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

Shell

If I stoop to gather up Shell,
she will sit like Tinkerbell
in my hand.

Sky cries for her
on Tuesdays

I think its easier
to grieve on a regular basis
she says

Saves those
moments of
stagger step
oh my God realizations

which halt me
midway through a sentence

When we talk of Shell
the air softens
and sound
deadens

Life is muted beneath
the Grey outstretched membranous
wings of deaths hover

as if the rest of the Universe
can afford this small allowance

a tithe of respect

We visit infrequently together now

Sky braves Shells quiet dignified resolve
more readily than I

I want to be
untouched

No funeral

Shell says
her voice
the barest hint of breeze
across the tops of
thin green reeds

Her words
barely cause a ripple

yet

her dying

pushes out
in a wave

to lap upon us.

Sigh

We will say
we slept through October
curled around the hard nut
of how-it-is.

But that is not the truth of it
it does not explain
sleepless anxieties
the balled fists
and nail marks in palms.

It does not explain
extended silence
how the tick of the clock
can boom and thunder
waves of nothing to say
slamming against us

Your hands are melded to my spine
I fused our skin
so blood
you spill
each day
for her
now flows
through me

a constant pulse

a ragged beat


I have only my self to blame

so I blame you

We
who cannot be split asunder

dividing
cells cloning and
spreading

A virus
polluting each breath
till the rank
scent engulfs and consumes

Truth is a lie
carefully gift wrapped
in subjectivity

Yours or mine
both need a ribbon
to make it prettier.

Gimme a break, I can hardly write my name.....

I figure if I stay quiet
then I don't have
to do anything

Husks of days
laid waste
dog heels
in yapping cacophony's
embarrassing feet
bent on walking the line
without deviation

We are sacrosanct
a holy union of ideals
praying at each other
with smooth fingers
pressed in supplication

Fucking is a hymn

the harmony of flesh
rising to meet God

A perfect song
we sing
only sometimes.

Later

You never articulate the past

as if having one were
an option
and you had ticked ''no''
in the required box.

Its trace lingers though
a lilac scent
beneath the bittersweet
of coffee breath.

You are caught within
the stark truth
of a single
beam of sunlight
shafting through
the kitchen window
impaling you
upon the black-wood bench.

I don''t ask questions

only answers

and you give them
willingly
urgently
back arched in a question mark
chasing my inquiries back
into my mouth

sealing me
with a kiss

Later
we will
walk the silence
along Lygon
stretching its legs
letting it run ahead of us
unleashed

and likely to stray.

working it out

Sometimes

We cannot talk fast enough to escape
sometimes
we do.



We flow with words
lips move
sound emits
an articulation
divesting us of self
and offering the sacrifice
of giving.


The language shifts and morphs
leaping in nimble jumps from tongue
to air

to ears


I give freely
of thought
a dissolving phonic
rising as a lilt
falling to earth
a word rain
pattering without clatter
to the soft ground
and soaking in.

My mouth speaks the earth
in loam and deep tones
shaping rocks and the trunks of trees
between my teeth

Deftly
then
when we speak
an exchange is made
a trade of concept
no haggling on a grime street corner
the transaction is pure
unsullied with compromise
the words come forth
pass each other between us
to land upon cheek
splash into eye
or
kiss a trembling lip.

Speak then

and let us become

Untitled

I handed you
a swift of silk

to weave me a day


You came to me
later
with a night
wrought of amaranthine

Together
we colour each other
deepest
evening

News at six

And this report just to hand

There appears to have been
a major emotional train wreck

Details at this stage are sketchy
but sadly
children are believed to be among
the victims.

Initial reports suggest
the engine which drove the whole thing
decoupled from the rest
and plunged over a bridge
falling hopelessly into a
bottomless crevasse of failure

The rest of the train
is coasting slowly to a halt
edging closer and closer

to a complete stand still

We will update as more information
becomes available

I have found the answer to creative blanks


Drink far too much wine in the middle of
the week
wake up with a hair ball
the size of a panther
rollicking around in your mouth
dancing over lips
leaping from tooth to tooth
batting at the dangly thing
in the back of your throat

in playful abandon

He held

cinders of the sun

on the tip of his tongue

the taste of light

enticing

Making me real

Our days are tiny poems
winding around the
curve of morning.

I am writing you
constantly noting down
the way your face
lilts when you laugh
rhyming your smile
so I can remember it easily.

We gather secrets
so we can
write them on river stones
to toss mid stream
then watch the ripples
bring them back to us
reflecting truth
in the shimmering wavelets.


When your back is turned
I scrawl myself upon your neck

my name

over and over
a litany of me

on you

till you are more than my story

my aching fable

more than the sum of
fumbling words.



My fingers
create strophes
upon you
and
your skin
sings me out

in poem song.