Blackbox Manifold

Issue 13: Philip Hammia

Compassion

for the Fur Lackeys – so busy clamouring for a chance

   to paint more spots on Stephanie Guelph’s Guernsey

   cow that they’ve forgotten to decorate

   the other animals & will be punished

   accordingly;

for the Amen Hookers – ten thousand blue men

   in a little black book, & what do they do?

   They rescue Gaga from the Gooks;

for the Ha’penny Slammers – wrestled to the ground

   by a sperm papa, all they can think of

   is to hire more shoppers;

for the Snigger Babas – making do with less

   than perfect spunk while they hiss the names

   of those spent villages – Jath, Nalgonda, Kalyani –

   to which they’ll never return;

for the Little Morbids – as serene as children

   in coffins, who’d guess that their yields

   have a yawl factor: Howdy! Apple! Bang!

for the Pulpit Hopefuls – wheel-chaired into

   a snake pit, have they failed to grasp

   that all containers (themselves included)

   are ritual containers?

for the Chacmool Sluts – withered old men perched,

   pieta-like, on their mistresses’ laps, couldn’t

   care (or so they say) how butter-soft

   their mouth-watering poo poos are;

for the Bala Boys – sprawled in puddles,

   have a leakage problem that won’t be solved

   before the show’s over & by then

   it will be too late.


 Sissy C Sissy Do

For muscular men it’s a must to give

a max answer. So obvious

that you’ve been carelessly worn, an irresistible attraction

to back-of-the-bus thugs, their dribs & drabs of smacks

pinpointing the greenest part of an otherwise

sprawling vision.

                            Too bad

(no sleeping dogs for you) you just didn’t leave it

for them to wrestle out among themselves, a halt thereby

to every race. O what you wouldn’t give

to do some spooning with this lot, such froth

they whip as scissors & paper

settle into seem.

                           Short

of a last stand, what are you saving up for? ­ More

gruel? Enough gel for a six day week? Is it time to lamb

but you can’t, that boss you knelt to coming back

to haunt you?

                      Might as well insert your key in (into?)

Miss Fancy Fine’s sky-blue door, love like a tight cannon

the moment you show. It’s a five star tease. It’s much

too confidential to spell it out here. As much

as you’d like to no answer by sissies need be given.



Philip Hammial has had 26 poetry collections published. His poems have appeared in 25 poetry anthologies (in five countries) & in 108 journals in twelve countries. He has represented Australia at eight international poetry festivals, most recently at Granada, Nicaragua in February 2014. In 2009/10 he was the Australian writer-in-residence for six months at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.