Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated.

Because I am young, and I am hip and so beautiful.
I am going to be a supermodel

I did not eat yesterday.
And I am not going to eat today.
And I am not going to eat tomorrow.

Because I am going to be a supermodel.

It is only in isolate flecks that / something / is given off

A bee's dream. Grace Street, Sandy Bay. September 2011.

There are things that you like and things that you do not like and there are things in between. I suspect that the in-between category is the biggest for me, but by golly "things that you don't like" is a biggun.

To Elsie, William Carlos Williams

The pure products of America
go crazy—
mountain folk from Kentucky

or the ribbed north end of
Jersey
with its isolate lakes and

valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves
old names
and promiscuity between

devil-may-care men who have taken
to railroading
out of sheer lust of adventure—

and young slatterns, bathed
in filth
from Monday to Saturday

to be tricked out that night
with gauds
from imaginations which have no

peasant traditions to give them
character
but flutter and flaunt

sheer rags—succumbing without
emotion
save numbed terror

under some hedge of choke-cherry
or viburnum—
which they cannot express—

Unless it be that marriage
perhaps
with a dash of Indian blood

will throw up a girl so desolate
so hemmed round
with disease or murder

that she'll be rescued by an
agent—
reared by the state and

sent out at fifteen to work in
some hard-pressed
house in the suburbs—

some doctor's family, some Elsie—
voluptuous water
expressing with broken

brain the truth about us—
her great
ungainly hips and flopping breasts

addressed to cheap
jewelry
and rich young men with fine eyes

as if the earth under our feet
were
an excrement of some sky

and we degraded prisoners
destined
to hunger until we eat filth

while the imagination strains
after deer
going by fields of goldenrod in

the stifling heat of September
Somehow
it seems to destroy us

It is only in isolate flecks that
something
is given off

No one
to witness
and adjust, no one to drive the car

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Now hold still Henry, we'll have that snake poison sucked out of your ear in no time...

Photography helps people to see.

Beetlemania #1. Bellerive Beach, August 2011.

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene is essentially a book about unhappiness. Like most of Greene's great novels, it pursues one man's journey through a series of moral dilemmas as the 'righteous' are tested. Oh how they are tested!

The character of Henry Scobie is probably Greene's greatest creations, a British colonial police officer stationed in some backwater West African town during World War Two. A Catholic, Scobie is indeed a righteous man who pays (in spades) for that trait.

Happiness, duty, pity and piety beguile Scobie as he journeys down a path that willingly secures his own eternal damnation (while we watch). Indeed, any tale whereby damnation is assured through and excess of compassion is bound to be an interesting one. To add to the uplifting tone, the book is also about failure: failure to love, failure to be loved, failure to communicate, failure to please, failure to protect; indeed, Scobie's ultimate sacrifice itself ends in failure.

This is a book that kicks you in the shin, offers a hand, then punches you in the face. It then offers you another hand up, helps dust you off and then hits you with a cast iron frying pan. Then it helps you up again only to kick you in the stomach and drop a microwave on your head. The it tells you, "okay enough now" and slowly walks away, only to spin around and give you one last kick in the head.

Crikey it is a magnificent bit of work. Absolutely recommended.



Beetlemania #2. Bellerive Beach, August 2011.

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

No, he isn't tied to a stake and he is not about to be shot.

---Transmission ends---

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

All in all it's just another crack in the wall. Princes Street, Sandy Bay. August 2011.

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
"Christ..."

2. How much cash do you have on you?
54 dollars and 80 cents.

3. What’s a word that rhymes with DOOR?
Rapport.

4. Favorite planet?
Venus.

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
No idea.

6. What is your favourite ring tone on your phone?
"Ring ring."

7. What shirt are you wearing?
A cream short-sleeve one with blue(-ish) pinstripes.

8. Do you label yourself?
Not consciously.

9. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently wearing?
Dr. Martens boots.

10. Bright or Dark Room?
This morning: dark. Usually: bright.

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?
I love them very, very much. Whomever they are.

12. What does your watch look like?
This.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Sleeping.

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell mobile telephone say?
Oddly enough, it was a longish and complicated matter than involved a little detective work this morning.

15. Where is your nearest 7-11?
There are none in Tasmania. The Internet tells me that the nearest is located in Rosebud, Victoria, approximately 793 kilometres away.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

A very coy Henry doesn't quite know what to make of the steaming hot springs...

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.

What beast begat such marks upon their journey thither? Little Howrah Beach, August 2011.

Little feet dainty little feet delicate small feet elegant modest feet graceful slight feet refined petite feet exquisite diminutive feet pretty tiny feet petite minute feet neat miniature feet subtle unassuming feet tormenting unpretentious feet alluring diffident feet teasing humble feet attractive meek feet persuasive reticent feet influential ordinary feet convincing reasonable feet believable deferential feet credible obliging feet.

What sort of feet do you have?

He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

Calisthenics + jigsaws x In Memoriam A. H. H. = trouble...

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

Once, twice, three times a lady. Sandy Bay Veterinary Clinic, Russell Street, Sandy Bay. August 2011.

So there was a man, and a woman. The man was quite fond of the woman. The woman tolerated the man. The man would buy the woman things. The woman accepted these gifts, but insisted that they were not at all necessary.

She quite liked the flowers, resented the chocolate fudge but her favourite presents of all were the jewellery pieces. Glimmering brooches, glittering ear-rings and nifty necklaces designed to showcase a dangling décolletage. Indeed, it was the man's persistence in the fripperies of fashion that eventually convinced her to grant him certain amatory privileges reserved for only the most generous suitors.

You can imagine her surprise when he knocked her back. It seems that he was only interested in her Wi-Fi connection. He was later spotted buying Lily of the Valley for a busty little librarian with a penchant for online gaming and watersports.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

Okay, competition time...

What are they watching?

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

The back of Magnet Court. Sandy Bay, August 2011.

This looks less like the back of a shopping complex and more like that prison that used to be seen next to the Antigua Recreation Ground in St. Johns (which for mine always seemed to be the most joyous test cricket venue in the world). Indeed, I can imagine a be-frocked Gravy toking on a joint as long as your arm and grinding out to some steeldrum....

However, we are not in Antigua, we are in Sandy Bay. The best that you might hope for is a sad young trendy in eyeliner humming to Coldplay.

Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past him.

Him: "Hello Dave."

You: "I'm sorry?"

Him: "Is that Dave?"

You: "Oh, I'm sorry, I think you've got the wrong house."

Him: "Okay, is Dave there?"

You: "No, there's no one called Dave here."

Him: "Okay."

A man's conscience and his judgement is the same thing; and as the judgement, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.

What's going on? Criterion Street, Hobart. August 2011.

Sunday Top Five day and I think today I'll recap My Top Five Poems That I Have Featured On This Here Blog!

i like my body when it is with your, e.e. cummings

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps, Galway Kinnell

Not Waving but Drowning, Stevie Smith

Small Frogs Killed On The Highway, James Wright

PLEA FOR A HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS LEEDS, by Barry Tebb