New Poetry by Mark O'Flynn

PADDOCK

You’ve been watching the dead sugar gum

watching it patiently until you decide to cut it down

then you’re all action.

You traipse through the moonscape about its base

place your hand where the beautiful wood

is oiled and burnished by the necks of cows



choosing a spot for the first bite of the axe.

Eventually the tree collapses into hoof prints

and a brief eruption of twigs then silence.

Birds soon orbit their confusion. Cows stare.

It takes all morning to chop it up into manageable

lengths, leaving behind the branches filled with ants.



They’re not all you’re leaving.

Firewood warms you twice, they say,

three times really, after you barrow

it back across the paddock to the dark verandah

where winter finally moves in the shadows

of what you are preparing to abandon.



- Mark O'Flynn 2011



CRUSHED THUMB



Months past the battered blood

growing slowly from the nail


once crushed beneath the physical logic

of a hammer’s sarcasm,


now lifting, the dusty cuticle peels,

a pistachio shell of flaking blood,


xylem beneath, as the mutant nail

corrupts and rises, a smudge of cracked paint.


Long beyond the memory of iron

all trace gone of the original misdemeanour,


the curse, the shaking fist;

the sucked phalange.


- Mark O'Flynn 2011

Vale Bob Gould

News came today of the untimely demise of one of the true legends of Sydney bibliophilia and out-and-out ratbaggery, Bob Gould.

According to the story in one of Bob’s most detested rags, The Sydney Morning Herald (Broadsheet of the Year!), Bob was doing his usual Sunday morning grumble sorting through books at his legendary fire-trap at the top end of King street, Newtown, when he somehow fell and hit his head. He slipped out of our reach before the ambulance could arrive from a couple of blocks away. He was 74.

I remember Bob as a gruff but affable enough chap who would answer any enquiry with an impatient wave of the hand in the general direction of the hectares of books all around him. Not as pretty, perhaps, as Bernard Black, but hatched in the same jar of ether, Bob was a committed left-wing activist to the end, railing against the direction the Australian Labor Party had taken (by which I assume he meant NONE), and just about anything to do with John Howard, including his tilt at the vice-presidency of the International Cricket Council.

Bob’s bookstore, Gould’s Books (the only surviving child of 12), was as idiosyncratic and unyielding as its proprietor, only surrendering its treasures to the truly persistent. But both loom large in my Newtown (read elastic adolescent) psyche, and although a legend passes I know Sydney well enough to sit here perched in my icy mountain aerie shivering but secure in the knowledge that some equally frustrating and inspiring individual will pick up the mantle, if not quite the business model itself.

Rest easy, Bob, wherever you find yourself.

Invitation to This Floating World

You are warmly invited to the book launch of This Floating World by Libby Hart

Saturday 18 June 2011 from 3.00pm

Collected Works Bookshop

Nicholas Building

1st Floor, 37 Swanston Street

Melbourne

Kris Hemensley will launch the book and there will be wonderful music from Sean Kenan and Graeme Newell.

If you are unable to travel to Melbourne for the launch but you are interested in ordering a copy of This Floating World please see www.fiveislandspress.com/newbooks.html to order online or see attached order form to order the old-fashioned way.

New Poetry by Phillip Ellis

"A Is for a Shyness"

A is for a shyness that does not speak,
except in prosy rhythms, metaphor,
knowing well the poet cannot contain
the poem, nor the cage the flying sparrow.

E is for every vowel that escapes my mouth;
how can I speak without them, without you?
I is for industry's yearning to turn
solid white paper to sound and writing.

O is for the sun that is my polestar,
that I will follow assiduously
for as long as I can, knowing full well
that I will one day die, and leave you here.

U is for umpteen rhymes that lie frozen,
wrapped in virgin straw for my notes to you.

*****

"The Edge of Space"

I return to these thoughts
alike a dog picking
the more edible of
portions from a man's vomit:

this universe is more
than eyes can catalogue, count
out with tweezers, even
computers, like the grains of
sand in a man's closed fist,

for who can count emptiness
around us, or even
grasp at the slipperiness
of a boundary we
do not even know is hard

or fast, or diffusive
and thick--do we slow or stop
at the very edge of
this universe?--can we say
or even guess at this

matter?--will there be matter
or space?--such questions, such
that I cannot answer, here
in four quintains, and two
quatrains: it is with this, then,

I return to these thoughts
alike a dog picking
the more edible of
portions from a man's vomit.

