nine days in Japan and already you\u2019re a megalomaniac<\/p>\n
drunk on the fame of being slightly apart<\/p>\n
backhome<\/em> there are bushfires and The Test on TV but here<\/p>\n you\u2019re in the manic phase of a bipolar New Year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n even getting off the train at the wrong station when you can\u2019t<\/p>\n read the signage and no-one speaks your mothertongue doesn\u2019t<\/p>\n phase you. a divine messenger disguised as a mid-level clerk<\/p>\n tells you that the train to Mega is nexto-nexto<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n you\u2019re completely alone in your ipod universe as Antony sings<\/p>\n everything is new<\/em> in the space between your ears and you walk<\/p>\n the winter greyconcrete streets of Mega\/Shikama houses and<\/p>\n steel smokestacks beside a river tamed with cement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n refinery pipes, mega-pylons supporting arcs of cable<\/p>\n inscribed from some point above and<\/p>\n triangulations of scaffolding infrastructure<\/p>\n your artificial horizon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n you know in your bones that the sun rising red through smog<\/p>\n is rising just for you and despite the photochemical haze<\/p>\n there\u2019s a clarity\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 like individual rainbow ice crystals<\/p>\n refulgent on dead rice stalks beneath your feet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n the day is new. those birds you pass have migrated from Siberia<\/p>\n to forage for insects between the backstreet cabbages at this<\/p>\n precise second for your entertainment alone. you love each<\/p>\n moment. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 like now. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and this one \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n the entire day is unfolding. you don\u2019t need a god<\/p>\n when the Universe is so perfect and selforganised.<\/p>\n each day dripping into the vast pool<\/p>\n of dayspent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n occasionally we find ourselves<\/p>\n at an intersection where<\/p>\n any choice will be<\/p>\n the right one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n a clarity of smog<\/em> was first published in foam:e<\/em> #11. It has also appeared in Australian Poetry Journal Members Anthology 3<\/em>, tropeland<\/em> and Silver Singing Streams<\/em> (Friendly Street Poetry Reader #39, ed. Kalicharan N Dey & Geoff Hastwell, FS Poets, 2015.)<\/p>\n It was awarded the Friendly Street Poets Satura Prize in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" nine days in Japan and already you\u2019re a megalomaniac drunk on the fame of being slightly apart backhome there are bushfires and The Test on TV but here you\u2019re in the manic phase of a bipolar New Year. even … Continue reading