George Anderson- I knew a bloke (once)

I knew a bloke (once)

after robert creeley

 

& so I sd to my good mate Jim

(that’s not his real name)

cause we’re always scheming

thinking of ways to duplicate a buck

or just applying the polyfiller to life-

filling in the cracks   before it all dissembles

 

anyways I sd to Jim

‘hey mate, how bout we buy a ute & piss off up to Cairns?’

 

Jim, he shows me a paper bag-

there’s a gun inside

a .38 service revolver

 

I sd, ‘where’d yr get that?’

 

He sd, can’t tell u- but I’m gonna have to use it soon

 

There is an intensity in his eyes. The longneck overflowing his tall glass.

 

‘Can’t you pour a beer?’I sd. ‘Look at the fucken head on that!’

 

I never saw the bloke again

'I knew a bloke (once)' (2001) is an appropriation of Robert Creeley's poem 'I Knew a Man'.  It was included in his collection For Love: Poems 1950-1960 (1962). The above photo of Robert Creeley is by Chris Felver (source: all poetry.com).

In the poem I recall a chance meeting with an ex-factory work colleague in a Redfern pub in 1978. I never saw the bloke again. 

George Anderson- The Fly

The Fly

Imagine in your dreams

fumbling towards

a four metre high sandstone sculpture

of a common house fly-

with wings outstretched/ layered

in the traditional style

of Pacific Coast totem figures

dead to the world wild around it.

 

Look up-

examine more intricately

the stone golden artifice

as it enfolds before your imagination.

 

See its membranous wings

take shape/ translucent

see them lifting the insect free

from its puparium of mortal  strivings.

'The Fly' (2001) first appeared in the wonderful Zygote in my Coffee #39. It was inspired, in part by my HSC close study of William B. Yeats' poetry, in particular 'Sailing to Byzantium, Part 4:

                                   IV

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

The speaker of the poem, presumably Yeats, is reflecting on how he can achieve immortality through his Art. He knows his physical body is falling apart and he imagines if he can be reborn as an artwork

"of hammered gold" he can transcend his mortal self and personal short comings and failures. The bird "set upon a golden bough" appears to symbolise the artifice of eternity that can allow him "sing" through his poetry long after his death.

In his Preface to Poems (1906) Yeats writes, "All art is in the best analysis an endeavour to condense as out of the flying vapour of the world an image of human perfection." In 'The Fly' Yeats' "golden bird" is changed to that of a common house fly to foreshadow a less elitist view of Art, subject matter and form in my own embryonic work.

George Anderson- Dreaming of Johnny Cash

Dreaming Of Johnny Cash

Ronald- father- 

wherever thou art

why are you still appearing in my dreams?

you’ve been dead now for twelve years!

 

I remember that last time I saw you- 

at Kentville Hospital

hot-wired to an oxygen bag 

you gasping, grasping 

for each hard-earned breath

you wanted it all to end  

but they kept re-reviving you

inserting a catheter into your oesophagus - 

you reliving your imminent death countless times

your lungs choked from years of smoking 

& foundry work

& that night they snatched you

from that Amtrak train in Springfield

your lungs brimming with Canadian Club chunder.

 

*

 

We had a reunion of sorts

back in Aylesford in the family home

a few weeks before you died-

you hooked up to an oxygen machine

near the back porch 

us thirty-something kids upstairs

playing, not so cynically this time, 

your Johnny Horton and Johnny Cash records-

toking away & madly cackling. 

 

Later in the night

I went down for a piss

& asked if you were OK

you gesturing in a hyperbolic manner 

to turn the outside lights off.

 

*

 

I’m sorry dad

I switched off the double adaptor

attached to your oxygen machine

it was an accident- honest-

I can still imagine you sputtering

getting up in the dead of night

cursing, 

flicking

the machine back on.

 

I remember that last day in Canada

at Kentville Hospital

I kissed you reluctantly as I left 

to catch my flight,

the hard stubble of your beard

still brushing in my mind.

as I write now.

In the lift down

a nurse noticed me gagging,

stifling the torment

& spoilingly attempted to comfort me,

diverting me from that harrowing

but redemptive glimpse

into the finality of all things.

*

Ronald-father

the other night

I dreamt you were living with me in Oz 

you sat at the table

closely reading the stock market pages

with your conical magnifying glass

& drinking a bottle of Coopers Sparkling Ale-

I’d just returned from the beach

I asked whether you had heard Johnny Cash’s

Folsom Prison Blues was out on Blue Ray CD.

