‘Positioned at platforms along the belt are eight or so

human sorters who work eight –hour shifts, picking off

obvious garbage that should have ended up in the bin.’

 – The Melbourne Times September 03 2003

1. Plastic Number One

A casual loading of lotus flowers surges

down the belt’s black river. ‘Contaminants’,

human human sorters stand on either bank;

rubber Styx gloved, Ganges bona fide & bury

dead things, blue snout of a red fox, tailless,

polaroid hunted, OH&S arrested. Snapshot.

Car-aerial affixed: transcendental phalanges.

2. Plastic Number Two

Ah Xian’s knee ligaments, whiplash art, work

covers his body, reflector vests watch human

human sorters poised on mats, water pedestals.

Must be Buddha too, after 8-hour meditations

on the substance of things? Or perhaps mad

Catholic monk? Kerouacian? We know what’s

written on a single grain of rice: fuck you.

3. Plastic Number Three

Enlightenment hits occasionally, syringe

thunderbolts out of the blue, trainspotting

for green sculpture veins, fronds – charka

warm skin wrapped, breast, pelvis, cheek,

but chiefly hands of human human sorters

blossom with hep cats, a, b & c. Danger:

Pit Below, rat’s glass cage & two weeks rest.

4. Plastic Number Four

Castrovalva came down the line; SF metaphor

for continuity, a time loop for fiscal masters.

Find me a planet that doesn’t know suffering.

Human human sorters action galactic downtime.

Would robots do this? Maybe Autons? Cybermen?

There’s no time & relative dimensions in waste.

The factory’s a Zero Cabinet, helps regeneration.

5. Plastic Number Five

Passed through a trommel at birth, separated

our mirror selves from glass heaviest. An eddy

current charged our oedipal; flimsy aluminium.

Then, air classifier blew off paper-thin fathers,

friends. Lotus flowers left in pools, flooded

with cheap guts & the sweet grey tide of shit.

We’re alive but dead; low budget zombie crew?

6. Plastic Number Six

Co-mingling’s all the rage now; everything

in the same bin. When will our Sleeping Sentinel

awaken? Out of a rotten tree stump he grew.

Merlin trapped; some myths need recycling.

Lives by Christos Tsiolkas? The Jesus Man.

Nipped in the bud; bloomsday dysfunction.

Maybe we too can be, human human lotus?