*****

"Of Songs and Sonnets"

Wandering mind--
let my mind speak to you
about the passing moon,
or of satellites around another star,
perhaps.

If night told rhymes,
these would be mine,
or weren't they mine
to start with?

Listen....

- Phillip Ellis 2011

Author:
The Flayed Man: http://www.amazon.com/
A Harvest: Poetry: coming soon

Editor: AustralianReader.com http://australianreader.com/index.php

Blogs:
Wet Ink for Hungry Minds: http://australianreader.blogspot.com/
The Cruellest Month: http://the-cruellest-month.blogspot.com/

Red Room at the Writers' Festival

You are cordially invited to join the inaugural meeting of the Clubs and Societies project at the Sydney Writers Festival.

The Inaugural Meeting of The Clubs & Societies Project

Sydney Writers Festival

4:00pm - 5:30pm Saturday, 21 May 2011

Pier 2/3 Club Stage, Pier 2/3 Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay

To secure your club seat, RSVP 02 9319 5090 or email tamryn@redroomcompany.org

This is a free event

The Red Room Company Club cordially invites you to attend the first club meeting of our major project for 2011, Clubs & Societies. Poets from across the country will be joining a range of clubs and societies to find out what goes on behind the locked doors of Australia’s clubrooms. The poets learn the cryptic lingos of fanatics and aficionados, and become the poet laureates of these secret societies and cultural clubs. At the Sydney Writers’ Festival, five of these poets will initiate you into their new worlds. After this event, you’ll never look at the rest of society the same way again.

Poets in Attendance

Since Kit Brookman trained as an actor, he's used to being around stars, so we've paired him with the Astronomical Society of NSW. Kit will be packing up his telescope and heading up to their Dark Sky Site, trading commas for comets and ellipses for eclipses.

Nick Keys will be converted into ones and zeroes for his collaboration with Dorkbot Sydney, a group of digital artists, hackers and nerds who do strange things with electricity. He'll be travelling through cables for his appearance on the day.

Candy Royalle on the other hand, will be there in full body and spirit. Candy writes and performs a no-holds-barred, full body-contact kind of poetry, so she's the perfect choice for the rough-and-tumble women of Roller Derby.

Jonathan Hill, a South Coast writer and passionate advocate of social justice and Aboriginal rights, is working with men from Club 2540 in the Oolong House drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre in Nowra.

While back in the heart of Sydney, Pip Smith will be sharing stories and verse with the visitors of the Wayside Chapel.

Club President Johanna Featherstone will be calling the meeting to order.

The Red Room Company publishes new poetry by Australian writers, in unusual ways.

Copyright © 2011 Red Room Company, All rights reserved.

5 Poetry Journal

The accomplished poet, Libby Hart, has just launched a great new on-line journal, Five Poetry. I have taken the liberty of posting her editorial for Issue One below. Or click on the post heading to see for yourself.

EDITORIAL

Five (English). A cúig (Irish). Fimm (Icelandic). Cinco (Spanish). Fyve (Scots). Five is the third prime number. Five is the number of appendages on the majority of starfish. Category 5 hurricanes are the most destructive on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. The five basic tastes are sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. The book of Psalms is arranged into five books. Muslims pray to Allah five times a day. The term “five by five” is used in radio communication and indicates perfect signal strength and clarity. The traditional Japanese calendar has a five-day weekly cycle. “Give me five” is a common phrase used preceding a High Five. Ancient Greek philosophers believed the universe to be made up of five classical elements, these being water, earth, air, fire and ether. And five is also the number of poets showcased in this first issue of Five Poetry Journal, a journal that aims to publish up to twenty five poets (in five issues) this year.

The overall look of Five Poetry Journal is plain and unassuming – everything that the poetry is not. The reason for this is because I wanted the words to speak for themselves and to allow a reader to enjoy such poems without distraction. I am absolutely thrilled to include the following five poets in this first issue of Five Poetry Journal. Although style and vision are diverse among this small but impressive group, there is an underlining element that subtly unites and speaks of the human condition, whether it be in high winds, discussing matters of the heart or through wry observation.

