Amelia Walker

Amelia Walker

Amelia Walker has published two previous poetry collections: Fat Streets and Lots of Squares and Just Your Everyday Apocalypse. She has also written three books of poems, worksheets, games and lesson plans for the primary school classroom. These are part of Macmillan’s All You Need To Teach series. Amelia is currently working on a fictocritical thesis about poetry for her PhD studies at the University of South Australia. Sound and Bundy was written as the artefact component of her Honours thesis.

Performance of one of the poems with music

Bloody Poets, 1994 [Pete Lind]

I am not a poet.
I’m just a guy who writes poetry, got it?
I can’t stand poets,
the way they stare
out of books, yellow and sour.
As people they might have been okay,
good for a drink and a laugh.
Poor sods, getting turned into poets.
And thank God I am not one!
If I were I’d have to wear black
and speak strange unto thee
and shove my head in ovens
because I would hate myself
for being a poet,
a lie.
Lucky, then, I’m just a guy,
a guy who works,
who comes home
and goes out,
good for a drink and a laugh,
a guy who eats and shits
and sometimes can’t shit,
who watches too much TV and doesn’t care,
a guy
just like any guy
who, it just happens, writes poetry.

Threw the Looking Glass, 1997 (Villanelle) [Shannon Woodford]

Here in this city of stick-on stars,
this city of corners and concrete trees,
i went and threw the looking glass

at all of the faces in all of their masks
leaping shop to shop, ravenous fleas,
here in this city of stick on stars.

Seven years’ bad luck. (Stick that in your farce.)
This maze is more than wine and cheese.
That’s why i threw the looking glass…

…and Oh! How lovely, a big fat blast:
billboards quivering, down on their knees,
here in this city of stick on stars,

this city of slow deaths that pretend to be fast.
Nothing is everything is never always as it seems
and me i went and threw the looking glass

because if this is The Answer i want questions. i pass!
i’d rather my sadness, my nightmares, my dreams.
Here in this city of stick on stars
i went and threw the looking glass.

‘I’m Not Gettin’ On That Bike Wiv You’, 1997 [Angie Rawkins]

I’m not gettin’ on that bike wiv you / That’s right, you,
wiv yr greasy hair, yr green eye glare, & that tatt
ov a dragon I havn’t seen / don’ wanna / don’ even know
it’s there (where?) ’cause nuh-uh / no way /
you don’ do it for me
in th slightest & Yes Sir I said No Sir-E-for-ever-and-everamen
/ Need I say it again? I’m not not not
not gettin’ on that bike wiv you.

& I’m not ridin’ out to sea wiv you /
not gonna taste th salt air / nor th sweat
inside yr spare helmet / not gonna wonder
if it’s yours, or… No / I’m not
gonna swim inside yr jacket / th leather so soft
yet so strong / not gonna hold on
to you for dear life screamin’ little deaths
’cause there’s a church tower between my legs
& it’s ding dong dingin’ kingdom come & I am
over/come/in’ / synapses thrummin’ / amped up
like a fat black bass guitar / baby / play it /// play it!
GRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! Th streets unfurl

as our bodies fall into one rhythm / one engine
as we sway together / stay together / thru all th soft sharp
grooves ov gravity & it’s prob’ly not quantum physics / but
Fuck
I don’ care what is,
’cause right now th whole universe is all systems
GoGoGo! /// I mean NO
/ no / no / I’m not gonna go /
I’m sure as hell
/ not /
gettin’ on that bike wiv you…

subtopia, 2001 [Jason Silver]

scratched vinyl
a black snake swallowing its own
mornings: the dull clatter of a truck gobbling
the innards of bins: garbage, green waste
recycling
a DJ’s remix
all the same old songs just the order changes
like a game of cluedo: whodunnit? where and how?
drag races: revving engines
a baby’s cry
my mortgage my mortgage my mortgage my
mortgage mortgage mortgage – my!my!my!
a baby’s cry
an invisible black
eye hurricane
swallowing its own
snake: remix: mortgage: morning: clatter
dull
paranoia
petrol
a baby’s cry
whodunnit? where and how?
the innards of bins: green
waste / garbage
recycling a DJ’s drag race
remixed engines
secondhand sofa: black snake
scratched vinyl

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