The Best Australian Poems 2011 by John Tranter

rare
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â hipp’d Prospertine
    I’m ovrly fond of the weeds where your street crosses
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â my own   your original rigor pasted and pretty
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â as barbiturates
    ride
    isobars of clutching muscle
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â that on odd days
    Â 
    ferry us to orgasm.

FUTURE HAPPY BUDDHA
vs Fake Kenny Rogers Head
D.J. Huppatz
    Some people hang these crystals in their homes and cars.
    This is called a cobra hood, you can do it silently.
    MySpace, yes, Kenny and the Elephants, but who cares?
    So these beads are pretty too.
    I’m great and
    I’m really interested to know you, FUTURE HAPPY BUDDHA.
    Â 
    A zinc finger homeobox transcription factor
    acting late in neuronal differentiation:
    fake Kenny Rogers Head. Macrobiotic, of course.
    So if I was to dig up all these rocks,
    I would find dirt on the bottom?
    No, just fake Kenny Rogers Heads. All the way down.

The Frequency of God
Mark William Jackson
    At a trash ’n’ treasure market,
    in an average town,
    an old radio
    encased in bakelite.
    Â 
    Plugged in and
    waiting for the valves to warm
    I took to the dial with a frothing sense of urgency,
    twisting past horse races and rock and roll,
    past right-wing commentary,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â searching for the frequency of God,
    long lost in digital audio,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â sure to be found
    in the silver soldered
    magic of a romanticised time.
    Â 
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â And there
    at the end
    of the amplitude modulated band,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â megahertz away from any generic noise,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â a perfect silence.

Miracle on Blue Mouse Street, Dublin
John Jenkins
    for Leo Cullen who said: ‘Once Celtic tiger Ireland; now no teeth!’
    Â 
    In a doorway from the rain, on Blue Mouse Street,
    he was shouting ‘Miracles! More miracles to come!’
    The old beggar with the battered suitcase said,
    â€˜Yes, I am sure there will be one for you.’
    So I walked over, closer to his sign, which said:
    Miracles For Sale! Compact and Portable!
    Â 
    He spoke conspiratorially when he saw my coins.
    â€˜Come closer,’ he said. ‘To me, you look a little
    worried, as if lacking air, or joie de vivre,
    but are lucky anyway. Because I see my suitcase
    is going to open for you, and believe that a miracle
    might well come out of my suitcase. And I look forward
    to knowing how this suitcase miracle will manifest
    itself, as I am quite certain now that it will!
    Now listen,’ he said, ‘and don’t miss out.’
    Â 
    He took a plastic comb, held it to his mouth
    and hummed and wheezed dreadfully through it.
    â€˜That tune is called “Our Happiness”,’ he said.
    It made all the sparrows shake up from the trees.
    And made small children run and cry, and the rain fall much harder.
    He smiled, twirled and did a little hop and broken dance.
    Â 
    â€˜I love my life,’ he said. ‘I love selling hope and miracles out here
    in the rain, to all the passers-by on Blue Mouse Street.
    Look,’ he said, ‘I have a pocket full of holes. These are my “loopholes”,
    and I pay no tax.’ And he pulled his pockets inside out, and showed me.
    Â 
    â€˜I had a pocket full of hope once, but hope or fine illusions,
    or any sort of negotiable miracle, all being invisible,
    weigh less than a suitcase I carry for a rainy day like this one,
    always hoping for a miracle to manifest, for my paying public.
    Look!’ And I imagined I saw us both standing