John Sibley Williams tackles life sideways most beautifully. Pippa Little writes of legacy, of the personal and sensual. Mary Branley covers the waterfront of grief for an ill friend and reflects on the familial and the landscape in which she resides. Eamon Ó Cléirigh’s raw poems hold a fire of faith and anticipation. His poem, ‘I Am’ echoes Amergin. And lastly, Ian C Smith and his ‘black heart’ wryly comments on memory, mortality and misanthropy.

Welcome to Five Poetry Journal, I hope you enjoy reading the first issue.

Libby Hart



It was great to see mention made of Sydney poet Michael Dransfield in the final episode of the brilliant mini-series on the birth of Cleo Magazine, Paper Giants. It was an admittedly brief cameo referencing the young genius' tragic demise at the ripe old age of 24, but it underlined what a poetic presence Dransfield was at the time. In light of this and the fact that we are around about the 38th anniversary of the poet's death (he died on Good Friday, 1973), I thought I would post a short poem he wrote when he was still in his teens.

Sea

You eat ships

you taste wrong

you isolate and desolate

you are not home to men;

yours is the

subtlest beauty

Michael Dransfield (1948-73)

Come in Spinner

  Despite concerns to the contrary, my comment regarding the inestimable Tug Dumbly being the first poet to bring down a government in this country has borne no more bitter fruit than my good friend referring to himself in a phone message last Friday evening as “Satan here”. Unlike a few of the more earnest and hidebound among us, poets the calibre of Tug understand that Mirth and Muse are two sides of the same coin. For both are symptoms of Fate.

  According to some, it is my fate to be the curmudgeon of Sydney letters. I do not take the responsibility lightly.

   It appears Tug Dumbly’s fate is to be Sydney literati's favourite raconteur while also blessed with two young mouths to feed. He chose to star in a tv advertisement endorsing the current  gambling regime. Flags were waved, beaches stormed, and the sonorous term un-Australian wafted forth over the subtle chink of schooner against tap and punter against Fate.

  Meanwhile, it is the fate of an alarming percentage of our fellow citizens to believe that they can stare down Fate. Their collective delusion has built cities in the Nevada desert and torn the heart out of some of our oldest communities. Whether you lay the blame at the “cargo cult” of the welfare state or the surplus-compulsion of capitalism, or simply pure laziness and greed, it would appear that the vast majority of Australians have had enough. Thus, despite my friend Tug Dumbly’s best efforts and a string of spurious and revealing arguments from the Clubs, the minority Federal government will not fall, at least not on this issue.

  Tip: arguing that it is only the revenue from problem gamblers that keeps alive funding for community groups is as big a Furphy as the burglar I once caught napping in my bed.

  In the meantime, good citizens, don’t hesitate to have a flutter on Two-up this Anzac Day. My father used to say it was the fairest game ever devised.

Latest news on Collected Works Bookshop

Report of Collected Works "reference group"  held at COLLECTED WORKS BOOKSHOP, Saturday 19th March, 2 - 4pm

This particular group of friends included Heather Clarke, Steve Grimwade, Kathryn Hamman, Jennifer Harrison, Libby Hart, Kris Hemensley, Ray Liversidge. There were several apologies; in addition as many other people prefer to be in email contact. My report is going out to this variety of friends of Collected Works Bookshop. In addition it will be posted on the Collected Works Bookshop Facebook page and my Poetry & Ideas blog. (Touch all bases!) Please feel free to send it on.

The non-exclusive nature of this group was reiterated. We consider you all good friends of Collected Works Bookshop.  Long may this remain!

Lots of water under the bridge since the initial rallying to the cause in October, November, December '10.
For one thing, John Hunter's creation of the Collected Works Bookshop Facebook Page has proved an invaluable means of communication, especially for publicising the book launches & readings at the Shop. It's also a reflection of the Shop's tone & colour. Readers, writers interacting with the Shop around events, books & ideas.
And the huge success of the pre-Christmas shopping/raffle/auction/benefit (8th December, '10) is still resonating; e.g., although there wasnt & isnt a debt involved, the sum raised on that glorious night allowed us to begin the new year in a better financial position than for some while past.
The higher rent has now kicked in, so whilst the very necessary restocking of the shelves continues we are keeping an eye on the higher outgoings.

