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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                    #7/thyla7k-rja AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 7 The Poetry of Richard James Allen Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Richard James Allen by Magne Antonsen, year unknown. I 13 Acts of Unfulfiled Love : ACT ELEVEN I ACT EIGHT I The Hope Machine I No Surrender I Proem I From: 13 Acts of Unfulfiled Love ACT ELEVEN There are certain things I would like to have happen. But they will never happen. I have lost the desire to speak. You have already heard all the sounds of the world and want no more of my personal music. The air gives way before me. ACT EIGHT I can't keep falling in love with you every time you change your hair style. It's like getting up in the middle of the night because I think I hear a burglar. My heart is racing. My world is being turned upside down. Then you're gone. There is no burglar. I go back to sleep. Until the next disturbance. The Hope Machine I won't pretend there isn't any love lost to see the living becoming ghosts how quickly all is dismantled and scattered shades in search of a future looking for sacred ground in search of a home looking for hope what is hope but the desire to go on the faith that there will be a path the conviction that the journey will encounter more good than evil what is grieving but the draining away of hope the passing of colour out of the canvas of the possible the black hole of goodbye what is the hope machine but a mechanism for turning grief into joy a ouija board for drawing the spirits back to the land of the living a telescope turned backwards to bring the sun's bright hand into the black hole in a leaf sharing fire with a party of lost survivors who are we but those who have survived pinned against the altar of our frailty hurled against the door of our uncertainty flung against the wall of our mortality and so on this barren ground we have built a house with no walls on this holy ground we have built a church with no doors in this church with no roof we have built a house of hope and our home is in air and our home is in the future and our future is in the sky and we will pass through the sky and we will fall like fireworks and though we scatter there will be no need for goodbyes we ghosts are everywhere No Surrender Faith is flimsy in the face of death, madness, war but inside us it burns like little fires. Be terrified of the glow in our eyes. Published in Golden Wings: An Anthology of World Poetry (Cyberwit, 2002). Proem Poetry is what we carry what we give away what we leave behind what we lose what we inherit what we forget what we remember what we fight what we fight for what we pass on what we won't sell Poetry is where we draw the line Published in The Australian (Australia) and 2 1/2 Bells (Australia). About the Poet Richard James Allen Richard James Allen has combined a unique international career as a poet, performer, choreographer and filmmaker. His poetry, performance texts, and cross media works have been published, broadcast, performed and screened widely on three continents over the last twenty years. His seventh book of poetry, Thursday's Fictions was launched at the 1999 Australian Poetry Festival and was shortlisted for the 2000 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Poetry. He has recently completed a number of short films, including: Rubberman Accepts The Nobel Prize, which he co-wrote and starred in (shortlisted for Best Dance Film at the 2001 Australian Dance Awards) and No Surrender, which he wrote and directed (broadcast on ABC TV in 2002).    [Above] Photo of Richard James Allen by Magne Antonsen, year unknown. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.7 (March, 2003)