The Ache....

Molten gold
glitter burns 
a touch 
and our fingers glow

We draw sigils 
in the empty air between us
runes of yesterday 
trapped echoes of the way
you seared yourself upon me 


The sky burns 

green for copper 
the taste of blood

gold for promise
a price paid 

We spell out
farewells 
in arcane tongues

whispers pulse
and harangue  
sound gathered in 
the raised hand
 against my face 


No
not loud enough
yet love
scream your loss to my eyes
so i can only see your goodbyes
so i can only 
be a reprise
mentioned at the end of days 


 The runes 
flare and fade
our conversation
cinders falling
to cling upon
 bare walls
where once
we hung frames
where once 
you called my name
as I thrust against you

The gold hardens 
sets
a thin metal sheet of regret
 
Melting into you 
becoming me
leaving us
behind 

 













 

Its just grubby

not amazing , not beautiful
as I thought it would be
should be


I am middle aged and tired beyond
weary bones and creaking groans
my soul
an aching muscle
throbbing with the force
of pounding against my own impotence
to change

I can still see magic
hold 
hold that thought
hold that memory 
 
I can still see magic
glowing
in a seared sunset on the horizon
the colours
spill onto the gray oceans upturned face
spread across her cheeks
flow upon her white cap lashes
till she closes her eyes
and the sea
refuses
to see

I can see it but in noway
reach it
my fingers stiffen and swell
balloon into clown hands
all styrofoam smiles
and drooping fingers

I can see it
but not understand what it means now
a distant thing
a forgotten lore
a dream dropped onto the floor
and trod upon by careless feet


 I sometimes kid myself
that all I ever wanted
was to write lovely things
to place words before you
that sing to your cynical ears

that force you to hear the rhythm
and make your soul tap  along to the
infused collection of emotion and image

I sometimes kid myself
that I can still write
the I can push back the velvet caress
of another night
and bring light forth
bring myself back

bring something

anything


other than who I have become

Maybe's are all I have

On Melbourne summer days
everything looks scoured clean
the skin of the city
raw and tender beneath the beating heat

The New Year
too bright
too jaded
you break it in half over your knee
and refuse to believe its burgeoning possibilities

In those rare moments
when we are not inundated with kids
and bullshit problems to solve
I still might convince you
the sky is my lover
I will fling you over my shoulder
and take you to her

You will fight her for possession

and naturally win

no one fights the sky
like you

The pieces of 2012
are not beyond repair

its only early days
and the heat haze
makes you
glow
in copper and gold

I make no promises
though you ask for them regardless
with those hands
that voice
that conviction

Together we sip the dusk
and argue
over tomorrow
the sun tinkles like a wine glass
as it submits
once again

The cities skin
dimples in the cool
gathers the night around its shoulders
and shudders gently.

Untitled

You pass me back my face
all ridges and whorls
removed

I will be a smooth plane
for you to create
once again

Your eyes
not yet dead
not quite
the question
you said would
be asked
when the time came

We sit on the courtyard
coffee cooling too quickly
watching the grass consume
the back yard
listening to our child
as she
slowly becomes
something
neither of us can quite touch
or believe in

a fairy tale
where the princess dies
and flies away
dust particles on a broken breeze
her promise of happy-ever-afters

a whispered after thought
still heard
echoing in our coffee cups

The dog scratches and whines
age creeping up behind her
taking hold of the graying fur
and drawing her
down

You put your fingers to my cheek
press in

and start again

remaking
the man
you remember well
though you
cannot tell
if he is really

still here

Home

We put insanity
to a pumping back beat

throb to chaos

My eyes tap in time
ticking

I can hear you
just
over the sound
of collapse

blocks of us
tumble

a bass rumble
snatches and catches
us unprepared

There is nothing concrete
to cling to
no image or scenery
just the sound
of me
going quiet

And your pursed lips
will not take me in
will not bring
escape

We jitter
and arch
figures dancing in the
flames of our world

Tomorrow
we will pick up the pieces
and decide
which bin
to put us in

Morning

Next door,

Martha is singing Jesus songs,

her gilt edged voice

dances over sagging fence palings

bringing redemption

and a sour undercurrent of her

vodka martini’s to settle upon us.

