[d/dn]

Category: Poems

As of October 2011, I’d posted over three hundred poems on this site, including many sonnets and search poems, as well as numerous poems that didn’t make it into chapbooks such as Abendland and Morgenland. I then ceased posting poems here, choosing instead to distribute them via my poem of the week newsletter. Then I stopped doing that too. Every now and then I post a poem here … but not as often as I’d like.

  • Oz

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    1 min read

    A rewriting of Bernard O’Dowd’s poem ‘Australia’ (published in The Bulletin in 1900). ‘Oz’ was first published online in Jacket (2010) and anthologised in Thirty Australian Poets (UQP 2011).

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  • Red Dawn

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    1 min read

    ‘Dawnward’ B. O’Dowd (1906)

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  • Gowayz ob LOL: Iz In Ur Bodeh xtrc,

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    1 min read

    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 feir…

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  • Info Rider

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    2 min read

    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…

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  • Unfinished Draft (1)

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    4 min read

    We had an important event at our place on the 13th ult. -our first little one. We are going to call him Eric Whitman. —Bernard O’Dowd, writing to Walt Whitman (1890)

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  • W00t Wiitmeh: “To ah Commawn Pron”

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    2 min read

    B ceiling cat – b at eez wif meh – Iz r W00t Wiitmeh, libaral az lusteh Naychar; Not want till teh sun xclusd yu, do I xclusds yu; Not want till teh watars refewez rutsl can haz yu, an teh gowayz rutsl fur can haz yu, do meh Werdz Rutsl glstn an rutsl fur…

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  • Gowayz ob LOL: Sawng ob Meh (O Hai!)

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    1 min read

    An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. LOLCats Bible, Genesis 1:6 1. O hai iz cebrayt meh, b in ur meh, An wut I as00m yu shal as00m, Fur iz atomm belons meh as srly belons yu. K. Iz loef an nvyt meh sowl, Iz leen an loef at meh eez…

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  • Song of Meh Self

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    2 min read

    I am an enigma to myself. B. O’D. noble wings I grow when I take meh self out of meh self but I find that too hot to handle for too long so I take meh self into meh self again & find there caverns of cold eclipsed fears & in there too some romans…

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  • Secret Lib

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    2 min read

    re: the australeum (a secret society cf. ww leaves of grass a love supreme in the court of love a library book of love a doodle bug a statute of love like some secret (liberation love democracy man love & all aboard! the love ship demos under the sign of libra it weighs at anchor…

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  • We Don’t Usually Tell …

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    2 min read

    the sun that he does well to shine & shines well … the moon that she illuminates the lover’s skin the stars that they remind us of all things past the sky that it does well to rain on our heads the planets that they give birth to angry gods the earth that it spins…

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  • Jethro’s Whitman Cabinet

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    3 min read

    ” … a cabinet was specially made. O’Dowd’s wife Evangeline had an uncle, Jethro Fryer, a carpenter who took on this task. SANDRA BURT i hammer nails & saw wood (to make his house of whitman his shadow cabinet not a coffin so much as a grave of words a grove within which they sit…

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  • “I Hate Myself & Want to Die”

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    2 min read

    I believe Fame once intended to give birth to a child. Some accident happened and I was the abortion. B. O’D. I look at what i wrote & feel shame rising like the flood my knees are weak & the lamp light’s glow flatters my corny poetics they’re simplistic & i hate myself no that’s…

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  • Cute

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    2 min read

    “… the cute and loving appreciation of my book and me by them in Australia has gone right to my heart.” —Walt Whitman, writing to Bernard O’Dowd This poem was first published online in Blackbox Manifold (UK) and later in print in Best Australian Poems (Black Inc, 2011). Läs på svenska.

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  • The First Letter

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    2 min read

    I am not going to praise your poetry to you B. O’D. BUT! you make the leaves & the grasses speak for themselves! great scald of demos i am yours! master bending down to meh! like a tree of man your mighty river flows through days your poems like a dripping tap & i a…

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  • Sunbathing

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    2 min read

    This poem first appeared in Overland (2008) and was anthologized in Thirty Australian Poets (UQP, 2011).

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