VOICE & VISION

Cold, numb, and bloodless: sitting in the concrete crypt,
chain smoking.

The three salamanders: fire, ash, burning wood, entranced in their suave rebellion.
Sitting in the dim, candles lighthouses, calling the dead forth
for they thought it to be a game; snakes and ladders,
this tracing of lifes entrails, this business of witches.

Together they would share a mattress, blanketless, in the crawling dampness
they nestled into one another, fiending safety and warmth in their shroud of love
sprung first in youth, second in philosophies: the shadows of smoke and
with common wishes to be that which the other girls weren’t.

Sitting on concrete graves, eyes mangroves, choked on teenage dust
wanting to bury reality and boast abstractions.
Lace and tobacco, bleach and whiskey.
Mulholland Drive. Magnolia. Macbeth.

In the carpetless concrete room, Leonard Cohen came from the speakers,
singing The Future into our weary ears, knowing we were one and the same,
yet united by our fantasies of flight.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Lauren Brentnall

25/11/11

We are without children
not alone in this
many friends
some conceived, and then lost
back into the blue sky
because we thought it would be kinder

And all regretted that
A wound
self inflicted
that never heals
because as culprits
we are part of the forces of death
that we can’t protect the living children from
in all their life
With all the hope of our species
glowing from them

We are still those children
with children or without
for we are not at the mercy
of the forces of death
that reign over the world
and will always win over a lie
with screaming and refusal

The truth is a free child

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Andrew Holdaway

28/10/2011

Let me touch every hair on your arm
I will be gentle like a hurricane
like a hurricane flattens the corn
as I move my fingers
loudly over your skin

Let me be calm as my soul surges
as my body within surges with the possiblities of unity
made clear by your shyness

Let me say nothing
Let me see your strong body lose itself
with knowing
so that we may commence
without knowing
the beginning

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Andrew Holdaway

11/11/11

Science fiction by Mr D Tweedie – Copyright 2011

Bright centres of boiling hot stars filtered a dazzling intense light through an atmospheric haze.

The twisted mechanical spectre of a structure lay in recumbent equipoise, stranded and derelict within a cantankerous dusty storm. A relentless blood coloured vapour, sweeping over the fuselage across its corners and sides.

On its hull, painted were vertical and horizontally type written symbols, in reference, pertaining to the ships category of purpose and the type of employment it had had.

An internal battery, which controlled its basic operating system, switched into life, turned off, after having landed ungracefully, onto the asteroids dusty rhomboid surface, its automatic self-monitoring systems, managed to switch back on, after having a designated – maintenance point of rest.

The poly-chambered apparition from the decks of the ships longitudinal apparatus pointed out into the pale dusty saffron atmosphere. A red oiline wind howled throughout the machines power vectors, and surged across its expansion sets.

A pilot, unable to un-jam the embedded machine, tried in vain, to lift the craft up, by pulling the vector engine throttles up and then pushing down on them with the voltage induction controllers wound right out, until with friction, the throughput engines jerked its machinery involuntarily into the air, where it remained in suspension for a while, before abruptly crashing back down onto the dusty surface again, with just its warning light blinking, signalling a failure of its engines brinkmanship, like a dumb-founded insect, examining an entirely new situation, hitherto unknown to its experience.

In a multi-celled protective suit, an astronaut cocked the upper part of his attire toward the aliphatic shroud that engulfed the incumbent pinasse, protruding out of the haemoserose gloom.  Detecting radioactivity and prodigious quantities of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, the heavily insulated cosmonaut looked thoughtfully toward the units’ voltage amplifier structure.

In part, the vessel looked like a raft; the other part looked like voltage control housing. The expander looked like a redundantly concealed compartment, which when looked at laterally, appeared to be a voltage induction bridge, whilst the other part functioned as a voltage transformation receptacle.

The astronaut programmed an algorhythm on a flexible signalling computer attached to the jacket of his forearm. Communicating through the crafts command signalling antennae, the ships on-board computer responded positively by sending out a synthetically programmed android onto the restlessly volatile surface.

The expedition beyond the relatively safe confinement of the ships passive atmosphere was, as it appeared, a complete fiasco. Suffering from gravitational bends and parietal discomfort with partial carbon dioxide poisoning, the remote recovery android-drone replenished the succumbing cosmonaut with a replacement of oxygen, liquid refreshment and a protein supplement, whilst tossing waste refusal onto the asteroids powdery surface.

