This will hurt me...

To my mind, crayfish/lobsters rank amongst the most overrated of foods. It's not rubbish by any means, but it doesn't really rock my boat. That said, people must like it if they're prepared to pay through the nose. You don't have to look too far to find a cray boat here in Hobart at any time of the year. Who does she think she is.... , by Shel Silverstein I asked the Zebra: Are you black with white stripes? Or white with black stripes? And the zebra asked me: Are you good with bad habits? Or are you bad with good habits? Are you noisy with quiet times? Or are you quiet with noisy times? Are you happy with some sad days? Or are you sad with some happy days? Are you neat with some sloppy ways? Or are you sloppy with some neat ways? And on and on and on and on And on and on he went. I’ll never ask a zebra About stripes Again

This bloody great big hand can be found next to the children's park in Montague Bay, itself found right next to the Tasman Bridge. I think that it has something to do with man's inhumanity to man. Or something. Not Waving but Drowning , by Stevie Smith Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.

Ezra spied these little fellows paddling around the pond at the Botanical Gardens here in Hobart. They're ducks, by the way, not tigers. Today's poem? The Duck , by Ogden Nash Behold the duck. It does not cluck. A cluck it lacks. It quacks. It is specially fond Of a puddle or pond. When it dines or sups, It bottoms ups.

Seagulls, council buildings, museum roofs, flags, it's all happening here! Today the gang and I are headed up to the loveliest coast of Tasmania - the North West Coast - for some well earned rest [HAH!]. As Internet access will be uneven, if at all, I'm programming the robot again to take care of the posting while we're on the road. I've instructed him to scan the archives and post some of my favourite poems each morning. Consider this week my very own Poetry Festival . Feel free to share your picks if you think I'm backing duds. First up? i like my body when it is with your , e.e. cummings i like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more. i like your body. i like what it does, i like its hows. i like to feel the spine of your body and its bones, and the trembling -firm-smooth ness and which i will again and again and again kiss, i like kissing this and that of you, i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz of...

Here are the silos down in Salamanca again on a brisk autumn afternoon. I am sick of the sight of those silos, yet I keep taking photographs of them. That is the first sign of my debasement. I need a good dose of revolutionary zeal. I need some consciousness raising. I need a stiff drink. Here, have a poem from a younger version of me. Dialectical Materialism #12 To inhale the feeling that radiated the room was to breathe in visions of tropical beauty, lazy days lying on beaches to taste an unknown something that reached right down into my testicles. Motionless in a darkened corner, my chance had come, but alas, a strange fear gripped me and I could not. I'd have liked to pay some service to your eyes; a deep blue sea raging fiercely on the inside as angels cluster around the blessed iris. And yes I know that I'm the most useless being to have ever walked on this earth. But you will never know how much I wanted you. (I'll never say)

Showcasing the excellent zoom on my camera, this snap was taken laying flat on my back underneath a very tall tree. The leaf in question was very near to the top, a good seven or so metres away. I quite like this one. Here is a poem based upon an unfortunate experience that I had just last Sunday evening... To find a poo To find a poo is a shock. "Whose poo are you?" Looking hither, looking thither. The culprit remains at large.

Even though they tend to dominate my day to day existance, I have been very good and not overloaded you with images of the silos down here in Salamanca Place. That said, I couldn't resist this one. I'm in a Galway Kinnell mood today. So here is my favourite short Kinnell poem. Prayer Whatever happens. Whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that.

The big boys court is just up the road from my work, which means that if you walk down that street of a morning, you often see the real nasty characters innocent until proven guilty being loaded from a cage on wheels into a cage around a door (leading to another cage just inside the door, one suspects). I usually have the camera safely tucked away, lest we have some kind of misunderstanding . justice a full Phil meant nothing of it. "a joke, a stupid joke gone wrong" (fuck forgive me look at me don't judge me) to the charge in court (a full six months later) phil could only say "sorry" nothing (quite so dramatic) was intended.

This supermarket trolley was just sitting on Parliament lawn one morning. Just sitting there like the Mary Celeste . No idea how it got there, as the nearest supermarket would be a good few kilometres away by foot (with a ruddy steep hill as well). I liked the mystery of it, so I wrote a poem about it. i did. i never did understand. i did i never ever did understand. understanding understand? never did i did. never. did. under. done. could. maybe. never. i didn't couldn't wouldn't shouldn't. do you understand that i never did. confidence. thing a. our. i did. never. understand.

Springs and Magnets They come from grey concrete buildings, fibro dwellings faded pastel suburban nightmare landscapes varnished viciously with repressed energy that explodes at night. The night is like any other, the kids move slowly yet surely creeping across crumbling bridges from afar (and not-so-far), nervous impatience growing steadily. The room is a pulsating beat spewing forth blue veils, whispering secrets as eyes adjust to the flickering lights. Fascinating flesh tones shifting at an unfamiliar speed- slow motion flashes interfused within the experience. Through the smoke and the pounding ultra bass ambience, they twist cool, yet somehow impersonal.

In a hurry, can't stop. Here's a poem! Dawn William Carlos Williams Ecstatic bird songs pound the hollow vastness of the sky with metallic clinkings-- beating color up into it at a far edge,--beating it, beating it with rising, triumphant ardor,-- stirring it into warmth, quickening in it a spreading change,-- bursting wildly against it as dividing the horizon, a heavy sun lifts himself--is lifted-- bit by bit above the edge of things,--runs free at last out into the open--!lumbering glorified in full release upward-- songs cease.

