E-Book Content
New and Selected Poems
S. K. KELEN
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By the same author
Atomic Ballet Dingo Sky Trans-Sumatran Highway and other Poems Dragon Rising Shimmerings Goddess of Mercy Earthly Delights
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Copyright © S. K. Kelen
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Contents Circles Koki Market Coming Home (from my Papuan holiday) Chairman Mao and Charlie Brown Lips, Ocean, Castle Very Early Morning Train Leftovers 3 a.m. Drive Home From A Bus Leaving Lithgow At Night Immolation Jungle The Gods Ash Their Cigarettes The Spheres The Boy With The Sun In His Pocket Dog into the Future The Spin of the Dice Venice Prayer to Shiva Love in the Tropics Dysentery To the Heart of the World’s Electricity Saturn To the Hall of Doors Paradise Skyscrapers Thinking The Language of Love Next Century 4
Atomic Ballet Love in the Distance (Lord Jim) Falling Rain What Goes Up Goodness and Wickedness 1. Young Caligula 2. Saigon Rose 3. Life of Byron
Pioneers Means of Production A Traveller’s Guide to the East Indies Gare du Nord The Koala Motel Dream Savant Savage Lawn Wars At Seal Rocks The Boot Factory Rabbit Shoeshine University of the Air The Tea Break The Mail Sorter Poets Isle of Thieves The First Circle The Gymnasts The Great Outdoors Climbing the Sky Playing in the Dirt Austerity Song of the Crown Surveyor The Pipes Leichhardt Considers Turning Back 5
1. The explorers wake to a blazing sun 2. Higher Love 3. Settlement
Revolving Doors Directions Borneo Das Kapital Pegasus Geography Lesson Gondwanaland Happy Days Physics Tremor Saddam (Gulf War Poem #34677.22) Clouds The House Spider The Golden Encyclopaedia The Pathetic Spectre of Extremism On the Road Night Drive Law of the Land Paintbox From Olympus Adventures of the Dialectic Prelude Mosquito Dreaming Blue City The Golden Bough The Peloponnesian War The Wisdom of the Orient Darling Downs 6
Stopover, Bombay Ooty Bus Station The Art of Happy Families Postcard (Sydney Girls) Civil Aviation Bouquets Snow Vulcan Europa Bliss Deaf, Dumb and Blind The Restless Years South Coast Business Eight Months Old Possum and Dog The Mountain Walk The Castle House of Rats Cats — the poem Circus Rumpus Bumpus Law of the Backyard Tycoon The Glugs of Gosh Are Never Gone Sugar Town Kafka Dog begins a Voyage to Realms Beyond History Lecture Winter Birds West of Krakatoa Kelpies The Information Superhighway 7
The Sometimes Lakes Fission Ghost Town on the Murray Song Carpet Flying Toasters Lost in the Bush Megalong Valley Secret Agent The Leech Fishing Village Whyalla Cantos The Glass Menagerie Vertigo Creative Writing Class A Brief History of Love in East Asia Flowers The Terror of the Great Ocean Road Shelley in Heaven Mishima International Passport Trans-Sumatran Highway Java Idyll The Ramayana Burning Off New York Jack Blizzard Mid-West 1 The Burger King The Missouri Happy Meal 8
Mid-West 2 Chainsaws on a Prairie Poetry Does, However, Have Practical Uses Home Thoughts from Abroad Western Bird Woman of the Dakotas White Camellia White Deer Route 66 Shaman Waitipe Market Day California Angels Pumpkin Wolf Sea Lion Cave Red River Thousand Star Hotel, Hanoi Dien Bien Phu Chinese Cigarette Lighter The No-Food Restaurant Vietnam Circus Rolex Sapa Red Dzao Village Haiphong Mekong Ba Vi Samurai Retirement Village, Coolangatta The Week of the Australian Open Empery Breaking Up Is Hard To Do 9
To the Moon The Bay Hotel The Laminex and Biscuit Dream Creative Writing Tiger Lil The Wedding Warrior Woman Some Recent Innovations Guru The South Coast on Television Moon Beach The Kitchen Invasion of the Sea Chickens Aztec King Cobra Extreme Orient Nostradamus Turtle Creatures O’Connor Ridge Magpie Hill Kambah Pool Street Cafe Down Time Neon Halo Numerology Back Home Weekend Magazine Falling Rain Fuel Injection Wood 10
The Electric Church Buffy Reality Check Helic