WHT Word Hurl Times Magazine: Poetry, Short Stories, Art and Articles
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john montrose
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joel degotardi
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paul lewer
issue nine: mixed bag
Edited by David Graham Subeditors: Carlin McLellan, Kim Bartels & Gem Minter Graphic Designer: Holly Farrell Photography & Art Director: Genevieve Graham WHT acknowledge the Awabakal people, the traditional custodians of the land this publication was created on. We pay respect to elders past, present and future. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this magazine. This publication may be reproduced and distributed freely in its entirety. Individual pieces remain the copyright of their author.
CONTENTS 04
Editorial: David Graham
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fiction: john montrose
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poetry: brad evans
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Poetry: michael collins
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poetry: spiggsy
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poetry/art: joel degotardi
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poetry: michelle scott
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poetry: alex morris
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poetry: pete cuppaidge
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Poetry: paul lewer
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Poetry: Found Poems
editorial David Graham
Twenty-sixteen – the year of the kaleidoscope. According to the traditions of the binocular people this is the dawning of a new age. An age where at the beginning of February a little collection of writing from people somehow connected to Newcastle would find its way into your hands/screen. So it would seem the prophecy has come to pass and here you are reading the much heralded WHT #9. It seems the famous long sightedness of the binocular tribe has proven true. But why year of the kaleidoscope? Well, it’s a vain attempt to connect the theme, or rather not theme, of this issue ‘mixed bag’ with a little bit of nonsense about binocular people. You know, looking through a kaleidoscope the colours and shapes mix around and change shape not unlike when you shake a bag of lollies. And boy do we have some sweets for you. So take a look, share a couple with your friends and enjoy.
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editorial
An Anatomy of Nink
John Montrose
T
here’s been a lot of meandering lately. All the green and tepid philandering has become less fowl to complacent blinds. The hand-fastening in the oven is satisfied, for now. We all sit at the hearth, burning heather and thinking about our toenails. In this age of despondence, an old-age custom arose and fell that few could really fathom without oversimplification. Your friend and ally, John Montrose (yours truly) had been sleeping in a rut, not unlike a bedroom. That all changed last night with a fowl leer from our sword and the elixir of life flew steady like a thunder colt from the ganges. Caution, for what follows is spiceless, but with many limbs or at least a handle and a spout. It remains a sunscreen for those one eyed cats who are allergic to saliva. Hold tight little snake, this buggy has no breaks and is as right as you not having any arms. It all started when the town was torn asunder by tea-dreaming one noontide. I had managed to glean a manual entitled An Anatomy of Nink – the kind of volume where wholesale is less effective, if not slightly louder. It was there that I discovered a true guide to the art. It reestablished some time honoured beliefs, but also reaffirmed the shame of some bad habits that had snuck into my imbibing over the last few leers at moths. For example:
- never stir the whorenets nest, lest your fantasies be come bitter and you lose an ear - never dream in the mircrowave or risk becoming alluvial - recloaking is fine for oneself but must never be done with friends - rash is the output of 0.9 inches
fiction: john montrose
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The manual also commanded me to forgo my wandering down the path most taken (it quoted Frost) and took me back to a whole lot of leering ago - to high school. Wrongly I remember that superterranian complex built on an oval and held together by corrugate – a strange limbo between Whitlam and Rudd. I think Carr was there, but it’s hard to be sure. No one gave a card about politics at the time - Lunches were spent on verandahs and mid-pubescent brunches on benches close by. It was a whole world of interstellar social maelstroms swirling around themselves in a cup of tomato soup that I sipped idly. Anyway, I made a revision then that I am also making now and it involves a yellow brick road, without Dorothy. For I was born in Oztopia, upside down, all torn-out and priceless. Utterly ill adapted for a climate of sterile servitude and air conditioning. My peers live in bubbles and do their best not be breath unfiltered air. I could too, but I seem to be allergic to refrigerators. It’s a funny old thing when you think about it. We heat it up to cool things down (a thinly veiled irony but also an allusion to my main theme). The ashphalt outside is melting and running down the drain. The drain is a gullet that drinks all the gravel with stained cement teeth, not unlike my own. What the road really lacks is some alcohol to give it a veneer of reality. Instead you have muscle clad genomes as implacable as street signs feigning disappointment with the 11%. A cup and saucer for a hammer and shield to the gendarmes of the highway asking computers to breath into straws and lick floss combs. But enough about the economy. Let’s get down to copper fifes. In antiquity man looked to the sky and longed for wings. The greeks built some out of wax, michelangelo sticks and women’s garments. What they should have been doing was try to grow gills and web their feet. The final frontier, my friends, lies not on the vast emptiness of place but that vast ocean lying deep within my navel.
