#2293 -- a monster never cleans up after

2293

7.100

11.iv.26

a monster never cleans up after

 

a monster never puts away

 

blood and gore

   bones

spare parts

smoke

and noxious

not quite thought

 

death is brought to mind

 

a monster’s always blaming out

always the fault of the rest

 

let’s see if these dusty old bombs still work

let’s test out a rusty old knife

 

a monster is entitled

skips to a tune, wrong key

 

monster doesn’t know that though

 

then there’s ‘made me do it’

monsters are never responsible

monsters are up for a dare

 

lopes along, afraid of own shadow

big growl and shall remain nameless

when name’s too dangerous to say

 

leaves tracks and scat

scares easily

 

lashes out

breath of an empty bottle

breathes someone else’s fire

 

monster dreams up a world we’re better without

 

here are a couple of countries trashed

there’s general dismay

 

a monster will always get you to pay

 

a monster never cleans up after

that’s not the monster’s way

#2292 -- tantrum

 

2292

7.99

10.iv.26

tantrum

 

the monster

takes his toys

the monster is a he

 

takes yours

the monster takes everyone’s

the monster takes the cake

 

the monster plays

he smashes his own

he’s not the only one

 

he monsters the other monsters

 

he smashes the others

no parents around

 

the monster is smashing everything up

keeps making threats

 

the monster is hurting himself

 

the monster is bigger than them

makes more hurt

than the rest of us all put together

 

bullies the bullies

and what does that make him?

 

so many cowards cheer on

keep quiet

 

everyone is dancing for the monster

everyone sings for him

 

everyone wants the monster

because, you know, or else

 

no one will lift a finger

no one will say a word

 

he doesn’t need a name

we’d be afraid to say

 

who’ll call the monster to bay?

 

not me

and very much doubt it’s you

 

we’d like to keep out of the monster’s way

 

maybe he’s not?

have I mentioned how ugly the monster is?

I mean the heart more than the face

 

as sin, they say

 

they haven’t seen the monster ‘

haven’t been up close

 

his spite is poison

a foul ooze of what-can-we-call-it?

it’s not mind

but

maybe he’s misunderstood

lately we’ve been thinking that way

 

how everyone’s just so much monster

not much else

 

all shapes and sizes

the things we think!

and what we’d if off leash

 

but better not to think at all

we have our monstrous hopes

we all have monster in

 

if I hide here?

or will the monster go away?

 

that’s how I’ve been looking at things

 

does this make me a monster?

 

or maybe, just maybe

one day?

#2291 -- all the time vanishing

 

2291

7.98

9.iv.26

all the time vanishing

 

they are the intimate of conversation

skin from out from in

 

who gave a name

who sent the message when

 

a touch if too

the idle glance

 

it’s as if somehow you knew they were

due for elision

understood to have been

 

we put away the thought

 

child blown to bits or is it the mother ?

 

one less one more

 

as if out of the blue

 

a face or fate

 

sky falling

 

a run through the sun

 

a tear off

 

waving tall as the grass to show

 

one face into another fades

 

slip away behind a door

pretend

 

please won’t you say forever?

we’ll all then still be here

#2290 -- duck

 

2290

7.97

8.iv.26

duck

 

I dream the snake again

long as a shadow we any could cast

 

all I remember is that we were here

the rest as they say …

 

take a little mudthump jogtrot

honest day

 

thing after another so

we’re just a few brushstrokes for

 

breeze the web dodging this that lit

 

will I know the way went

did I open a window, a door?

 

all of us only just now cooked up

 

you do know that we live in a shoe?

 

how far until the deeps of things?

 

that the wonders uncease

pour on every direction

 

one needn’t even look

that’s all I remember now

from the launch of IN EARLY LIGHT - aubades --- at Watt Space Gallery (Uni of Newcastle) at the Newcastle Writers' Festival -- 28.iii.26

 

Kit reading from IN EARLY LIGHT

Josh Stenberg launching IN EARLY LIGHT

Magdalena Ball in conversation with Kit 

some pictures from the accompanying exhibition 

 at Watt Space Gallery (Uni of Newcastle) 

KIT KELEN | in early light ~ aubades

'in early light ~ aubades' | ISBN 978 1 763825 994 | 106 pgs | May 2025 | $25 (within Australia)

---

These freewheeling Hopkinsesque, Dylanesque, fragmentary poems have the thrilling feeling of “the still wet canvas” of dawn with its “light that breaks down doors” and suddenly you see, waking again and again to the newness of world and “the firstliness of birds / born to the thin air chase”. With gentle brushstrokes Kelen “rubs back a primed sky” with an irradiating light: “It’s just these little prints I leave / barest of impressions” he says, but what an impression these poems leave us indeed: “the practice of just where we are”, the meditation of poet being poet being human being artist in this world right now – and how thankful I am for them.

– Anne Kellas

AND YOU CAN GET THE BOOK HERE! -- FROM WALLEAH PRESS 

https://walleahpress.com.au/Kit-Kelen-in-early-light-aubades.html

KELEN, Kit | in early light ~ aubades |poetry | ISBN 978 1 763825 994 | June 2025 | 104 pgs | $25.00

Regular price $25.00

‘There’s weather in the head—its own world spinning’: in this exquisite collection of aubades, award-winning poet Kit Kelen brings his signature inventiveness and sidestepping of language convention, deep affinity with the natural world, metaphysical questioning and daily sunrise-inspired reveries to refresh the reader over and over again at the altar of time and truth. The poems made me think and dream and want to scribble!