Issue 9: Jal Nicholl
You’ve heard the saying
“ladies first”; well here it’s the elderly
walking on birds
mais l’art n'est pas beau pour etre difficile
realising an affluent society
into the limitless future. Elitist MC:
“the problem with democracy
everybody wanna front”
*
Young feller wanted to see the big city
but father said No
so before the South Gate he walked to and fro
then home to goodwife so often
it roused the Authorities.
under interrogation, admits “I was all of a dither…”
but seeing as he showed such filial piety
they brought him before the King
who made him Prime Minister
*
Look, here’s 3 pigs approaching a plate
of pork. It (cannibalism)
isn’t disgusting to them. Just so
everybody has different feelings, different preferences
yeah yeah, people are lazy
can’t be allowed free access to money
that or they're grasping
the horns of a bull
that's trying to gore them like
riding a bicycle
that makes them feel morally superior
or maybe just “doing it tough”
in their 16th year at uni
and although the same may not be naturally or
irredeemably racist, even so
in an age of strife like sticks to like, like
sticks to a bagworm’s cocoon
And so the game continues until
all agents are happy, the equilibrium outcome
Elegant hands
“Go jerk off”, in french
frozen
the ashtray, in seoul
I saw your disease
in a herbalist's window in melbourne, meaning
it's been around for some time, and can be cured
the messiah was then just a few days old
Now I have to go back to this foreign place
the octopus of
the previous lunation
turning
where I once accepted
more change than was due
of a witch impersonating a shopkeeper
and return the difference
Plug it in
to a search engine
to check if it’s original
and watch it go
like a child in a plane anxious and excited
to be visiting a place green skied in his dreams
held like a baby in long arms
of relatives he hasn't met yet
in a picturebook or a natural language
out of the many in which the forms are enmeshed
just so, every scoliosis has
a unique compensation pattern
in order to treat it you must
ascend from an underworld of questionnaires
with the knowledge of your Metabolic Type™
Jal Nicholl combines elements of the Melbourne and Adelaide accents, often inconsistently; he'll probably be saying ‘castle’ with a short A soon. The poems appear in many journals and tend to come in seasonal efflorescences. Jal is writing his coming-of-age thesis on the phenomenology of customer relations.