You told me bluntly, ‘I saw it lying on the coffee table 

but I couldn’t get the goddamn machine to work.’

 

As I struggled to buckle up my pants 

around my upper chest 

I remembered with a wry smile

that you were dead.

Note

'Dreaming of Jonny Cash' is a tribute to my Old Man. It is one of the first poems I ever wrote and it appeared in the e-zine Megaera #21, March 2005. The title is borrowed from Grant Caldwell's excellent poetry collection Dreaming of Robert De Niro (Five Island Press, 2003) which I was reading at the time.

Bold Monkey Review will publish more of my uncollected and unpublished poems in the coming weeks and months.

New poems: Jack Lowe

OPEN TO OTHER SUGGESTIONS

Noon, or so. 

A Thursday. 

Another unscheduled day off.

Not sorry. 

I pull into the parking lot 

of my local supermarket 

to buy the pint of bourbon 

I promised myself 

I wouldn’t need. 

Yes, my pants are on fire

and, come to think of it,

my nose has grown a bit.

Standing just beyond 

the entrance is a young man. 

He’s clean-shaven.

His hair is neatly combed.

He’s wearing black slacks

and a white dress shirt, 

open at the collar.

He’s playing a violin. 

His violin case, 

sitting unlatched at his feet,

holds a few odd dollars 

and spare change.

The music the young man’s playing

is, in fact, wonderful. 

It’s the perfect compliment 

to this Indian Summer day. 

Several brain cells ago, 

I knew the piece well. 

Now, my mind falters 

between Beethoven’s Ode to Joy

and the theme song 

for the TV show Taxi.

At one time, 

I would’ve viewed the violinist 

as a fellow artist—

paused, savored the music,

kicked him a few bucks.

Now, I breeze past him

clutching my bourbon fund. 

My first and foremost thought:

“The cops are minutes away.”

This is when 

I almost figure it out—

I’m either old, a drunk 

or an old drunk. 

Although I remain 

open to other suggestions.

THIS IS HOW IT FEELS

Say you’re at work. 

Say that work is 

a department store’s warehouse. 

Say that the store plays music

over its P.A. system. 

Say it’s near the end

of a challenging shift.

Say after a whole day

of playing crap  

by the likes of 

Taylor Swift, N’Sync 

and Gloria Estefan, 

the store’s music system 

manages to spin 

one decent tune. 

Say it’s “Roadhouse Blues” 

by the Doors.

Say the tune soothes you

like a Band-Aid 

on a paper cut.

Say that, one minute 

into “Roadhouse Blues,” 

a certain prick co-worker

starts repeating every fucking line

that Jim Morrison sings.

Say that the prick’s voice 

sounds like a wounded gorilla,

roaring through 

an empty paper towel roll.

This is how it feels—

the urge to strangle 

another human being.

A PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE WORLD

Paul and Artie are in the men’s room,

standing at the sinks. 

Before washing his hands,

Artie reaches way back and  

scratches his ass, grinning widely. 

“What in hell are you smiling about?”

asks Paul, scrubbing his hands. 

“You look like you won the lottery.”

Artie runs water over his own mitts. 

“It feels like I did,” he says. 

“I saw my doctor last month.

He said I might have colon cancer 

and scheduled me for a colonoscopy. 

I went in for it two days ago.”

Paul grabs some paper towels. 

“Good Christ!” he exclaims. “And?”

Artie pumps the soap dispenser. 

“I got the A-OK,” he beams. 

“All I have are hemorrhoids. 

The doctor told me that 

most guys my age have them.”

Paul towels off his hands. 

“Hemorrhoids are no joke. 

They’re literal pains in the ass. 

Why the sunshine and lollipops?”

“I thought I was dying,”

says Artie, rinsing off.

“God gave me a free pass. 

Every time I scratch my ass, 

it’s like He’s reminding me 

of my new lease on life.”

Paul wads up the paper towels,

shoots them into the trash

and heads for the door. 

“Artie,” he says over his shoulder,

“you have a philosophical view of the world.”

A BIT OF SOLACE

In one of the Rocky movies---

which one doesn't matter---

the little old guy 

who was Rocky's trainer

was preparing him 

for the big bout. 

For some reason---

maybe to sharpen

his reflexes---

the trainer had Rocky 

chase a chicken.