The 8th December event reminded us that in the '80s & '90s, Collected Works Bookshop used to hold a Christmas Party. In recent times we have served Xmas Cake (Sheila Anderson's to begin with, Clementa O'Brien's more recently) & Port in the last couple of weeks of December; but  we feel an actual event should return to our calendar! This is an 'action' for which we're all enthusiastic & will now begin to plan it.

An idea fielded at the initial Friends meeting, at Jenny Harrison's house on the 21st November, '10, was that of a Big Read. Philip Salom & Jenny were its proponents, endorsed by the rest of us. Since then, Ian McBryde has made the same suggestion. We well remember the event organized by Ian & Ken Smeaton,  summer 2003, which celebrated the Shop's successful move from 256 Flinders Street to the Nicholas Building. (It was one of two important community initiatives : the other being the very deep hat Barry Hill sent around to colleagues which was to offset the Shop's removal costs. And how! Barry's original petition graces the Shop notice-board.) At the big read ('read a poem, buy a book') a multitude of poets, across the poetry community, read for their  supper, everyone bought a book, & the Shop catered. It was a great event and might yet be a model again. (Photos of many of the contributors to the event are permanently on view in the Shop.) 

The thinking behind holding such an event acknowledges the ever vulnerable economic reality of such an enterprise as Collected Works Bookshop. It also offers a very simple remedy. As Steve Grimwade reasoned, the $$ figures we're talking about are relatively small. We trust to the average cash-flow continuing, but the injection of a few thousand dollars (via one or two events a year) goes a long way to ensuring the Shop's viability. Naturally we're all aware of the Borders/A & R crash & its reverberations.

At yesterday's (19th March) meeting I was at pains to define & re-present our project. The point about Collected Works is that it isnt just another bookshop (although at a rude survival level it is)!
Collected Works Bookshop survives & thrives today as the expression of an idea articulated in the early 1980s, by a group of Melbourne writers, editors & small publishers, on behalf of & enrolling the support of the writing community, to establish a bookshop which would stock local Melbourne & Australian literature (especially poetry) in a context of world literature. Kathryn Hamman & Libby Hart's specific reference to the current bookshop as reflective of (the) community & important to it, is gratifyingly consonant with Collected Works' original impetus.  
It has always been a writers & readers interjection into the mainstream book trade. The Shop, therefore, is the space where these particular interactions occur : writers with each other (for information & exchange), writers with readers, the small press with the commercial mainstream, local literature with the world.

Collected Works is a special place. Steve asked me what it was Collected Works sought from its organizational colleagues (as it were). Fair question : it's common knowledge now that we were graciously & generously invited to consider relocating to the Wheeler Centre, but declined. Independence is an issue for Collected Works notwithstanding the fact that all of the Wheeler Centre's residents are independent.  For Collected Works, though, a geographical independence is necessary. As supportive as we are of the Centre for Books & Writing, & for that matter, of the City of Literature, Collected Works believes in locational & logistical diversity. Collected Works is its own eccentric self but also a friend, even a potential satellite of & for larger entities like the Victorian Writes Centre, Australian Poetry, Wheeler, MWF et al.
So what we seek is support for the continuing existence of the bookshop assuming the acknowledgment of our historical status & continuing value as a writers' & readers' space. Although it's a fact that Collected Works is mentioned in the UNESCO City of Literature document & referred to in accounts of the contemporary Australian poetry scene, history is often dismissed or forgotten. Believing we're still relevant in this day & age, we'll endeavour to keep Collected Works in mind & in view!

The Shop hasnt had as busy a calendar of launchings & readings for many years as now. Some of this is the result of presses & individuals identifying with the Shop in its hour of need, & some  the serendipity of a normal year. There are three events to come in March, more in May, June, July... (In April I plan to visit family & friends in the UK for a couple of weeks; Retta will keep the Shop open.)

The meetings in future will be occur on a needs basis. Obviously, this can be triggered by the Shop or the commuity. However, email, telephone & personal contact is expected & invited. 

Thank you to everyone for your support hitherto & ongoing commitment.

Love & best wishes, on behalf of Collected Works,
Kris Hemensley    

New Poetry by Jonathan Clare

Writing in The Quiet

If you knew me I'd be a famous man.

