Davey Dreamnation

Issue 1, edited by Stephen McLaughlin and Jim Carpenter purports to be a 3,785 page anthology of new poetry, published in PDF format under the for godot imprint. The front cover of the anthology lists, in miniature print, the names of all contributors. These names have also been posted on Ron Silliman’s blog, so I [...]

I picked up this chapbook last February in Sydney for AU$15 after seeing Lee Ranaldo’s band Sonic Youth perform its 1988 album, Daydream Nation, in its entirety at the Enmore Theatre. While that concert was the most electrifying experience of my gig-going career (thanks again Joey!), it makes me sad to say that this little [...]

Most of us make America mean the world,
or sometimes we put “Australia” in its place.
B. O’D.

the drones of prole patrol the moon
that satellite of filth –
their lanterns mark the greasy poles
its dark side pepper (salt

with futile cries & lunar dews & sad
stories drones will tell of
extra-terrestrial rents & arbitrage by
mammon’s earthly (hags

o’er those captains of industry whose
gold we gleefully polish
in our dull second-class illusion we will
rise above the (swill

for life [...]

i am not fazed by spurious notions
of what is good or what is bad
i just flip open that temporal wallet
& spend (it’s like getting laid

or tying one on & imagining X
could well be my imaginary friend
or else i simply [...]

final oceanic junk channel-deepened
by temporal bo’sun of the universe
are you some castaway floating sea
kelp island where dawning abendland

in elysian fields of restfulness recon-
structs her deadly breeding grounds?
or are you one of the gods sun ra
maybe following the comet kohoutek?

are you in favour of daylight savings
bonsai maintenance massive oil wars
or just some mosquitoes flying through
the [...]

could this crimson burka twisted o’er
the face of morgenland’s hag
augur destructions for the peroxide-
invader (or could it be a hoax?

….

what prophecies shimmer like mirages
in the mullah’s cryptograms
could they be harmonic lightning
(or just a prisoner’s final [...]

Barellan Australia (2008)

1.

Iz in ur bodeh xtrc,
Teh rms ob dey iz luvs purr meh. Iz w00t an iz purr dey,
Dey not want! meh purr till iz go wif dey, respawnd dey,
An puur dey, an den WTF dey ful wif teh LOL ob teh sowl.

Iz not want dawted dat fose iz kurupt [...]

Evonne Goolagong tennis practice wall, Barellan Australia (2008)

To bring it back to rock ‘n roll influences,
when I was writing Neuromancer, I’m pretty sure
I was listening to Springsteen’s Nebraska
& thinking ‘OK, it’s not hotrods, it’s computers’.
WILLIAM GIBSON

horse & info rider blast straight towards boom in
terrific slow motion just as faulkner described it

smoke & thoughts plume into the atmosphere boom
nobodys on the road ahead [...]

Merceryboots, Barellan Australia (2008).

We had an important event at our place on the 13th ult. -
our first little one. We are going to call him Eric Whitman.
B. O’D. (1890)

Laakhaven Oost
Den Haag
Netherlands
9/5/2008
Dear Mr. Eric O’Dowd,
I have thought of you often, ever since the day I discovered your father’s letters to W.W. in an old issue of Overland, in [...]

Corrugated iron wall, Barellan Australia (2008)