Utensil

They forgot to make me a boy. I was born and everything. Smelted in the forge. I’ve got a good bowl. Weighty handle. But they made me a not-boy. I know I’m a boy. I can feel my cock. Or perhaps it is the stirring of power tools. How can I prove my boyness to you? Or should I proclaim to be a man by now? I do not count age by years but soups. I know I am a man because I do not want to be a woman. Must find a beard. Waiter there’s a hair in my soup. I want to fuck things. I’m always hard as stainless steel. Maker’s mark stamped on my spine. I want to fuck things up.

Monica Carroll (Australian Capital Territory)


Monica's new book from Recent Work Press

yellow wall

‘writing for the rats’
— Charles Bukowski

I see a yellow wall
turn it over

there’s writing
on the other side
scribbled notes
theories on life

I haven’t been to Paris yet
but I will soon
then I’ll have lived

I might go to Turin
and Genoa, or Barcelona
or a village on that coast
or all of them

then I’ll have lived
a little bit more

I’ll come back here
or a place very like it
and find…


Owen Bullock (New Zealand / Canberra)

Installing

Jón Páll Sigmarsson’s first installation is a mobile phone standing twelve feet high. You type the letter A by pulling down a lever which takes all your strength. Activate letter B by lifting a 30 litre bucket of water from a shelf at chest height. Clock letter C by sawing through a 40cm log with a bow saw. A message can take an hour. The exhibit relays what you’ve written to a real cellphone which sends the message, though there might be network problems. Sigmarsson’s work will be tremendously popular, the gallery owners tell me.

Owen Bullock (New Zealand / Canberra)