HEAT Archive | Australia’s International Literary Magazine

Your basket is empty.

Featured

All Done with Mirrors

Marco Fusinato DESASTRES 288631D3-2D44-4EBF-AF461AA1FF176766_source copy.jpg variation 2024

Julius, was the name of my first love
at summer camp
different rules applied, he & I were allowed
to hold hands
people smiled indulgently, called us ‘the couple’
‘the camp couple’
on my part, guilty as charged

All Articles

We know nothing whatever about how Macbeth was first performed. Not a shred of evidence survives. It is one of the great Shakespearean mysteries. But consider the following. Macbeth was Shakespeare’s first and only Scottish play, filled with material guaranteed to interest his new Scottish king, from witchcraft to regicide to James’s descent from Banquo.

the goldfish pepsi / bumps into / her double in the / mirror glass of the tank / would she try to eat herself / for breakfast we could / play her the tape of dorian / gray

Within four generations, I found myself at this other end of the spectrum: from the world of my great-grandfather where a man’s duty is to transmit tradition, protecting it from the subversive effect of time, to one where tradition disappears completely and the only plausible raison-d’être of living is change that often sees itself as progressive per se.

Julius, was the name of my first love at summer camp different rules applied, he & I were allowed to hold hands people smiled indulgently, called us ‘the couple’ ‘the camp couple’ on my part, guilty as charged

If you can’t see them any more, then I think I must really be dead. Record in the case notes which of my conjectures you can confirm or dismiss. Draw what you can; measure what you can. But first and foremost: sharpen your scalpels, gentlemen, so that you don’t make a mess of it.

Last year I found myself at Lingnan University in Hong Kong to speak at a conference on action cinema. What better place to reflect on the work of cinematic editing in all its forms, from the blazing guns and flying fists of blockbuster movies to the stridently flickering visual assaults of the avant-garde?

When I was young, I realised my body / was something to be held back or kept / in its place, so I have mastered the art / of observation, how to watch faces for / a frown or grimace: signs of weather.

I put up my umbrella. Nothing else happens. I hold it above my head. I do this because it is raining. It is raining.

Avoid doughnuts. Doughnuts sprinkle your lap with sugar. / Avoid, for the first day of travel, all right turns. Travel light. / Wear one of the five new sweaters you bought for the trip.

On ‘Sighs Too Deep for Words’ by Helen Garner

In her 1999 piece, ‘Sighs Too Deep for Words: On Being Bad At Reading the Bible’, Helen Garner stages more than one exchange with Tim Winton about their shared faith, asking him his thoughts on prayer and God.

We’ve turned it into emotion – / red pickle like the night’s heat, ice creams so / smooth they enforce silence, orange- / flavoured kisses, conversations directed by rum.

Fish can all turn and flit in absolute synchrony, iron filings will point to the pole, well we’re all arranged like that in a focus on the door, something has signalled to the herd that this is what we will do and we do it, we do not move even though the rain begins again and satins darken, shirts cling and faces mercifully run rivulets.

The electronic arts, video and television, have long been regarded as film’s poor relation, and despite the advances in technology which have rendered most of the negative comparisons invalid (the lack of clarity of sound and image and so on), this condescending attitude persists.

Anemograms from years you can hardly remember / handed round at an evening garden party. / Empty envelopes the colour of envy, / sparkling wine and cautious laughter.

The farewells are what I remember. How thin and white R. looked beneath his shock of hair when I said goodbye to him for the last time and he nodded to me without lifting his head from the pillow, just briefly closing his eyes. How I didn’t go back to his bed, but simply closed the door behind me. The next day I had to pick up his things from the hospital, including the razor I’d charged for him the day before. The razor was charged, but R. was dead.

The Leech / You’re a sycophant, repugnant. Vile bacchant— / you suck and glut, fill like a slimy phial. No denial / of the claret in our veins. Fat phlebotomist, / yes, you were used to treat ailments—fevers, gout, / haemorrhoids, headaches, clots, bleeding wounds / and gums—you thrived, made doctors rich.

1
2
3
4
…
7
8
9
→

Collections

See all in the series

See all in the series

See all in the series