What the hell is it with this time of year?

Christmas comes

sleek shadowed fur
barely seen through the foliage

Pads lightly towards us
leaves no imprints
or spore to find

A leap
a scream
the patter of blood

We will count the cost
as another among us
disappears into the maw

Bits

I saw you

through a paper cut in the sky

a small pain

keenly felt


Summer ends
you murmur

the fading light
bringing memories
of yesterdays warmth

Softly now

Together
we gathered Sundays

tucked them into
long coats
and hid them from the kids

You bend
the Moon
toward me

a soft rain of light
pools beneath my eyes
and speaks of yesterday
when my skin
would harmonize with yours
a song we still give voice
only sometimes

in our
stolen moments
an hour

a minute

a moment lost and tossed
against the wall
to fall upon deaf ears

You will kiss my ravaged cheek

taste
my stained smile

and offer acceptance
once again


And with a touch

Sundays fall
from
forgotten
pockets

And sometimes on Saturdays

And sometimes on Saturdays

Jen nearly found perspective
in the bottom of her handbag
as she rummaged for cab fare
on a Saturday night
of drizzling rain
and empty Bacardi breezers

Nestled between the tampons
and the I phone with the dodgy software
that constantly
gave a must- restart- app message

Distracted
she paid the Cabbie
too much
and he made no attempt to
correct the situation
speeding away
in a cough of smoke
the exhaust
hacking out its metallic death rattle

His tag said Sayid
but every one called him Sam
because in Australia

no one gets your name right
and no one cares

who
you really are

Sam
cruised away from the long legged girl
who could not add

mentally saving

each dollar
hiding it in the sock draw
of a grimy flat
in Footscray

Sam kept names
embossed
into his tongue

Later

alone
on the broken bed
which lent alarmingly to

the left
he would recite them to himself
the sound of his neighbours fighting
washing over and beyond
not catching on his skin
not sinking into
the litany of his whispered chant

Sam still saw his sun
when he closed his eyes

low slung and heavy
hovering over the Nile
baking the sand
baking the backs of his hands
deep shades of goodbye

His family
waiting
always waiting
for the chanted names
to find them
and bring them to him

I have cast the spell of spikes
upon mine own flesh


I can read you
in the pattern my blood will make

as it wells

and when I smear it away
you will still be there

What people said

The insolence of comfort

I like the way it sounds, the feel of it as
it drops off my tongue....

And I am insolent, reticent and selfish
of what belongs to me today


A girl I wronged
who always seemed to
writhe in blackness
no matter what she did
told me once,
do not waste the pearls of your gift,
do not make light of it, do not ignore it
or let it become a play thing,
because one day you will reach for it,
and it will no longer come to your call

The Chinese Doctor I saw
told me, as he stuck a needle in the center
of my skull, twisting the thin sliver till
it sat just right,
you are at the end of your chi,
you have used your power
used it, till you have little left.

Can it be replenished I asked
wondering why a Chinese Doctor
would smell like wine
on a Saturday morning.

No, you can save what you have
he intoned gravely,
but never get what you have used back

These are the things people have said
and as I wallow
in my insolence of comfort
in my quiet corner of no words
no voices in my mind
urging creations
I can sit for hours
with nothing for companionship
save the quiet inside

I do not rage perhaps

but

I mutter and whine like a whipped dog
under my breath you will hear it
if you put your perfect ear
close to my mouth

are they right ?
are they right ?

and the final imprecation

do I care ?

Reasons

I am not necessarily a believer in precognition but sometimes you just know something is
going to happen and it does.


Shell made it through Christmas, just....she hung on, a tight rope walker who dropped the pole
and slipped to grip the rope through sweat slick fingers, slipping slipping...

We had never really expected her to make it that far, but she was determined to make sure Christmas was not going to be a black day in the lives of her kids forever more, she told Rick early in the piece, she will make it past Christmas, and she did.

Sky and I tried to see her, just before we headed down the beach, we dropped in, bracing ourselves because Shell had not been well in the days after Christmas, Rick told us she was deteriorating very quickly and suddenly.

The carers had come, taken one look, upped the morphine to max levels and told Rick it would be soon.

We stood on the patio Rick had built for her 2 years previously, her pride and joy, complete with chimney, laser light roof, exposed beams and posts, she loved to be out there watching the shades of the day change.

We could see Shell through the flywire screen, asleep in the motorized chair she had pretty much lived in for the past 6 months, mouth agape, as if trying to breath in life, she seemed peaceful, no, that's bullshit, she seemed drugged out of her brain if I am honest with myself, I want to think she was peaceful because its easier for me.

How can fighting to pull in each and every breath be peaceful?, Sky said she looked at peace as we left, and I let her have that thought, because she needed it.

We went away, a whole group of us, partied, played, swam and ate and drank and did all the things a gang of middle aged parents and their teenagers and various younger ones like to do, it was good, to let the hair down, to relax a bit.

When I got the call, I was sitting in a cafe with the crew deciding between a BLT sandwich and raisin bread, I knew as soon as the mobile rang who it was, and what he would say.

I stood and walked outside, because I really didn't want to let anyone see my expression, its strange how these things can be important, I also knew it would delay telling Sky, and I wanted to spare her as long as I could even if it was for only a few extra moments.

Rick's voice was an empty hallway, I could taste dust and echoes as he quietly explained Shell had passed.

Standing in the middle of Torquay's main drag, holiday makers everywhere, kids laughing, a bus load of tourists just pulling in from somewhere, I tried to offer condolences and express grief, I failed utterly, I couldn't focus, and I turned around and around, searching for better reception, as if somehow, hearing him more succinctly could help the situation in some way.

At that moment, Rick was dead as well, robotic as he went down the list of people to tell, ticking off names and telling the same short tale to each of us. I folded my phone closed and tried to get my bearings.


Sky came out of course, she has always been more receptive to such things than I, and she took one look at my face and wept. I held her as she cried, strangers went around us, creating a zone for us to be in, conversations faltering and stopping as they passed, to resume again a respectful distance beyond us.

The sun was warm on my back, the tears, wet on my T shirt.

And now I find myself bereft of words, an empty shell for Shell

Untitled

I dream of strangers dying

screamers
writhe and undulate
in ceaseless
soundless
warnings

In the morning
I pass the scene of a crash

blue lights pattern the trees
in wavering sombre colours

Officers murmur in huddles

one bending to gather up broken plastic
reflectors

another crushes a cigarette beneath
his heel
grinding and smearing it into the
road


The shattered hulks of
a v8 ford and a holden

one embracing a pole

metal and flesh
wrapped
in tangled
surrealist splashes

the other
forlorn
pressed up against
a eucalyptus

and tonight

i will sleep dreamless