Adam Aitken


The Sheriff’s speech, on Hawai’i Budget Appropriations Bill 2200


Lets not rub out
the possibilities

but dream of
the impossibilities

        -        housing,
        -        living without addiction
        -        a job
        -        a safe place to sleep

I guess I can score

3 outta 4
and rub out the one
I don’t need,

like a scratch card

or Bingo…

the 4th

‘cos it don’t exist

no more,


‘cos the dream of the possibilities
I once had

is no dream no more.



The Sheriff discovers Blackwattle Bay, New Year


I rode into the valley of the yachts
the smoke was an orange grey

I found my level
where I did not disperse

like a truth about the country
from where I blew

I was not disappointed
that the smoke obscured
the haciendas, the city of towers

for the warrant
this here state
gave itself to destroy
came crystal clear to me

an undeniable fact
still burnin’ in my head

as I rode across
an ashen field of lies.



The Sheriff Struggles with da Editing


Dear members

  Oh my god …!

these are beautuful resources I wanna to share

thes are beutufl

resources
  I want to share

these are sure botiful re-

sources I god to share

I do hope you are as well as can be

  and isolated in these trying times.

This is but a brief note

to share
to share a message

  from Mike Palmquist at the WAC Clearinghouse.

And I wanna share his announcement

“I am writing to share a brief announcement about resources

I want share”



The Sheriff Considers the Question of the Day


The question being:

who shd live or die

now that it
matter again

but

not a question
of wot live out dere

apart from

us


an whether the designated day

is

sunny or overcast

        -        the weather
the filmmaker waited for

after a few rounds of Bourbon and Coke
in the desert lands of

the polarized
Fijichroned Amercun

Imagin-
nation.



The Sheriff Learns Photography


Look at the corners
and take out the de-
stractions.

Go to Pluto
and you will see
the universe.

Rule number #7,
or #8?

What them Art Folk really mean is
find the product
and let it hang there
in its own blank space

odorless, dust-free.

Tonto, I saw you stenciled on yr pony
on a wall in France
aiming for god knows what white man

but I took the shot
of you taking the shot.

The world was set to rights,
in balance, and harmony
and all that
stuff
about the Golden Mean.

So I see you there
in Heaven’s room,

both the shadow of the horse
and the horse

both you, the light, and me




Adam Aitken lives in Sydney. His last collection was Archipelago (Vagabond Press).
 
 
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