Collaboration with Ender Baskan. First published in Rabbit 37.
BIG TIME
summer 2021-22
approaching the whole thing at once we said big time
said it again when we first met beth
it was all i could offer tailspun while
you hashed it out i said
big time in the gaps
not meaning the big time
posed by peter gabriel
peter who’s on his way
making it baying pictures
of wealth,
no, big time
meaning ania in meanjin 1979
a comet singing syncopated infinities
with poem world castanets
ania
a liberation poetics
hole punching calendars and clocks
into excess of rhythmic strictures
meaning domesticated bamboo
bunched wild over colorbond
scraping blue crags across
signals it might rain
meaning mute tvs lathering
the foodcourt meaning not a feeling
but the prospect of its recurrence
approaching the whole thing at once we said
it again and again
big time
a sonic salute to bewilderment
we jettisoned the the
and drove
up the continent
freed up no feeds no streams no harangue in
the car park
no polis
in a city tv antennas need to reach up very high
the poets do too
in the desert
our feelers emerge unabated
up down and around
an imminent decalibration
the absence of sewerage
ambient and otherwise
first we piss on the side of the highway in relief
then shit into the dirt with deep sincerity
beyond that disastered modality
beyond that stuck seiko
beyond that entropic metropole
at escape velocity
we can hear our heart beat
our breath is metre
we commute into the arena of my concession speech to you
here i am unconditionally sorry for all and sundry
i am humbled i am ok
sophie is pregnant others say expecting
a comrade on the inside already attuned to our voices
our timbre our camber our speed
fibre optics are four million times quicker than the nerves "
but always in deficit despite the bravado of engineers
so now the road limits surge up from 100 to 110 to
130 as the dirt says geologic thousands and millions
says deep time
or eternal return
or everywhen
whatever we say when the occident hits its limit
when the libido divests from the dow jones
now i call ania from atop a hill outside alice
1. you’re where, why?
2. nothing to miss here!
3. everything’s getting worse and culture is dying
4. but how are you? how is it there?
after three decades i began to topple the myths of settled land
raised up grazing on the streets of tullamarine
yellow grass and planes leaving overhead
we lived in our consulate
turkish meant our house our language our hospitality
turkey meant the silk of returned family
to the airport for their early morning arrivals
we wait for them to appear from behind steel doors
my cousins and i rushing to open suitcases for gifts
my dede appears with new teeth new suit and a tan
my anneanne embraces us tears streaming, a new ring
in 2013 i went there finally
a revolt underway in istanbul
i joined them on the streets
they threw their arms around me
i stood with them i understood
something about history and teleology
later in malatya eastern turkey cusp of kurdistan
i fell into loaf and saunter
the dance and ha ha ha
hammer of coppersmiths
rings through the bazaar
one man digs
a hole and six watch
backgammon dice and tea in glass
felt hats and apricots copper and brass
here there was no future on the clock
the fruiterer said to me in front of his son
better he leave here while he can
better he go with you to australia
better he speaks english while turkey shakes
better he hurl his body further into the global supply chain
before alternatives become monstrous and weird
at the airport my father was there, waiting
i was stoned and teenaged in beechworth
big time we groaned
synchronising our cone piece’s
ignition to the song’s drop
trying to synthesise big time
mistaking it for something accumulative
over-stimulating ourselves into
a big heaven where peter
walks through the front door
while gabriel preens
felt it again at every impossible
articulation of What’s Going On,
at beth’s contralto sweetening
a thousand dogs barking at public holiday pyrotechnics
and at the one branch growing skinny
drooping way over into a dense bauble
that thins then thickens further down
like an animated tube pumping
or reciprocal energy transfers
bulky life-forces connected by some thin technology
when i lagged on walks
my mother squeezed my hand
a boost a gift
i swear it worked i sped up i didn’t slow
we must make clear what we need
careening into your admonishment
never make our friendship a transaction you said
when i apologised for not doing the dishes
you cooked and later wrote
care shows life’s worth living
which is to say incalculable
like art a comrade a child of your own
the excess in poetry or
nina simone singing who knows
where the time goes live on black gold
giving everything away
in the minor key and more still
a never ending surplus
the biggest deficit unimaginable
then the organs come in and the applause
intensifies and there it is
the whole thing at once
all the time in the world
and then some