This line,
left blank intentionally with room for
small feet to shuffle into rows and
wait for the ball. This metal equipment
a new contraption. To capture a dandelion
in one piece is the work of lunchtime
lotus-sitters picking at the hot grass.
In a rush of blue and yellow you are tiny,
teeth bared for new brave meat.
I wave and there's no crying,
in baseball there's no crying,
in cornball there's my wet face drying
slowly in five years of sunlight.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Includes suggestions from:

@chantarelle: there's no crying in baseball
@jellyjellyfish: there's no crying in cornball
@ernmalleyscat: this line left blank intentionally
@JayJayCee1: neither one of us knows (The Marvellous Toy)
@timsterne: a new contraption to capture a dandelion in one piece (Boards of Canada, 'Dandelion')
@GretaPunch: a kneecapping could work

Month of Poetry #27: Melted

Hot nights, dreams of streets
I can cross, fighting.
A demon: off my bucket list
and onto the immediate to-do.
It's not that hot, but the mannequins
disguised as pancake makeup
are melting into life. They shudder
across town, stumble into each other
like they're having sex.
To the kids in America they send
punches, neck snaps, and a feeling
of benevolent distance not unlike
the second baby effect.
One man, pupils swollen and jagged
he reached for his pocket, and found
there only reality of handgun.
Half-slop monsters adore the bullets
each trigger finger that cries
Fuck the Jellys! and fires hard
will find the blob rolls on.
The universe is expanding in
a tide of molten plastic, here
and there a hand, a foot, a shoulder,
a remarkable likeness of Steve McQueen.

---------------------------------------------------------
Including suggestions from:

@JayJayCee1: the universe is expanding
@ernmalleyscat: He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality (Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
@eglantinescake: second baby effect
@pinknantucket: I can cross fighting a demon off my bucket list (Sleepy Hollow)
@matchtrick: mannequins disguised as pancake (The Boy)
@timsterne: They're having sex to 'The Kids in America' (Luke Haines, Discomania)
@facelikethunder: it's not that hot
@jellyjellyfish: fuck the Jellys! (unintentional contribution)

Month of poetry #26: Pit stop

The town I reach when still I've got kilometres to go.
Behind me, discontent with nappy: my grumpy elf.
Gaze in action for a public inconvenience, in petrol terms
I drove four cars into the ocean road, back to main street.
The toddler mauls his lollipop, blue smears across his face
and mischief in his eyes. Sticky smurf, emitting blue fumes.
I focus, narrow the lens: local pub. Looks like a large amount
of not something, but much better than the scent in the car.
How would you like your hobbit-child smelling like the
back end of Hobbiton? We pass under the faded VB banner.
Leather robots with soul omissions look us up, down.
Dot-point our misplacements in a list. Comprehensions find
mother and toddler, where more often enters a crumpled
bag of skin and a diet of kangaroo's testicles.
Was all too much for them: woman and baby in here,
asking for the toilet, hefting bags of life in from outside.
Eyes-down barman points quickly down a hall, we sidle
out of sight before I see dust fall in chunks from their mouths.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Includes suggestions from:

@realnixwilliams: not something, but much
@urbabe: elf gaze in action
@JayJayCee1: robots with soul (TED talk)
@sleepingdingo: I've got kilometres to go
@timsterne: a diet of kangaroo's testicles was all too much (Kenneth Cook, Wake in Fright)
@ernamalleyscat: drove four cars into the ocean (Ozzy Osbourne in AC/DC Maximum Rock n Roll)
@chantarelle: blue smears across his face and mischief in his eyes
@spikelynch: list comprehensions
@GretaPunch: how would you like your hobbit?

Month of Poetry #25: Australia Day

There's been less of her beauty,
and her terror makes us disown.

Each speaker with granite eyes;
regarding his stone likeness
with blood still coursing our flesh.
One short, one fat, one lean, repeat
each in a cycle of removal and denial,
where the song ends:
all of them equally mean.

It falls into where I can't
think about for many minutes,
along with suicide, bruised babies
and freak accidents of unluck.

Those born a few thousand
plus a hundred and thirty-two clicks
away also have memories
level with the scent of the vinyl
bench seats in Dad's Kingswood.
In summer my children run toward waves,
no fear of her jewelled sea.

Breaking news, broken histories
give me angry stinging onion eyes.
Give us a hand to celebrate
and raise the middle finger high.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Includes suggestions from:

@ReadingSheilas: her beauty and her terror (My Country, Dorothea MacKellar)
@urbabe: one short, one fat, one lean (Fantastic Mr Fox)
@home_sewn: stinging onion eyes
@ernmalleyscat: a hundred and thirty-two clicks (cricket commetary)
@JayJayCee1: regarding his stone likeness (Frank R Stockton, The Griffin and the Minor Canyon)
@xutraa: the vinyl bench seats in Dad's Kingswood
@timsterne: give us a hand to celebrate

Month of Poetry #24: Party Poem

Whole morning spent sluicing icing,
trying to form constants of colour
and surface, dividing M&Ms.
There were many oranges, too many
blues. Brain cells spent divining brown
icing from a rainbow of four inks when
I could have just used cocoa.

