New Poetry by Stuart Barnes

For Sale on Swanston Street

Indian diamonds
a rock of hammer
men in orange and
their swarthy God

but I'm not
in the market
for another banner,
to kick another dog


- Start Barnes 2009



Compliant

sums me up programmed like
my mythical C-3PO

violin skinned
like a cat before breakfast Venn

circles
overlapping like slapping hands in a manic kids'

game a kiss
on a murderess's cheek by the bus teeth

brushed at recess after school
on the oval take a punch

in the guts Centre
For Excellence {hyaena-

boys smoke} short-back-and-sides
braces

suffering Messerschmitt-
jokes Pritikin

Program weekly mass "don't write!" not a friend
on my boy-Elektra back a criminal's

colours
in my hand


- Stuart Barnes 2009

Stuart Barnes's unpublished memoir, A Cold Decade, was shortlisted for the 2009 Olvar Wood Fellowship Award. Living in Melbourne, he's currently editing his first collection of poetry and writing his first novel, a fable-fantasy.