The Best Australian Poems 2011 by John Tranter

Halley, of comet fame
    crunched the numbers for the seeds
    of life insurance – the epistemic
    shift from the providential view
    that meant you’d sooner sacrifice
    a goat before a trip than trust in
    numbers. These days we rationalise:
    what’s the probability of the plane
    falling out of the sky? You’re far
    more likely to be struck by lightning.
    Did I tell you my father died in a plane
    crash? you’ll say, and I – mortified
    by my hypothetical, nodding as you
    explain your penchant for Xanax
    on cross-Atlantic flights – think back
    to this moment, ladling miso into
    our mouths, steam rising in winter,
    you explaining how you nursed
    your dying mother this September
    and muttering, half under your breath:
    Dying is so expensive in America.

On the Up & Up
Mick Searles
    an giv my best
    ta y’r missus
    he ends his mobile
    Â 
    trying to sell
    something –
    insurance
    cars
    ice cream
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â it doesn’t matter
    Â 
    the world makes sense
    to him
    Â 
    flitting around
    the c.b.d.
    asking
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â urging
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â selling
    Â 
    the smart ones
    will tell you
    Â 
    it’s all just energy
    Â 
    they won’t tell you
    about the intelligence
    behind it
    Â 
    that stolid
    ruthless
    poison.

Georges Perec in Brisbane
Thomas Shapcott
    With the slums of Paris as the norm
    Of course Brisbane is exotic.
    Imagine ripe mangos dropping on your roof
    Or the insistent flight of flying-foxes
    Every evening. Humidity
    Could be midsummer anywhere
    Particularly mid-continent. It will pass.
    Growth – not human – is what matters.
    Humans are peripheral here
    Whereas they are all that matters in Paris.
    Life might be something to use;
    Here it does not count. Insects
    Have as much claim: they are everywhere.
    It is strange to feel so isolated.
    Do I feel something is wrong? No.
    Everything has its own proportion
    But I will go back to what I think of as home
    And in ten months I will think of mosquitoes
    As the improbable cousins of humanity.

Heroes of Australia
Michael Sharkey
    In bedrooms of Australia they are waking up and saying
    What did I say and you know you should have stopped me and
    My god did I say that and saying never that’s the end of it no more
    I’m giving up and swearing off it while their heads are full of saucepans
    falling endlessly to floors made out of steel
    Â 
    And they are wearing cast-iron turbans that are growing ever smaller
    round their temples while the stereo bangs on: it’s descant sackbuts,
    Philip Glass and Chinese Air Force marching bands and whining voices
    Is that mine? that try to surface through the note-sludge and the chord-swamp
    saying that’s the end I know don’t try to talk to me it hurts
    Â 
    The second last drink always is the one that does the damage what
    possessed me to announce I love these cocktails I could drink them
    all night long, or who says cask red wine’s so rough let’s have another
    this is fun, it’s Penny’s big night out, it’s Roger’s last day with us
    let’s make sure we all remember while the café staff are laughing
    looking on and counting money thinking ambulance or police
    Â 
    They’re waking up and cannot face the ugly thing that’s in the mirrors
    that will catch them with its mug the simulacrum of a plastic drink cup
    crushed, its two small pissholes in the snow glued somewhere
    next to burst capillaries’ cadastral lines around what was a nose
    and will those tom-toms never cease
    Â 
    they’re waking up if this can be called waking up instead of
    resurrection from the dead and hearing noises coming out of furry caverns,
    burred with algae, fungus, vacuum-cleaner sacks of dust and ashes
    blurred with single malts and rotgut saying who’s a clever boy
    and who’s a clever clogs and whimpering I know
    I didn’t mean it while massed choirs