Ted Nielsen (b. 1968) lives in Sydney, Australia. Five Island Press published search engine in 1999, and Vagabond Press published wet robot in 2001.

anti-rational I can't believe there's not another world where we will sit and read new poems to each other                                    - Frank O'Hara in my grandmother's orchard are many pony clubs & all the ponies love to blink                          let me never write of childhood it's much as yours & just as vital a blankness against you trace my limbs & let our pose attempt to answer questions i avoid i am not a brave man i am without a childhood & if i if you there is no protection nothing to offer my darker moods or yours & soon consumes us if we never went to school how could we not have gone together & yet we walked across the river out of history where we live apart & part of everything we speak & beautiful & meet & go away to meet again & if we dare not vanish let me never write                          & this for you towards current affairs the long, tepid afternoon. i have sulked myself to a standstill, though perhaps i am 'not well.' perhaps it is the weight of all that boring poetry                     crushing me? (will you guys please quit it? shrugs.) i would like to make a documentary about my life. i don't think it will be an interesting film.                     except! all the things i could say about my friends. i wonder if talking is a drug? psychology says yes. can we arrest the prime minister for abuse of a controlled substance? his control is so rigid i grind my teeth in response. how could a lifetime of ambition resolve into something so dull? (tedium keeps the cabinet in line. the boys on the front bench look solemn (pompous), the country settles lower in the waves.) he would be in the documentary, too. a kind of comedic figure who really wasn't very funny, peering round the edges of the frame                     in his silly hat. the theme music begins. claimed sustain i.   reverb      classic hits & monkey memories      all set out like a dinner!      here at the backend      of the thirty-year crying jag      what got you going      is somehow blurred,      as if you've woken up      with someone else's head      on your brother's shoulders.      leichardt spins around you,      the beginnings of astrology      (bus stop rising in laundromat)      or flawed thinking about sex in terms      of technologies of reproduction,      hips doing the xerox thing      outside petersham station. ii.   higher calling      i walk up some street      wearing something      ah fuck it.      revolutionary poetics?      piss off. like      standing at the urinal      surreptitiously      measuring your motives.      i think your one      lasting contribution      to contemporary life      was to shut up      (a promising      if ultimately      flawed project).      why not apply      for a grant      & try again? iii.  the wild, the innocent,      & the king street shuffle      buttocks clenched against the wind      hammering in from halfway to tempe.      geography is meaningless beyond      a sullen reminder i'm not keanu reeves      so the pre-symbolic better leef me alone.      imagism connotes the fascist fetish      but i'm considering the total operation      just as mathematics fails us      or we refloat the slave trade      on a raft of hormones.      what i do with my anger      is sublimate it, how about you?      & is your art really designed      to make me think you're a wanker?      it's doing a great job.      pneumonia. are you at risk?      bright lights / downtown / keanu!                          say it ain't so! iv.  kissing cousins      riffing on the way your shoes      rub your heels      won't carry your end of the party,      & those film crews      charging about      could be a subtle hint.      best to swallow that      mouthful of wine                          again      & see if you can      repeat that expression,      this time with a tilt of the head?      a little quizzical,      maybe a little skeptical?      okay, places people. v.  trans-tasman facial      rubber dolphins desire pornography      & what you think of as your heart      is a bunch of synapses      you smash with a mallet,      rugged up & screwed around      like '80s anthems played underwater      or listening to the neighbours upstairs      fucking in their bathroom.      a handy guide to statistics      placates your lack & now      your projections      inherit their rigour      from scholastic publishers,      an algebra of repression      & the failure of your head derives. vi.  transcendental bullshit      clued in at the speed of light      like the ultimate bassline,      what's the day doing      about genocide?      now i'm more complete      breakfast's hardly a challenge,      just check out my fat arse      on the recliner theory built,      bubble wrapped modalities      deflect every impact      as chemicals precipitate      from the body's solutions      (solving nothing),      phenomenological soup      for the soul you're having      trouble trying to conceive.      time for bed & your      nightly affirmations.      time enough for sludge. scopophilia where the body forms                               an imperfect alibi                                                             like terminal lyric documentary filmmaking is the perfect toy & after we decode the menu                the waiter brings our prize.                (go easy on the hollandaise sauce.) will technical problems derail the evening? the question as modus operandi picks you up & drives you home, self-contained as a history of surfing recovered from a garage sale, & outside the field of the poem                               the shape of your aversions                is hopeful & seething. does emerson as transparent eyeball freak you out?                               aloha decorum!                we're giggly & lurching but you should see us now,                               stranded on the lounge /                                                             implacable & remote controlled.