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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                    #3/thyla3k-bd
AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 3
The Poetry of Brett Dionysius
Selected by Coral Hull

[Above] Photo of Brett Dionysius by Stephen Booth, 2001.


I (vi) The Starry Messenger/ (i) Easter Sunday, 1722 AD, Moais Bay I (ii)... Mark has five sons I
(iii) Australia Fluxions: (Newtonian theory of employment) I (iv) The Revolution of the Earthly Orbs, 1998 AD I (vii) Dialogue on the Great World Systems I (viii) The Drive for Power (ii) Tampa with the Truth I


(vi) The Starry Messenger

'It's the journey, not the destination that's important.'

(i)

Easter Sunday, 1722 AD, Moais Bay

The symbolic Ice Age melts
under the New Word Order.
Why the long stony faces?
No smiles split granite maw.
Not even as the Dutchmen, eyes
agog, lope up the pebble beach,
the first visitants in how long?
How deep the psychosis of rock?
They could never leave, could they?
Their tonnage, like the invisible
alien footprint in Forbidden Planet
the awesome weight of the unknown
depresses; earth's sunken cheeks.
No wheels within wheels, no Pole Star
to fix by - only rows of giant clowns
bolted into a stellar carnival.
In some other Phil Dick dimension:
Frankie Goes to Hollywood gay communist
icons carved by a starry motherland.
Celebrated 1985 style, a school
social of industry, too self-conscious
to ask the cosmos for a dance.
And what about Selkirk, slumped
at the back of the School Hall,
nursing a packet of memories
& marijuana cigarettes?
There goes a super-nova
what a pushover.

Retracing his castaway self
on Juan Fernandez Island,
conjuring Man-Friday;
the original Ptolemaic,
volleyball of his ego.
Shooting stars never stop
even when they reach top.

Time out of joint, there Phil.
Only lunatics build statues
& expect birds not to shit on them.
We're a long way from home
welcome to the pleasure dome.

(ii)

Mark has five sons
a lapsed security guard license
& an ambition to carve kid's toys
out of red cedar.
Voted for One Nation in '98
because it gave the major parties
'a good kick up the arse'.

Had a father who was a drifter
& now sits smoking, talking shit
to Jonathon, the ex-Sydney street kid
about the lack of love in the world.

Jonathon shrugs his shoulders,
blames the rise of Pauline Hanson
on the Year on the Tiger (a time
of powerful female figures).

Does not have a comfort zone,
at least one he won't share
with the rest of the group.
Doesn't label anything because
once you label something people
just want to take it from you.

Sits listening to Helen the JNM
talk about conditioning & how
they need to break out of it!
How they've all been conditioned
to be unemployed. How they can
grow a new habit in three weeks.

Mark is more optimistic about
the prospect of finding work
than Jonathon. J is all thumbs
down about the future, fails
to turn up for an interview.

Waits for starry messengers
to breach him.
G,day
Work Corrections Australia
This is Mark
How can I help ya?

(iii)

Australia Fluxions: (Newtonian theory of employment)

1. 1986 AD: 'The Banana Republic' - (another experiment with fruit).

2. 1991 AD: Prime Minister Paul Keating to a student rally at the University of Sydney;

Paul Keating: 'Go and get a job!'
Student: 'But I'm an artist.'
Paul Keating: 'Yeah, a BULL ARTIST!'

3. 1993 AD: 'The recession we had to have.'

(iv) The Revolution of the Earthly Orbs, 1998 AD

In the Clarence Corner Hotel
the Keno numbers fail to break
out of their electronic conditioning
are happy just to be in a numbers game.
Are not interested in the journey at all,
they are all for the destination,
secure in the random sequence of events
- the best condition to be in.

(vii) Dialogue on the Great World Systems

A snap of fingers
& nightingales crumple
in the Vatican Gardens.
A wave of the hand shoos
falling stars like Cardinals.
Pull focus on a police state
(no, wait your turn America!)
dossiers bulge under the weight
of divine evidence; an
impenetrable canopy of bronze
stripped from the Romans,
recycled into the status quo.
Don't you remember that motto
'in with the old, out with the new'.
Galileo forgot that Venetian sailors'
credo too - 'always keep your
nose clean, your eyes peeled'.
Took his mind off the Heavens,
blinked once & they were gone.

Sex & horror are the new Gods.

(viii) The Drive for Power

'People who feel good about themselves produce good results.'

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal.'
Declaration of Independence.

(ii) Tampa with the Truth

Flow my tears, the refugee said.
Phil, your fascist nightmare exists.
In 'Little America' photographs rise
to the top of the Howardian agenda
like pond scum; a blue-green algae
of emotions pollutes the masses
with 'boat-people' paranoia & that's
how terrorists get into the country
& "for God's sake, they threw
their own children overboard?"

& didn't MARGE try to warn us
all those years ago with PALMOLIVE;
see stiff old grease & tired white hands

& 'Relax Australia,
you're soaking in it!'

This is what we were shown.
This is what really happened.

About the Poet Brett Dionysius

B.R. Dionysius was born in Dalby, Western Queensland in 1969. He was the Chairperson of Fringe Arts Collective Inc. from 1994 - 2001 and directed the Subverse: Queensland Poetry Festival, the major, annual literary event for poets and poetry in Queensland from 1997 -2001. In 1995, he collaborated with printmaker Danny Yates to produce a limited edition artist's book, The Barflies Chorus, published by LyreBird Press in Townsville. In 1997 he collaborated with Sam Wagan Watson and Liz Hall-Downs on the Blackfellas, Whitefellas and Wetlands, 'Brisbane Stories' website project to produce a virtual poetry gallery exploring the Indigenous, European and natural heritage of the Boondall Wetlands. In 1998, he was granted the Harri Jones Memorial Prize for Poetry by the University of Newcastle. An audio CD of the poetry from the Blackfellas, Whitefellas and Wetlands project was released in 2000. In 2000 his first solo collection of poetry Fatherlands was published by Five Islands Press in the New Poets Series 7 and he was awarded a New Work Grant from the Literature Fund of the Australia Council to write a verse novel, Universal Andalusia. He is the Assistant Editor of papertiger: new world poetry.
   [Above] Photo of Brett Dionysius by Stephen Booth, 2001.

I Next I Back I Exit I
Thylazine No.3 (March, 2001)

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