7 May 2025
8 May 2025
submitted for Best of Australian Poems 2025 17 June 2025
not quite tracey
SMOOCH POETICS
PROMPT ENGINE
PROMPT ONE
idealised naked humans though a bit worse for wear
walk in random directions in a soft-lit empty room
cut to a gently panning vertical cross section of one of them
the skin being a line on the inside of which fluid
and intimate texts of selfhood
are illuminated as they slide over each other
repeat for each person in a smooth
tender and exploratory fashion
it might start something like this
- swing a pepperberry interrupt / crush / grace at eighty to the hop fields goes a river between / kiddies frisk boulders clamber oh aunty and then she is gliding / tootsie has a fire-keep-going on the other bank grace swims toward / no, can’t be poplars hop fields now they when white come / pause / floats on back old tits in sun / then turtles on down / breaths out on her back on bottom tumble done
- this trick all her life waits as skies glance grey / up there’s consternation has aunty drowned she lets it go on / then back to laughter and screams / a cloud of eramana it much prickly bugger don’t care mebbe the sky’s darking i’m someone else so i kill the pig squeal / not like the silent one-with-a-pouch / and silently licking there too
- zoom the planet a spherical avocado pricked fire / crimson eruptions click flyby / another orbit no smoke plume / don’t wait till i’m-perfect-kiss-me-now / it must be this way calculates lately / or the evidence taste and / the tie up massage tree / lightning / it’s pathetic all i want is to be shit scared and love it / sacred / the archangel hugs me in grief we struggle compact / breathe deep deep deep two three the crowd calm show / goes on
- and lunches launch the school run grandparents walk in / idyllic late fifties nuclear silos dig / prior to prompt out / i want to paint you all over but you sit in the milk bar in calm sequestration / the supply chain to your body too long / i can’t sing your song / can’t kiss you long before bonny prince can’t row if you saved him
- qian multipies heirlooms hoards possessions stuff is his genre let him exhume / shad shats long and thoughtful and when your turn comes he won’t get off the crapper for anything less than a quid / but look up at his name on a glittering shard / huh, all this happens on the inside of a thigh now what’s goin’ on? it tickles / probably / this poem is progress / now for another