Chainsaw

The seared flesh of wood, cut

to a polish, deceives: the rip and tear

of the chain, its rapid cycling

a covering up of raw savagery.

It is not just machine. In the blur

of its action, in its guttural roar,

it hides the malice of organics.

Cybernetic, empirical, absolutist.

The separation of Church and State,

conspiracies against the environmental

lobby, enforcement of fear, are at the core

of its modus operandi. The cut of softwood

is deceptive, hardwood dramatic: just

before dark on a chill evening

the sparks rain out—dirty wood,

hollowed by termites, their digested

sand deposits, capillaried highways

imploded: the chainsaw effect.

It is not subtle. It is not ambient.

It is trans nothing. A clogged airfilter

has it sucking up more juice—

it gargles, floods, chokes

into silence. Sawdust dresses boots,

jeans, the field. Gradually

the paddock is cleared, the wood

stacked in cords along the lounge-room wall.

A darkness kicks back and the cutout

bar jerks into place, a distant chainsaw

dissipates. Further on, some seconds later,

another does the same. They follow

the onset of darkness, a relay of severing,

a ragged harmonics stretching back

to its beginning—gung-ho,

blazon, overconfident. Hubristic

to the final cut, last drop of fuel.

Drowning in Wheat

They'd been warned

on every farm

that playing

in the silos

would lead to death.

You sink in wheat.

Slowly. And the more

you struggle the worse it gets.

'You'll see a rat sail past

your face, nimble on its turf,

and then you'll disappear.'

In there, hard work

has no reward.

So it became a kind of test

to see how far they could sink

without needing a rope

to help them out.

But in the midst of play

rituals miss a beat—like both

leaping in to resolve

an argument

as to who'd go first

and forgetting

to attach the rope.

Up to the waist

and afraid to move.

That even a call for help

would see the wheat

trickle down.

The painful consolidation

of time. The grains

in the hourglass

grotesquely swollen.

And that acrid

chemical smell

of treated wheat

coaxing them into

a near-dead sleep.

 

Skeleton weed/generative grammar

(I) Finite-state

The 'i' takes in what is said—

yes, it is easily led

across the floors of discourse

only to find itself a force

easily reckoned with: there's

no point in stock-taking arrears

as fleshly interests tell you

nothing except acceptability & taboo.

Take skeleton weed infesting

the crop—rosette of basal

leaves unleashing a fatal

stem with daisy-like flowers

that drop (into) parachute clusters

of seeds. One missed when

they scour the field (men

& women anonymously-clothed

seated on a spidery raft dragged

behind a plodding tractor,

monotony testing the free-will factor),

can lead to disaster.

 

(II) Phrase-structure

{[((analyz)ing)] [the ((constituent)s)]}

we examine(?) the wool of sheep

for free-loading skeleton-weed seeds,

their teeth specifically designed

for wool: the ag department

have decided they ARE selective

though admit our investigations

will help their 'research'.

 

(III) transformational

One year the farmer asked us if we

felt guilty for missing one & hence ruining

his would-have-been bumper crop.

Quarantined the following year. Losing

his unseeded would-be bumper crop.

Ruining his credit rating. His marriage.

His son's & daughter's places

at their exclusive city boarding

schools. His problem with alcohol.

His subsequent breakdown

& hospitalization. (?) We remained

& still remain passive. Still we remained

& remain passive. But we [look(ed)] deeply,

collectively & independently

into our SELVES. Our silence

was an utterance of a loud inner speech.

A loud inner speech was an utterance

of our silence. Speaking for myself,

I've included in my lexicon of guilt

the following: what I feel today

will I feel tomorrow? And those tight

yellow flowers: so beautiful on the wiry

structures they call 'skeleton weed.'

 

John Kinsella

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