Maybe with nothing but at least a friend

if you say goodbye it'd give me a chance to say hello

Because maybe, if you told someone that you knew me

They could know me too

- Jonathan Clare 2011

In The Wild

Students lounging in an air of their own in a bubble a sphere of a world where the population is one but simultaneously everyone.

 Lounging in unconscious content unthinking of anything but the sun and its glare and their squint to protect their eyes and occasionally brushing a hand slowly through their hair.

 Lounging on sandstone created some aeon ago.

 Lounging with their backs to the baroque with their backs to society with their backs to the world and tomorrow.

 Lounging maybe with another but cast off he/she is like some sidekick companion barely even noticeable.

 Lounging with a camera floating and glinting its pink casing away from their face and onto everything.

 What a snapshot.

What a picture to misconceive.

They just snapped a picture of me,

And how beautiful it is to watch the students lounge like reptiles warming blood,

How strange it must seem (vaguely a mist in front of a cloud)

But they caught me with a click and they caught me catching them catching me

Sweetly insidious beings.

Us loungers,

We are the mundane religion

Modestly rebelling against mundane religion.

- Jonathan Clare 2011

New Poetry by rob walker

Cloze procedure

we are at the zoo when
your doctor calls you

talk about the lump i
fill gaps from a half

conversation sun beats
on our bare heads  i

think of cancer nervous
meerkats sit up take

notice as you ask a
phone do I need an

ultrasound we all turn
heads inquisitively

awaiting an answer

- rob walker 2011


rob walker is an Adelaide poet.

New Poetry by Tricia Dearborn

 

Night vision

I take off the clarity of the world

and place it on my bedside table.

No use for it with my lids pressed

neatly together against the dark.

Slowly my brainwaves settle

into delta rhythm. Old lovers

breathe into my ear, or leave me

yet again. I fly. Breathe underwater.

Watch tornados gather. Waking, I fill

the kettle, translate the night’s happenings

into ink. The morning news

from the land the sleeping see.

- Tricia Dearborn 2011

At the laundromat on rue St Florent

My tired reflected face is framed

by the curving leap

of my jeans ­—

always the last to relinquish

the final skerricks of damp,

not dry till the rivets

will singe your skin.

I watch as the jeans submit

with seeming grace, or joy,

tumbling to rest, then leaning back

legs spread as they’re lifted and tossed

across in streaming freefall.

Like the fearless girl lining up again

for the wildest ride.

Though later, when the denim

flattens momentarily

to the glass, it’s more like

someone get me out of here.

- Tricia Dearborn 2011

The answer

If you want to take your mind off your troubles, create a god. It’s easy.

Toss back a few too many drinks. The Hangover God demands greasy chips and egg and bacon rolls; asks that you tend the altar of your headache, surrender to a queasy inability to come to grips with the world. 

Pick a fight with a loved one. The God of Relationship Dramas encourages outbursts and recriminations. Practise door-slamming and seething silence. Make offerings of blame and blazing rows.

Or step onto the God of Perfection’s hamster-wheel. Forget the roses, forget the sunsets: focus on getting it right; being first; being best. For penance, each error a tiny whip.

The Caffeine God will smite you if you haven’t performed the holy rites by nine. Enjoy the temporary bliss. Be warned: this god will mess with your nerves if you dare to leave the fold.

The God of Thinness says less of you is always better; asks that you stand side-on in front of mirrors, sucking in your stomach; do secret, impromptu skin-fold tests on belly, upper arms and thighs.

Or bow to a God of Mercy and Compassion who’ll throw you in hell if you cross the line. Forgo your sensual animal nature; spend your precious human hours striving not to sin.

To take your mind off your troubles, create a god. Forget you created it. 

- Tricia Dearborn 2011

 

Tricia Dearborn is an award-winning poet and short-story writer whose work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies in Australia, the UK, the US and India. Her poem sequence ‘The Ringing World’ was joint winner of the 2008 Poets Union Poetry Prize, and her poem ‘Come In, Lie Down’ appeared in The Best Australian Poetry 2008. Her first collection was Frankenstein’s Bathtub (Interactive Press, 2001). In 2009 she received a Developing Writers grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. She is currently completing her second collection.

