D.J. Huppatz


How to Trap Angels


You had to answer your phone, didn’t you?
I told you there are unknown agencies
working evil in the world. An investigation
will establish whether they brush their teeth or not.

Heightened emotion, significant events: these won’t help.
Start building a horseshoe-shaped trap a light-year across,
far to the north of the starting position. The Ribcage Harness
might work, but don’t even try the ol’ fake-to-third,
throw-to-first pickoff play. That never works.

Mobility matters and angels have an elevated
level of spiritual energy, nominally 7 units,
with a surplus of 14 units or more added per day.
Angels choose light fabrics and wear socks too.
The floor is cold in Heaven.

Accessorize, cast off your karmic shackles then
tell them it’s actually a snowplough protector
rather than a footrest for relaxation.
Just don’t expect anyone to notice.



Keep Pressing


Pin-stripped, particles of life
won’t adhere anymore.

Keep pressing and we’ll reward you.

The afterimage of statistics
flicker under a fluorescent tube
and the carnival is so remote
you can only daydream its edges.

Years have slipped by since last week’s special.

Were the idiots at work born idiots
or did work make them like that?
Or was it the espresso machine?
Skim milk? Corn syrup? Tight jeans?

Some try to blame the elevator but
the truth is it’s the elevator music.



D.J. Huppatz is a Melbourne-based writer who has had poetry published recently in VLAK 2 (2011), Overland, and Black Inc’s The Best Australian Poems 2011, as well as an article on contemporary poetics, “Dionysus in Drag: On Flarf” in Louis Armand, ed., Hidden Agendas: Unreported Poetics (Litteraria Pragensia: Prague, 2010).
 
 
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