He literally made 

the Italian Stallion 

pursue a chicken 

around an empty lot

behind a slaughterhouse 

somewhere in Philadelphia.

Few people know 

that the chicken 

had a name. 

It was called Contentment. 

I know, because I've chased

that same fucking bird 

for most of my life. 

It's a fleet-footed beast

that can turn on a dime. 

And when you think 

you've got it cornered---

when Contentment is

but inches away---

the bird will take off

and soar overhead,

just out of reach. 

I never managed 

to catch that bird.

As I recall, 

Rocky didn't, either. 

I've found a bit 

of solace in that.  

Bio: Jack Phillips Lowe is a lifelong Chicago area resident. His poems have appeared in Clutch 2026, Cajun Mutt Press and Piker Press. Lowe's most recent poetry chapbook, Brautigan's Blue Moon (Instant Oblivion Press, 2025), is available from lulu.com.

New poems: John Grey

ANOTHER TIME

 

He’s from another time.

That’s why he’s smoking

his third cigarette.

That’s why one tiny light

draws you to him

even in the thick of darkness.

 

His was the body you imagined

Now with your touch,

a tingling reality sets in.

Your wayward mind

finds direction in your fingers.

 

You think of how desire

is a small room,

just enough space for two.

And a cigarette is a gentle heat

compared to the flame

that builds inside you.

 

Yes, he’s from another time.

He reads poetry…

to himself

but also out aloud to you.

And there’s a softness to his voice,

a reassurance that, once begun,

good things will continue.

 

He’s from another time, yes,

but so are you now.

You’re shed of the lonely hours,

alive in the shared ones.

 

And when he closes his book,

when the ember of his cigarette dims,

you understand that the light you followed

was never his alone.

It was the flare in your own chest

finally given oxygen,

finally burning steady.

 

 

 

OPENING UP A BOOK OF ART

 

Alone in my apartment, no company but a

reading lamp, the book fell open at The Scream,

A face stretched wide, not in pain exactly,

but in the moment before pain perpetuates.

I’d seen hell before -Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen –

but this was different. No antichrist in a cradle,

no devil in disguise. Just a bridge, a sky

hemorrhaging orange, and a figure who knows

too much and cannot un-know it. Strangers strolled

behind him, unaware of the rupture in the air.

I’ve felt that rupture. The woman in the grocery

aisle herding four young brats. The homeless

guy bullied by cops. Once you’ve seen the scream,

you start to hear it everywhere - in the rustle of leaves,

the tautness of a forced smile, the ringing of

church bells, the old lady arguing with the

young girl at the cash register. It’s in every

silence, every noise. A sky about to bleed. A face

on the verge of eruption. The dread of being human.

The sudden scream. The incumbent scream.

Two hands at the ready yet to weak to hold it in.

 

 

 

 

 

MOVING THE HIVE

 

She is my baton,

a queen, buzzing in my palm.

 

Workers follow,

not as many

but as one,

much but to instinct’s satisfaction.

 

I have made for them a hive,

a citadel of comb and bloom.

I delicately place

the queen within.

The workers thicken around her.

 

I listen in on their conversation:

 

It is summer. The sky is clear.

The sun is a wound

we have learned to love.

 

Soon, we will make honey

from everything that

has tried to break us.

 

 

 

 

 

ALOFT

 

sky-bound,

aloft like a balloon,

away from you,

one light,

 

one winter,

but what’s the chill

compared to

your cold stare,

 

and your painted

war-like face,

angry lips,

nostrils of fire –

 

to the stars, I go,

to the dawn, the morn,

the horizon,

whatever has no hold,

 

out of hearing,

silence for language,

just enough wind

to buffer, not despise me

 

 

 

 

 

MISTER RESTLESS

 

I leave this place

thinking I need

to be somewhere

though I have no idea

where I’m headed.

 

But I’m on the move,

that’s the main thing.

I don’t turn around.

I don’t even look back

over my shoulder.

It’s not as if I have

somewhere to be.

But I do have

somewhere to leave.

 

I’ve got these

perennial itchy feet,

this restless mind,

this distaste for even

the most temporary

of permanence.

 

So it’s goodbye

whoever you are,

farewell your life,

your ideas,

your memories,

your passions,

your likes and

your loves.

 

I’ll be elsewhere

before you even know it.

That’s how I am.

I fear commitment.

To another person.

But, more so,

to the ground

I’m standing on.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the Seventh Quarry, La Presa and California Quarterly..