Two Fires Poetry Competition

Two Fires Poetry CompetitionFirst prize worth $1000
Closing date 1 March 2001

 

Two Fires Poetry Competition for poem up to 30 lines

Download entry form from www.twofiresfestival.com.au
Results will be announced at the Two Fires Festival of Arts & Activism in Braidwood NSW April 1st to 3rd.

Enquiries 02 48461075

New Poetry by Mike Berger

Fire in the Kerri

Running like hell straight

for the billabong; fire biting

my arse.

Pushed by devil winds,

flames jump and explode.

Gum trees are matchsticks.

Orange tongues searing the

sky; dense smoke stings

my eyes.

Whirlwinds wind in

tight circles. Blackened

earth gapes where

fire danced.

Diving headlong, the

cold water steals my breath.

Bombarded by flaming embers;

choking in the dense smoke.

The roar of the fire passes;

leaving trees smoldering,

emitting bright orange glows.

Despite its brutal charge,

the fire was an awesome 

thing. 

- Mike Berger 2010

Mike Berger is an MFA, PhD. He is retired and writes poetry and short stories full time. He has been writing poetry for less than two years. His work appear in seventy-one journals. He has published two books of short stories and three poetry chapbooks. He is a member of The Academy of  American Poets.

A video homage to poet Jim Harrison by John Hospodka

 According to Wikipedia.......

James "Jim" Harrison (born December 11, 1937) is an American author known for his poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and writings about food. He has been called "a force of nature,^[1]" and his work has been compared to that of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.^[2] Harrison's characters tend to be rural by birth and have retained some of the best of an agrarian pioneer ancestry by dint of their intelligence and some formal education. They have attuned themselves to the best of the natural and civilized worlds, surrounded by excesses but determined to live their lives as well as possible.^[3]

New Poetry by Michael Lee Johnson

Leaves in December

Leaves, a few stragglers in

December, just before Christmas,

some nailed down crabby

to ground frost,

some crackled by the bite

of nasty wind tones.

Some saved from the matchstick

that failed to light.

Some saved from the rake

by a forgetful gardener.

For these few freedom dancers

left to struggle with the bitterness:

wind dancers

wind dancers

move your frigid

bodies shaking like icicles 

hovering but a jiffy in sky,

kind of sympathetic to the seasons,

reluctant to permanently go,

rustic, not much time more to play.

- Michael Lee Johnson 2007  (Bluepepper 2010)

For more information regarding this poet, simply click on the post heading.

Wing it!

I have begun to tweet in my drive to harvest as much good poetry for Bluepepper as is humanly possible for an aging misanthrope with legs too long and pockets too deep and ears that pop whenever a black cockatoo flies east. So hungry am I for the best, dear reader. If you do not know the protocol by now, just glance to your right in the sidebar.

New Poetry by Stuart Barnes

THE HAIRCUT

I like men

I like the masculine

- Peggy Lee

It's not the mirror I 
     despise 

but the mist as 
hard as a fist against
my face, the Freddy 
Krueger fingers, 
the concatenation of
florid adjectives, the
peroxide highlights,
O drug-fucked slut,
Ricardo, François, Shai.

- Stuart Barnes 2010

GRIEF’S

livid as the Führer’s flag, not sheepy-woolly grey.

Appalling, like the gorgons, a pall that smokes

the living, the dripping never expunged from the

Christmas china. Melbourne’s inclement weather,

a pail of tar, a shock of feathers, prevailed since

his positive diagnosis. Her blinded emerald eye,

their broken bones not knitted, enough to twist

this corkscrew through the Arctic, Hades’ gates.

The vacuum, black, in which no man survives.

- Stuart Barnes 2010

New words and pictures by Wayne H W. Wolfson

Siphon

There is a voice coming down the tube. I want to say tunnel but even with my eyes only half open, I can see it would be too narrow to traverse. There is no trick of perspective the entrance is not off in the distance but small and right by my head.

The whole thing would seem more possible if I were to say the lining of the tube was made from experience but I can not. Although it too is an intangible, it seems right to say instead, years.

At first it seems just like a pressure change but it is actually someone passing by the other end of the tube, stopping. Now, a low hum, which travels the entire length of the tube, slowly becoming words. Talking, fragmented as if a secret told over the course of a dream.