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fiction: john montrose
What else can I say then? I have the Anatomy and I choose to use it for my own stupid ends. I don’t care if you don’t want a taste. I don’t care if your shorts are covered in candle wax. The time has come for what Beckett called Word Shit and nobody likes to see that on their fine china.
fiction: john montrose
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one for Kev
brad evans
we often chose the same sports and in the summer if we weren’t windsurfing we would sail the mari’s and hobie’s. you were the daredevil and could often be seen cartwheeling whenever the nor-easter was decent: capsizing was second-nature to you and I often watched you out there gripping the wet cord shivering amongst the whitecaps, trying to right your cat even when the tip of the mast was dragging along the sandy bottom you’d always find a way to get it upright. I remember one day after you gave our teacher, Mr Wilkes, some shit he told you to dig a hole big enough to fit his ego and you stuck your little finger in the sand and said to him cheekily “is this big enough for you, sir!” whenever sailing in close to shore I would watch your progress until I could barely see the top of your head as you happily dug that hole all afternoon.
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poetry: brad evans
Terrible Dreams (Mental Health Week celebrated) Michael Collins
The terrible dreams… Those terrible dreams! Convoluted in their symbolism they return. The panic builds… Total… Extreme… Unrelenting. You wake up screaming… thumping your chest: Forcing a breath… Deep… Slow… For you are certain that your heart has stopped! 1
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You count… Now you are calm: And you hope that you are wrong- about everything! Then a memory enters your brain… or mind… or whatever… (You have not decided on an answer to that one yet.) This is not new. It has happened before… often! And the child that was is there again once moreAnd he is not welcome in this space at all. No, his presence is not welcome here. Still, as unwelcome as he is More so are the other individuals who resides within: Who are also ‘you’… in various manifestations-
poetry: michael collins
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They are your creations! So you fight every drug… every therapy… everyone… And you can do this whilst you are awake… But the night is remorseless and will have its way! And the terrible dreams… Those awful dreams… Reclaim you!
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poetry: michael collins
The Game of Hearts
spiggsy
As the game’s more like floating clouds (Intangible and fleeting); It’s not easy to pin down The song of two hearts meeting. There are no rules, par se Which guarantee success; How anyone should play Differs from one to the next. For some gals will take a while To warm to chaps unknown; While others flash a ready smile At all on life’s grand road. Oh yes, you might get lucky If you’ve charm or you can dance; Yet it may fade just as quickly If one will not advance. Just listen close and keenly Observe how things unfold; For sharing banter seemly Won’t always equate to winning gold! Love will be what love will be And there’s naught else you can do; So just be comfortable with thee And “to thine own heart be true!”
poetry:
spiggsy
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CELLOPHANE BRAIN Joel Degotardi
cant stop cant start even dogs will cease to bark cant think cant dream dont feel a fucking thing cant move cant grow i just want to be alone when i die burn my bones burn my body burn my home don’t leave a single trace of my worthless existence  
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poetry: Joel Degotardi
art: Joel Degotardi
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my step father
Michelle Scott (Canada)
He used to tell me that I ‘wasn’t worth shit.’ But I swallowed my tears because my mother loved him and didn’t have the heart to leave him. He’s gone now and isn’t allowed within 100 feet of us. So unless he screams his profanities he cannot tell me how worthless I am anymore.
