This month I am delighted to introduce the strange and wonderful poetry of Michael Kingsbury.

Michael’s writing has been published in the Friendly Street Readers, Vernacular and other publications. He performed at Onkaparinga’s Poetry Unhinged Festival in 2005, as well as other venues and events in South Australia. Michael is currently involved with the Tutti Ensemble, a theatre group of variously abled actors, which has provided him an ideal platform for the idiosyncratic nature of his poetry, which is meant to be spoken, embodied, performed, growled, crooned, and chanted.

The Minotaur takes a
cigarette break

And the Minotaur takes a cigarette break
And all christs get down from their crosses
And the prophets take five
And sit around playing dominoes
And stare
Slightly puzzled
At the indigo Hills
And remember they were supposed to be doing
Something
But can’t quite remember what
And after that they chew olives
And drink Chianti till sunset
Whereupon they all get laid in the orchard.

And after that you know what
things got really messed up
And the crusades never even got started
And they wrote a book about that
And there wasn’t much to say
And they stuck it in the Baghdad library
Because the crusades never destroyed it in 1095
And the end of all that
Was the museum of natural history
Was a history of all the things
The Christians didn’t do
And the twin towers never even got built.

* The title references a work of fantasy fiction by Steven Sherill

Published in Friendly Street Poets 30


Adelaide

In the shopping mall
A businessman
is riding
A fat brass pig

A pigeon eats steak off the pavement

everyone has forgotten what to do

A woman in a suit wails to be fed

The mayor skewers
five cent cans into a hessian bag
with the spoke from a bicycle

Anti peace protestors march to
the steps of parliament house

All white people live in the park

Parking inspectors give themselves tickets
everytime they step in a crack

Pensioners are paid to play poker machines

The Premier lives in a tree

Published Friendly Street Poets 29

Burning man Project

My hands are a bundle of sticks tied up with rags.
My feet are made of old tires.
My face burns ceaselessly,
One hundred years.
My tendons crack and ping,
Piano wire from the wings of a World War Two Spitfire
My voice creaks and roars
I frighten crows and starlings, wet myself with fuel oil
And Kerosene, weep field mice and human blood
As I am crucified with the
string and sealing wax of governments
I call out to mama
I am Lazarus with a plan
I will walk my cross to the sea
With the electric impression of Mahatma Gandhi
And make salt from a thousand tears.

Performed as part of The Tutti Ensemble’s
Musical Theatre project “Mouth Music”
Higher Ground, Adelaide 2006


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