George Anderson- Anathema

Anathema

 

Through the convex security screen

is  the solid, pink columned façade of investment properties

     jutting balconies with views of bricks & drain pipes & bitumen

rented by low paid day care workers, security guards, bar attendants-

     there is a constant thrash & rumble of vehicles

dark, low ceilings, broken door knobs, plastic pine flooring.

 

To shake off the impending sense of dread    I anoint myself

with the latest in modern conveniences: BI-LO Skin Repair Cream,

cockroach baits, burglar alarm…& further up the road stroll past

acres of mall space & ducted air conditioning snaking up walls

alongside kebab & pizza joints & smiling security guards & tables of 

redundant products-  a salesman with mike & an audience of one… me…

crooning with reassuring tones  of amazing bargains   never to be repeated…

 

 It is in this scene   this space   at 3 AM        

                                               in which the kookaburra erupts-

                       projecting its long splintering 

                                          disorientated     cackle-

 echoing through the dark, narrow laneways

                                      of the apartment complex.

'Anathema' (2003) was written after a visit to Mount Druitt in the Western Suburbs of Sydney. First published in Red Fez. Our consumer society continues to amaze and disgust me. Is this the best we can achieve? One of a series of five poems. Yes, the morning kookaburra cackle did pierce the air.

George Anderson- words

words

How beautiful  how refreshing 

it is one day  to wake up

without any  poetic notions, or impulses;

simply to let  life be

without pretence without ambition-

without words

 

to simply watch the cloudless sky

to feel the head wind on the shore

to silently contemplate 

that thin blue line where sea meets sky

 

you pedal  down the track

without any thought of reducing it all to words,

to a smattering of images or symbols

 

but as you get off your bike

& wordlessly focus on the sea-

it swoops down upon you, unexpected

from somewhere- the words soiling you,

seeping out of you    once again

'words' (2002) first published in 'Mozzie- literary magazine.

George Anderson- How to write & analyse a bad poem

How to write & analyse a bad poem

 

 

1

take a happy middle class family

where children & parents love long

 

2

give them a large rambling house

full of expensive bay windows

 

3

get them to swallow the classics

from Dryden to Foucault 

 

4

ask the MFAs amongst them

who study literary theory - to write one

 

5

later, get a large mammal, preferably an 

elephant or blue whale- to shit on it

The satiric poem (2002) was first published in Pixel Papers. It was written, in part, in response to the implementation of the "new" HSC syllabus in English (2001) which necessitated the explicit teaching of postmodern theory in literature for the first time.

George Anderson- Off Road Shrines

Off Road Shrines

 

Ribbon latched clutches of lilies on streetlight posts

crooked white wooden crosses on manicured lawns

        on trees   at the end of S bends

 by the side of railway tracks   in darkened laneways

wreaths of grief    on sorrowful school yard gates 

strewn with cards of condolences    plastic sheafed  photos 

of the dead   class mate tributes in crayoned stick figures,   

candles; memorial plaques & planted shrubs-   

                                               trinkets;  surfboard   headstones

basketball   hoops   an Aussie flag -   fragments 

          from a vehicle wreckage:  smashed

bull-bar   headlight  warped steering wheel    cemented/

bolted  into the point of impact    an obliterated

license plate holder  

            messages        letters       graffiti:  

                                        He Lived Fast & Died Young

  Save me a seat up there , mate!

          personal statements     raw emotion

     an eclectic mix  of images &   ritual -   anything,   to make 

some sense,   to explain the context, to start to heal…        

 

Every month I whipper snip a small plot of gravel

    by a power pole 

                      on a sharp right-

hand bend on

                   Bulli Pass which collected my mate

                                                            

Afterwards, I sit beside his ebbing presence

       cars & trucks blasting 

past

        punctuating further

the general, inexplicable indifference-

              the undeniable solitude of his demise

 as we share another

                                   regulatory VB

'Off Road Shrines' (2003) was first published in Divan #6. After a local tradie was killed on a hairpin turn driving down Bulli Pass, I was reminded of his tragic death daily after work by the make-shift memorial a friend erected on the site.

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. It was first published by Literary Tonic. 

Here is Creeley's poem: 

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.