Bright eyed children gather

on the pavement

the scrawled

bold bubble Graffiti

of tagger's

beneath their grubby feet.

Unread,

unheard

their words

are Soul Songs

a screamed silent imprecation

pouring injustice and abject despair

in equal quantities

amongst the pure joy

of saying

“Here we are, hear us”.

A blazing litany of me,

to fade and wash away

beneath the tread of urban decay.

Martha’s song ends,

arthritic hands seek

the murky swirl

of the vodka bottle.

The children

melt away

blurred ghosts

returning to the

haze of the street scape

once more.

A moments beauty

dispersing into mid mornings

crisp air

Henry Said

Henry says

I can't go round
kissing rain drops

But he gets like that

all
pursed lips
his stern fingers wrapped
around a biro
as he scribbles bits of me down
on a oversize note pad

I am watching messages
wing in through the
partly open window
of his office

Folded yellow
paper
with words in bold print
scrawled all over
chittering birds of words
coming
closer


But I can look away
Henry told me
I can look away



It's hard
to listen

listening
to his glistening
mouth
the words plop
and patter
dulcet tones
wash and crush
and wind time
backwards
old grandfather clocks
large hands
spinning fast
in retreat

I nod where I can
smile if I think
it'll be accepted
and look interested
sometimes

he really likes that

if I look like
I am taking it in

Each day is a beginning
Henry says

I'm not sure if a smile will
work for this one
so I nod

Later,
Henry has
given me
this weeks spell
to take to the drug store
and suggested
we are making progress

I am outside
and it's starting to rain
and I promise the sky
no tongues this time

just lips

Yeah Right

The only thing
between me and eternity
is the thread of words
we trade

I found solace
in a red wine
and the endless
line of faces
fading behind my smile

We danced
chanced upon salvation
purely by accident
a low rent decision
stalling the division
between
here
and the melted wax
of a candle
long past a wicks
assurances.

I have given all
and nothing at all
in equal parts
a feathered dart
leaping to the
song of your heart

See me
in all my daggers strike
a spike of sweet pain
and soft refrains
falling in a poor rain's
patter
to drift and patter
against the smeared window sill

I can only hold this sensation
for a moment
for the ghosts
and hosts of dissemination
are stammering
unable to articulate
a past
a line cast into gray sea scapes
where the difference betwixt sky
and sea is a blurred memory

We are dissolution
a random confusion
of emotional connection
and soul infection
the dissection
left to later times
uncrossed lines
best left smeared
and feared to be touched upon.

I have seen you
naked
dancing
wheeling in the sky
a blaze of ochre
searing the suns soft design
refuting
articulation
bringing forth disputation
winging
a soulless gull
to blend and diffuse
into the things
we use
on any given Sunday
to get through
and quietly say

we are ok...


I bow my head
open my mouth
and receive
all the things you said

I absorb you

to create me

Untitled

If I could just
rest my face
on yesterday

the cool press
of memories

would soothe

the pain

Untitled

We crest the morning
a runaway steed
foam flecked
withers heaving
the thudding
hooves
kicking sods behind us

Your hands
wound in my hair
reining me in

If I could hold back

I would

but the edge of the earth
beckons
a jagged finger nail
jutting into the sky's
blushed cheeks.

Mold to my spine
fingers aligning
with vertebra

I arch back
knowing
you will bend
and curve

to keep me

Untitled

If we write fast enough
the day will not catch us


Who knew?

that words would rule the world
swirl across
the endless scapes of humanity
and find you
and you

and even you.

Im tapping out
an SOS
of internal rhyme
the cadence
falling soft

landing hard

A penny for your thoughts
was
not enough
and perhaps it never was

Object Unkown

Question


What ails thee my love?


A query
to hang upon
the towel rail

Response

A river of anger
that swells and pulses
over my feet

The way our children
coil and strike
at the eyes and
half truths we once
offered as gospel
but now do not cut it

Question

What heals thee my love?

A query
to flip and rotate
till it catches the morning

Response

A sea of reconciliation
to immerse me
and bring relief
to bright open cuts
and weeping old sores

The way our children
will find us
long after we are gone
and rediscover
the half truths
we might had told
and still hold true

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