world travel
i want to travel. BUT i don’t just want to vacation like i do every spring break in Arizona with my parents. I want to be able to go somewhere not knowing when I’ll be back. Will i be back in a week? A few months? A couple years? Who knows all I know is that I want to see everything. I don’t want to go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower and the Lock Bridge…I want to go to Paris to get lost and find abandoned houses, innocent book stores, and quaint coffee shops. I don’t want to kiss strangers at random or be spontaneous. I want to casually meet people and become life long friends. I want to take pictures and write about everything. I want my life to be like wind. Drifting here and there,
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poetry: michelle scott
touching people’s lives as I go…I don’t want to be in the same spot my entire life…I don’t like the feeling of it. It leaves a bland after taste on my tongue. I want to be everywhere with everyone constantly on the move. i want to be…invisibly visible.
I let it happen...
but I knew that if I wasnt careful you would grasp my quiet life and change it to a loud, sobbing cry for when you left. And I let it happen
poetry: michelle scott
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Creation
Alex Morris
Some folks make art things some make tea and thoughts of love It is all the same OR We all masturbate1
1Alternate
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ending courtesy of Ben Matthews
poetry: alex morris
My Muse
Pete Cuppaidge
Sexy Scandalous Slutty Silly Steamy Sphincteral Spectral Sultry Strong Skinny Sinful Shameless Sanguine Solicitous Seriously cerebral The whole shebang Singular Stratospheric Shockingly sincere Searingly insightful Somewhat sophisticated Seditious Delicious Simply stunning Sensual Sensuous Strenuous Single Signal Synchronous In sync Subcutaneous Simultaneous Simmering slowly Shimmering slightly Stunningly supple and so on.
poetry: Pete Cuppaidge
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Our Caliph of the Couch paul lewer
Of Oblomov it is said, He never would get out of bed. But that Russian gent had nothing on – Our Caliph of the Couch. Upon it he does languid lay Yawning hard both night and day. Nothing stirs our hero – That Caliph of the Couch. “All comes to him who waits,” says he; “I shall slumber here in ragged state, “Let them come to me” says – Our Caliph of the Couch. Sucking on his hookah, With vodka, lime and sucre, The calories come a’callin’ But he is not yet caterwaulin’ – Our Caliph of the Couch. “My girth may drop exponential, “But is that consequential, “If I lay here reverential?” – Says the caliph of the Couch. With daily life just passin’, He reclines there everlastin’ For all is the same for – Our Caliph of the Couch. All may go to rack and ruin, With atrophy and spittle droolin’ “But I emulate the bruin, “In the cave and never doin’
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poetry: paul lewer
“Perhaps a waste, “But that’s my taste” – Says our Caliph of the Couch. * The reference to Oblomov may be somewhat arcane for my audience.You will recall the character from Russian literature (was it Dostoevsky?) who would never get out of bed? “Oblomovism” became a psychiatric term I’m told.
poetry: paul lewer
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found poem: people i like
found poem: people i like
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SUBMISSIONS – “STUDIO LA PRIMITIVE ARTS ZINE!”
Our online ARTS ZINE is two years old in October, with a growing audience, nationally and internationally. The Zine is free, with no advertising from sponsors. It is just something we want to do for the Arts, which has been our lifelong passion. Already we are having a splendid response with many artists, writers and philosophers happy to contribute articles and exhibition news. Hopefully we will have your art works and words to print in future editions. Please get back to us if you are interested, fairly soon as we are booking in artists and writers over the next months. Our email: werkhovenr@bigpond.com The ARTS ZINE is available at our new web site, www.studiolaprimitive.net Or direct link: http://issuu.com/robynwerkhoven/docs/slp_arts_zine_july2015 Looking forward to hearing from you Cheers Eric & Robyn Werkhoven Editors
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submit to word hurl
A bi-monthly magazine / zine / journal / spam email of poetry, art, flavour enhancers, or anything else you send us. All text types, formats & mediums accepted. Surprise us and anyone who reads it! For enquiries and submissions email: wordhurl.antislam@hotmail.com To check out the publication in a previous incarnation go to: wordhurlantislam.com
Image: Thomas Pollack Anshutz Boy Reading: Ned Anshutz (detail and altered) ca. 1900. Oil on canvas, (96.7 x 68.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 67.135
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