 - "Cats" (pastel & paper)

 Faintly, I smell lilacs, it is her. She speaks to me; she tells me that she had a baby anyways, with someone else. From my end, I was going to put my mouth up to the hole to also speak but realize that I had not cared about anything that she had to say. Holding my tongue, I stuff a piece of wadded paper into the hole before walking away. 

- Wayne H W. Wolfson 2010

(for more info on Wayne, just click on the post heading)

The Circus

Apart from the resources boom of the past half-century, it would appear my country's greatest export, since Australia Square first punched at the virgin Sydney heavens as a perfect circle, is a particular breed of itinerant ratbag intent on shaping the world in their own image, or at least of leaving their mark on it like a child scratching her name in a desk the first day of term.

The latest in this long, snaking, checkered line is, of course, the Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, physics graduate, computer programmer and hippy child. Like many of his generation (of which I am, need you be reminded, one of the eldest of the elder statesmen), Assange bears no allegiances and is innately suspicious of anyone in authority. That such a stance seems blind to the rather obvious paradox of his own and his institution's sudden ascendancy, I will leave to one side for the moment.

For those of you whose only experience of cyberspace is Bluepepper (and I know you are legion, or the sky would not be the colour it is), Wikileaks is a "controversial whistle-blowing website", according to the print and electronic media, who all in all seem strangely ambivalent about the phenomenon Assange has set in motion. Perhaps because in their jaded wisdom they clearly see the paradox I mentioned above, or perhaps because they are a lazy, pampered breed of lapdogs happy to see someone else doing all the dirty work, or perhaps because they see nothing so earth-shattering in the material Wikileaks has managed to get its hands on.

Truth will out, for it forms the bridge between our suspicions and our latent paranoia, beneath which a dark, slick something flows, well, thickly. Anyone who has read Evelyn Waugh or suffered piles through a Wodehouse knows that the stamp of the pampered and infantile is to accuse rather than empathise, to suspect rather than think.

Perhaps it is more the means of conveyance than the substance of the matter that is the matter here, when all is said and done.

In the latest chapter of the Wikileaks/Assange saga, roughly one quarter of a million confidential diplomatic documents from Government cables right across the world have found their way onto the Wikileaks site. If there is a bias, it is merely through weight of traffic from and between the US diplomatic missions, for as I said before, Julian Assange and his cohorts appear to be equally suspicious of authority no matter where it crops up to impede the mind and body of we ones so burdened and so gifted. 

However, nothing I have read so far has struck me as particularly earth-shattering, although I must admit I have had a good deal of trouble gaining access to the Wikileaks site and thus have had to rely on the very mainstream media Assange and co were hoping to circumvent. You could play a good game of poker with the ironies and paradoxes stacking up in this story, but does any of it make us any the wiser? 

Remember that we must elect someone to represent our collective interests, whether through consensus or the myriad shades of coersion. There is simply no way around this in our flawed binary universe. We cannot present our collective interests individually and expect real action. Such a system is called a committee, and at international level is little more than a sound and picture archive. Assange believes we have a right to be informed, and we do of course, but only when there is a reasonable expectation that we will be both willing and able to act upon the information so kindly proffered us. Is this the case here?

The recent startling example in mine and Assange's native country of collective action against a Prime Minister reneging on his promises to act on climate change would suggest that perhaps, at least at a domestic level, the possibility exists. But international relations are another beast entirely, and I fear that behemoth, the generation born immediately after the last world war, has once again led us down the garden path here. For they are a generation moulded by a world of polarities; through no fault of their own, nevertheless a fact that goes some way to explaining the lurching nature of their collective life from unsustainable (and rather short-lived) idealism to equally unsustainable narcissistic materialism, and I see no evidence that they possess either the patience or the capacity to see the world as it really is: more 1913 than 1949.

I can't help wondering if this latest bout of leaks will merely thicken our collective hides and accelerate a trend in international affairs that has been marked for some time now, in which all concerned play a timid game of watch and wait, aspiring to only the most easily attainable goals, and placing the real global challenges (such as climate change, or the north-south disparity, or a lasting Middle East solution) to the endless back burner of committees and sub-committees where the next generation of faffers and milksops are given a chance to cut their teeth.

What price so much chatter in so many ears when the chatter was already too timid to pierce a wall, any wall?