It doesn't matter what are the best
storage containers, all I've got is
a plate that cling wrap won't cling to.
Parkside: already heavy legs and eyelids
like the seafloor wants me for kelp.

In a whirl the tablecloth is abandoned.
Chips are shaken into ugly china bowls
wind lifts the red dust from BBQ shapes
I wish we had bought heavier snacks.
The whole world arrives as an army.

Keeping track of Ninja Turtles and who
detests who: This guy? THIS IS NOT
MY KINDA GUY! I really don't care,
try to keep all cards, unmadden
the birthday boy, proffer juice. Here in a box
is squeezed one thousand Californias.

Gonna kill you soon, temperate breeze
if you don't let my Redheads light.
We've waited five years for this candle
it's only half an hour till we can go home.

Sticky kisses, shouts to the Subaru:
See you tomorrow, have fun at your dad's
At home, I line up the presents on
your bedroom floor for your return.
The joy inside them coiled like springs.

----------------------------------------------------
Includes suggestions from:

@ReadingSheilas: what are the best storage containers? (Ms Harris' Book of Green Household Management)
@sulphura: there were many oranges
@matchtrick: California's gonna kill you soon (Iron and Wine, The Desert Babbler)
@spikelynch: form constants
@timsterne: This guy, this is not my kinda guy! (Buddy Rich, The Bus Tapes)
@ernmalleyscat: the seafloor wants me
@gingerandhoney: in a whirl

Month of Poetry #23: Powerful element

Fevered with the scent, all of the naked boys
and girls plaited together, twined like cake
and jam in the most delicious Swiss roll
I will eat. A butterfly sandwich of eyelash
kisses, pheromone cream filling and the
powerful element which propels her towards
him towards him towards her. Not one will
mind the gap of age or sex, they are all undone:
unwashing their mouths with their legs. In full
sun how crispy her pubic hair looked,
how browned his darling arse. Three boys
in a pyramid, ecstatic, the big fella leaning on
it counterweight. Three girls braiding their
thighs like thick warm hair. Summer hugs
them all with pastry and bakes them blind.
If this is some dream recipe of youth,
turn up the thermostat I don't wanna grow up.

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Includes suggestions from:

@matchtrick: all of the naked boys (Iron & Wine - Caught in the Briars)
@jellyjellyfish: mind the gap
@MissButtons_: I will eat a butterfly sandwich (Beatrix Potter)
@JayJayCee1: the powerful element which propels her (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne)
@chantarelle: I don't wanna grow up
@ernmalleyscat: big fella leaning on it (tennis commentary)
@timsterne: how crispy her pubic hair looked (John Sandford, Wicked Prey)

Month of poetry #22: Late for work

For her arrival home,  he Marvin Gayed up:
his own nephew's mixtape, finally useful.
For dinner they would be visiting the flesh,
eating pigs' trotters and scoring each marvel
at its big puce depths of tendoned meat.
Her face, young and old and none of the above
Freckle dusting and overalls like
a grownup Punky Brewster. Denim in a
crumpled heap in the corner, his hands
played over limbs like a hollow bamboo
orbiting an unknown object until she
arced like someone shot her.
Right in front of me, the smiling dead.
Suddenly birds and grey morning light:
a distance between what was and what is.
Clocks showed a time he could not tell.
My wife, I'm going to be late for work.
Her electric fingers pushed back the minute hand.

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Including suggestions from:

@matchtrick: what is clocks?
@JayJayCee1: like a hollow bamboo (song, Bodhi Khalid)
@home_sewn: electric fingers
@spikelynch: orbiting an unknown object (from Wikipedia description of the eclipsing binary star ε Aurigae)
@ReadingSheilas: someone shot her, right in front of me (Orphan Black)
@timsterne: He Marvin Gayed his own nephew (Vito Spatafore, The Sopranos)
@lalscotton: visiting the flesh eating pigs
@ernmalleyscat: marvel at its big puce depths (Vogon Poetry Generator on BBC site)
@attentive: tell my wife I'm going to be late (Peter Ludwigsen, A Hijacking)
@GretaPunch: none of the above
@slimejam: Punky Brewster

Month of poetry #21: Upside down

Something popped the
train smack off the rails
maybe an oral fixation
maybe dental fixative.
Domesticated and aged
in the wrong sort of oak.

Not gradual, nothing like
my finger went astray in
a quickly typed password.
Someone changed the
whole keyboard to Greek
and it all Greek was to us.

Put a key in his life, turned it
upside down. Strange mouth
to my sister: you lost a man,
now songs are boring.
To my brother: yo homes,
smell ya later! Then tears.

Paced in anaemic tiger tread
from lounge to bathroom
caged and bloodless.
Gumming one thumb
kept warm by the ancient
jungle memories of summer.

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Includes suggestions from:

@chantarelle: maybe an oral fixation (Chris Pine)
@JayJayCee1: My finger went astray (The Giant, O'Brien, Hilary Mantel)
@timsterne: Yo Homes, smell ya later (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air)