The android aided the astronaut back toward the vessels airlock,

“You have air,” it said, pushing a release button near the entry point into the vessels pressure chamber.

“Veloci-lock!” replied the astronaut to the robot-droid.

“By your side!” it exclaimed.

Its massive rotating legs rolled headlong into the mission deployment compartment. The outer retractable door hatch enclosure, shutting with an automatic hiss and with a gasp of air behind them.

In their bedroom

Matt and Sal held language lessons

while ‘Jockasin’ kept guard

at the top of the stairs.

“Now get to sleep!” he’d yell.

(Conscious of another line,

‘your mum and dad, they shuts you up.’)

“The moon’s as big as anything,”

said,Matt to Sal,

who said, “it’s all frizzily.”

“One clo, two clos,” they’d counted

when putting on their pyjamas.

They left mysteries in their wake.

Why throw their toys

out of that upstairs window?

Why did Matt draw two bombs

dropping on ‘Joackasin’? What did Sal do

with that one shoe? “You can tell us,

we promise we won’t be cross.”

One year Sal changed. Why?

Stopped eating regular meals, stopped talking,

(so ‘Jockasin’ disappeared): measured her height

on the doorways of every room, stretching

upwards, as high as anything.

Sal emerged from the reconstruction

talking carefully, cool and smooth, demure

with secrets which no longer aroused parental curiosity.

“Please do not send me to my room”

remained on the wallpaper.

_ _ _ _

John Bentley

28 October 2011

A short story written in science fiction by Mr D Tweedie – Copyright 2011

The stack of a metal turbine stood poised pinnacle-like within fossid landscape; A surfaced composed of finely chiselled shingles gathered together to form lengths of shallow ridges from horizon to horizon. An astronaut dressed in pressurised auto-racing overalls stood in contrast to the frigid stellar background with one foot placed on the top of a shingle ridge. He moved his head from side to side looking into the shingled fields forming wide paths, disappearing into the fossile horizon.

The astronauts’ boots clattered over the metallic ridge. It appeared as though a wave had reached its zenith, stilled by the sight of dense brightly lit stars, hanging vertically within the nocturnal veil above.

He reached into his pocket and removed a black tube, twisted and turned it with his gloved hand searching for a suitable wavelength of light and pointed it towards very distant converging bars of shingles hidden in the fading horizon.

He bent down picking up one of the shards of metal so common within the wide shingled pathways. He peered through the visor of his helmet. As he turned it over the surfaces shone white like the flat reflection of a mirror. He looked into the shales of similar materials that made up the waves of ridges that cleared shallow pathways throughout the planetaries cold and dry seasonal climates.

He realised he had found what he was looking for. He gathered a few samples and put them into one of his zippered pockets.

Deep in the night, a timbous shaft of saline light tumbled: Thrown through a chambered web of smothering darkness- a long narrow spectre cast betwixt the silence of death and the cupid hand of a Satan. Its molecular pulsations epitomes of electrical connectivity within the breathless void.

In the chiffon shade of the sloping darkness blew the pulse of pale starlight, like a reflection caught in the mirror-like surface of a crystal stone.

Red is the colour of anger
blazing like a fire within
consuming everything in its path.

It snaps and crackles and roars
as I shout and roar
while my fury rages.

Red is the colour of my hair
burning hot and bright
lit by the fire of the sun.

My red hair is like a fire
on the top of my head,
a fire echoed by the fire within
lit by the spark of anger.

Red is the colour of anger
started by a small spark
that grows into a raging torrent.

Unstoppable until its force is spent,
until the fire burns out,
and I am exhausted.

No energy to punch or kick,
no words left,
no sounds remain,
as I collapse in tears.

Red is the colour of anger
and black is the colour
of my despair afterwards.

There was something strange that day. The smoke from the fire was still drifting in the air, wafting up from the hotspots in the bush. Our house had survived but some of our neighbours had lost their homes. Silently I joined one of the groups of people sifting through the ruins. No one spoke – their shock was too deep. We were all reliving the horror.

