Pam Brown lives in Sydney on Gadigal land. She has been active in the Australian poetry scene in diverse modes for five decades & has published many books, pamphlets & chapbooks. A new collection of poems, Guess the Experience, is out from Hunter Publishers in October 2025.
Blueprint
on the murray’s bus
sydney to canberra
reading
juan goytisolo’s ‘the blind rider’
again
a novella
(novella
sounds like a biscotti)
– – –
no wallabies
grazing on the clearings
too early in the day
– – –
juan –
‘there were only fragments of pages
loose or ill-fitting pieces . . .
inconsistency
allowed no closure
or exemplary glow’
– – –
no glow
i’ll turn to drawing
or collage –
& scratch at vacuity
but butcher’s paper
is there any
anywhere in canberra
i want to draw (copy)
the dada phone spiral
on the softer side of that paper
francis picabia’s spiral
on the cover
DADAphone magazine no 7
a magazine
found in the library
– – –
in civic –
a faded poster
glued to the side of a post box
‘can art make the world a better place’
boris groys asks
then answers himself –
‘i doubt it
but i still hope
that it can prevent us
from making it much worse’
oh well that doesn’t help
nor a national university
cutting art school funding
– – –
what’s my blueprint?
not to make this world
anything more
(better or worse)
than it is
as ken said arnold strals said
(or sang?)
‘things will get better
before they get worse’
– – –
later & right now
already
back on the bus
canberra to sydney
– – –
late afternoon
a hawk or small eagle
glides high in the cloudy sky
– – –
reading slavoj žižek
yet
nothing is clear
– – –
i’m at žižek’s
zero point
starting point –
rock bottom
base of the hill
foot of the climb
like
vladimir lenin’s zero point
a century before
after a political disaster
lenin’s advice –
retreat & regroup
– – –
retreat i’m used to
a kind of awful stoicism
or refusal
– – –
regroup
how?
‘my’ (doubting) reality –
baffled by technocracy’s
machines-for-forgetting
so much
‘back then’
often misremembered
– – –
disappointed &, i think,
depressed
by pervasive retail poetry
&
its performing CEOs
ending up
opposed
but not worth the protest
so another retreat?
regroup
who with?
(for …?)
the
wornout
fail better thing
– – –
hawk or eagle
i don’t know
– – –
everything is not going to be okay
tho
i laugh my half a laugh
at
žižek’s corny jokes
&
approve
his hippy outlook –
greet the enemies
give them some flowers or fruit
withdraw
go home
– – –
close the book – zero point
the bus turns in to central station
western forecourt