It's been a very long day and I am awfully tired. Henry's asleep. Ezra's asleep. I figure that the best that I can offer you is this picture of a building and this wonderfully bleak poem that I have liked for years and years and years. Death of a ball turret gunner Randall Jarrell From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

It's been a long, looooooooooonnnnng day, and I am very tired, so I shall offer you this photo of the corner of this sandstone building here in Hobart town. In apology for the lack of (vaguely) amusing banter, here is a poem of mine, which dates somewhere in the vicinity of 1998. Audrey is a Bed Enamoured, Audrey waits. A serene scene; lush with stylish strokes of elegance. And I won't be able to sleep with you waiting stoically on my mind. Comfortably naked shapeless yet with perfect shape. This is what I want Unquestionable assurance: refuge- sanctity in your sanctuary. And hold me now, come to me and I ache Wrapped in gentle arms, the darkness bright, I hope to slide inside you down deeper and deeper Tonight And perhaps I can spend forever here with you.

Someone may be able to guess what today's photo is of, you can find them on a lot of streets around these parts. I know that certain readers (well, one, hello Julie ), have been asking for more poems, and I felt a bit guilty just stopping like that. But as I said before, poetry was only ever a diversion, as I generally consider myself a prose man. I've got books filled with little bits an pieces, beginnings of things, endings of things, dialogue, short stories, complicated narratives, simple word play, outlines of novels never written; you name it, I've started it. So, instead of giving you a poem that I am probably less than happy with, I'd share an experiment in prose from the dark ages of 1998 that I remember liking at the time. I've edited it slightly, chopped a bit here, fiddled with a word there, so let's call this a "2008 re-mix". Now, some people might find this tricky to read, but my advice is to just let it flow, don't stop too long firs...

Given that Winter has come and gone, I better post this photograph before it becomes even less relevant to Hobart today. Unlike many, I quite like Winter. One of the better things about Tasmania is that we have clearly differentiated seasons, and a nice cold Winter brings a lot to a year long table. Today is just Henry and I doing the bachelor pad thing. Unfortunately Jen and Ezra have had to zip up to Sydney to attend the funeral of one Gerald Fitzgerald, her grandfather and a lovely fellow to boot. Gerald had not been well for a while, but was as sprightly as ever and as sharp as a tack until the very end at the ripe old age of 86. So to the Fitzgerald clan of Sydney I can only offer the above photograph and this poem of somebody else's in his memory. Five Bells Kenneth Slessor Time that is moved by little fidget wheels Is not my time, the flood that does not flow. Between the double and the single bell Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells From the dark warship ridi...

Finally I have reached the last of the five old poems that I pulled out of the notebook. This one has me channeling Ginsberg and messing about with tabulation. June 1996, and I really must have been an enfant terrible . I don't care what anyone says, I still like this one. Far more so than a certain poetry tutor at university anyway. I should post some of his poetry one day, that really would be good for a laugh! [ MEOW . Kitty, get back in the cage!] The Outer Hebrides hip cool               cat knows the score. sweet sixteen and                                never                                            been                                                     fucked in his arse. one hundred                        and fifty dollars is all it takes               he fakes                               for fifty more।

Here we have a juicy little number from July of 1997. T'was an excellent year: I discovered the joys of political theory, 'playing it cool', Wilco's Being There , a certain degree of 'swagger' and was turned off the UTas English Department for good. I also managed to get some poems, and even more prose pieces published here and there. I have chosen, however, yet another 'off the cuff' bit to post, as I think that time has been far kinder to it than the tosh that got in the luvvie journals. romeo and juliet now that i love (love!) you and you love me (lights out outer than outer can be) can’t can’t do any more (can’t!) (why cry now i can’t see?) me and you happy to be neither too far neither to be

Here we go again, another quick one, this time from November 1998. This poem is a little heavy handed in the symbolism department, but I like it nonetheless. It rather depresses me that I play the 'homoerotic' card to shock (give that I don't find it all that shocking); but I figured that religious iconography, homoerotism and prostitution all add up to something offensive to someone out there. Forgive me, I was young... Last night i met Jesus no time ago. walking the wall “Jesus!” i cried. (inside) mine eyes fell down trouser level (the glory!) Christ stood still watching my every move.

Alright y'all, continuing my own take on the promotion of gen-yoo-ine Tasmanian writing, I have another McCracken original poem to share with the world. I am saving a couple with nice homoerotic undertones that I really do like for the after dark crowd, and today will offer up a pithy little piece about fancying girls from the lazy days of early December, 1998. time gentlemen please is it the way that she belies a ‘no’ of ‘yes’ (surely Audrey herself interminably is) rooting out questions (or answers) perhaps no more doings of sin ever the equal of you

Today's image features (yet again) the new man in my life, dear little Ezra. To my eye, he evokes Caligula at his indulgent, spoiled best, draped across his mothers’ forearm. All that I can really say to this image is, “I wish I could do that”. That said, I wouldn’t want anyone to think that Ezra resembled Caligula in other ways, of course, unlike another certain mini-Mussolini that I can think of. Ezra is the most laid-back dude that I think I’ve ever met. As Blackie (of The Ruth Spoon ) noted in an earlier comments thread, the second biennial Tasmanian Living Writers' Week is coming up (from August 15 to 24). Canny readers will note that the week will last ten days, but remember, it is a writers week, not mathematicians week. I would speculate that they might be emulating the decades of the French Republican Calendar , but c’mon, we’re talking Tasmanian writers here! Anyway, I figured that it wasn't fair to keep putting up other people's poems without offering so...