I kept hearing the sound of breaking glass, over and over, as windows shattered with the heat. Slowly I picked up pieces of my neighbours’ memories. Some I put aside, others I stacked in a pile on the ground. Something Sparkled, and I reached forward. Carefully I pulled it out from the rubble. It was a picture of a lake, its glass cracked. The picture beneath was still visible. I shivered at the contrast – the serene waters of the lake in the picture and the horror we were caught up in. Water, lakes are full of water, I thought irrationally. Maybe more could have been savrd if we’d had more water.

As I picked up the picture something moved beneath it. Grey and dusty and covered with a layer of fine ash, it didn’t seem to be anything much. Something made me pick it up. I shook it gently, and carefully brushed the ash from its surface. A hint of colour started to appear. I kept brushing it clean, over and over, my movements deliberate. This scrap of material became very important. Finally, it was clean enough to see the colour. It was a deep blue, vivid and glowing dully. I touched the soft velvet, remembering. I knew the story of that ribbon. Emma’s grandfather had given it to her grandmother when they were young. She had always treasured it. I laid the little piece of the past on top of the picture of the lake, and anchored it with a small stone so that it wouldn’t blow away.

“Come over here. Look what I’ve found.”

Emma came over to me, her face resigned. She looked at me closely.

“Oh, it’s you, Ellie. Hi.”

“Here, Emma, on the picture.”

“Grandmother’s ribbon, the velvet one. You know how she got this, don’t you?”

“Tell me again.”

“Well, grandfather knocked on her door, and asked if he could borrow a cup of sugar.True. I know it sounds corny, biut he did. She gave it to him, and he came back the next day. He handed her a piece of blue tissue paper with something inside. She opened it carefully and found the velvet ribbon. They started going out together, and the rest is…”

“History,” I interrupted.”

We smiled at each other, and then laughed. She reached out to me and hugged me. A small piece of joy had come out of the ashes left by the bushfire.

A fragment from a science fiction novel by Mr D Tweedie – Copyright 2011

“There are no physical limitations of what this machine can produce!”

“You know that what you’re saying is insane doctor!”

“Do not laugh lieutenant colonel! I am a scientist; I do not wear this laboratory coat for nothing!”

“If what you’re saying is true: tell us, how’s this machine able to withstand the forces you say that it is capable of?”

“I too doubt the security of your work professor: The forces of what my colleague has pointed out are likely to rip this machine apart!”

“Gentlemen! I have been working on this machine for over twenty-five years; I have determined its capability through sheer design, it will not fail!”

“Observe: I throw the switch – there! It is in motion!”

“Indeed professor! How marvellous! Why? The very force of its motion! It’s hypnotic!’

“There! You’re already intrigued! Here! Let me amplify its motion!”

“Look colleague! It’s actually emissioning light!”

“Please! My friend! Please slow it down! I can feel it sucking the oxygen out of the air: I can hardly breathe!”

“Listen! I’ll slow the experiment down! Then we can put on this artificial apparatus and continue with this strange and wonderful experiment!”

“There! Artificial respirators are on! Are you able to breathe alright?”

“Yes! I believe so! Yet: I have noticed that the sound associated with the vacuum the machine is making has increased considerably than from before!”

“Agreed! My colleague, it has also noticeably reduced the temperature of the air!”

“Listen to its hum! You can hear its electro-magnetic polarity increase with the exponential gravity of its inertia!”

“Magnificent professor you’re a true genius! Why? It’s just like a conventional aero-turbine! Look! It is literally converting matter directly into energy! How wonderous! My word! How? The sincerity that’s been paid in respect to the seriousness of your work has evolved so much since the last time I saw you!”

“Yes doctor-professor! The general is pleased with your work! Thank god, it was money that seems to have been well spent! Other wise the whole initiative would have almost certainly ended up-in-the-air!”

“Excuse me professor! But you must forgive the lieutenant colonel for his use of platitude! I think what my professional colleague is trying to suggest; is that it would most assuredly have been suspended for lack of effort!”

“Lucky eh!”

“Ah! Quite so! Quite so!”

There were people,

not ordinary people

some were quiet all the time

some were superior in a way

I was among them—in this place

Hazy as it was

I remember something that happened there

how someone pulled my hair

how someone forced me to dress

how I learnt to make my bed

how I swallowed heaps of tablets

how I did something disgraceful

The place was not locked

but we were not allowed to leave

the days were long

the nights were even longer

it had been vague,

my memory has been vague,

so vague that I don’t really remember

what actually happened there.

~ Anne Ho

8 July 2011