Isolation

Liquid glitters
and winks
with diamond light
jock-o-lanterns
waving and urging
us on.

Black water call

deep in bones
where marrow
sucks and flows
the ache
beyond inadequate descriptives
of cold and frozen

Shed outer garments crisp
with frost
self conscious murmurs
echo from the too sharp
colour of a grassy bank.

Skin dimples
and retracts
stretching tight
on bone framed
shock

We dive
the disruption
a perfect symmetry

stroking together
alone.

Un

Reed thin the Asian chick behind the counter always offers a smile.
Not required for the price of a coffee, she gives it guilelessly
an accented "Have a nice day" flutes through my bleary eyes,
maybe bringing a hint of humanity, or maybe its the coffee.

But my blood thrums finally instead of oozing like a syrup and I
can lift my head high enough to take in surroundings.

Never look closely at the foot path, it does not fair well beneath
the constant repression of feet, blood and semen has seeped into
the cracks between pavers, mingling with discarded paper and plastic
wrappings, till my feet glide over pulped disappointments.

Its early, obviously, and the traffic is belching a miasma of mixed
petrol and gas emissions, a grey cloud unlike the fogs I once feared,
how they would not part no matter how hard I begged.

Fog is Gods assassin, all creatures within its depths have many teeth
and they always sought my flesh. The taste is metallic, alien entities
striding just out of vision, probing cattle and thousands of humans for
endless years, although what did the Simpsons episode say?, you can only learn so much
from anal probing.

Horns blare, first one , then several as merry travelers join in the song, the subtle
refrain just beneath the surface " i hate you, your making me late" echoed with
"No, I hate you more, you are blaming me for not moving quickly enough but I found out
this morning Helen miscarried again, thats three in a row, and she is weeping while she sleeps,
the bank will not give me more time to catch up on the mortgage, and fuck knows when or
if Helen will be able to work again soon, Ricky needs braces and thats five grand I don't have,
to be honest, I have never had, and it all seems to crush the sides of my skull, just that constant push against the bone"

They move along finally, horns becoming more strident, car horns bleat violence in sound.

My face is a raft, adrift on my head, becalmed by time, it does not billow or fill with wind for now,
how is it between 35 and 55 we do not change? Our bodies, our faces, our skin, all enters a time warp, fixed in one design, we can walk 20 years with no improvement, or disintegration, just stasis.

If you asked, do I like the city? I would have to say no, I was always one for trees and dreams and river and rock, but truthfully, the city wants and needs the likes of me, to track its path, to note its history, to see the beauty in all its horror, to see evil and how it balances a smile with your coffee


Morning walks slower than the rest, its feet are heavier, leaden, trying to shrug away the pall of grey light and allow brighter things to come. Morning tastes different, it is toast and juice and muesli flakes, it is wet air and freshly washed hair, it is hurried conversations, sorting details in moments, planning days in seconds.

Morning offers another chance, sometimes.

Untitled

Rich slurps as he
extols the virtues of
Neruda around
a sharp Merlot tang
breathing pavlova
and too many reds
down the plunge
of your gown


I make watching
a virtue

replacing
apparent indifference

small smile
vague nod
along a wire thin
throb of conversation

Catching your eye
placing it
on the table before me

trying to stare you down

We dance in and out
amongst
the dirty plates
and smeared glasses
a chicken bone
of contention
lies greasy
on the pristine table cloth

The music
too loud's
across us

an up swell of sound
drawing you
a charcoal impression
onto my napkin

Later
I will bring you
crinkled
out of my pocket
to
kiss your black lips

your smudged eyes.

Tears for Rain

I remember when Rain came

Imbued with clarity
Rain fell
a spatter of unexpected

to widen eyes
and
blink away yesterday.

Rain has

diluted me

leaving
a hint of color
in an otherwise
pristine pool

Rain has forsaken
me

a profusion of days
washing away
exposing obscurity
forcing me
to look hard
at who and what
I have become.

Rain offers no respite
no light at the end of the tunnel
no warmth to wrap around

Only the sound
of small feet
dancing across the roof tiles

the dripping
resonance
as a leaf is struck

the driving impetus
of sheeting water
pounding the earth
feeding the soil.

Rain caressed
the upturned faces
each in turn
and left her mark
upon us all

Within the flux
without the flow
I found her
lost her
let her go.



She brought
the shadow storms

or mornings soft refrain

and here
beneath the weeping elm

I waste no
tears for Rain.