Bars and Whiskeys, Gypsies

It's been a year of 
mountains and molehills

of open chords and secret thoughts.

Bars and whiskeys

gypsies.


Full moons and Junes
and meteorites

righteous prayers
that could have been more specific.

I didn't need that man in '68
I'm pretty good
at spelling out my own fate

from pilgrim's calls
to wooden walls

to insinceritys
and the small mercies
that hide
beneath the shoe-string fries.

So
here's to sharp knives
brandy and drys

and Prague's as yet unseen skies.

I dreamof moons
and Junes

and January promises
to provide
more mountains
more mole hills

more open palms
and open chords.

I'll be skipping and tripping
slipping
still, slipping

and still sipping that whiskey
the barman knew
would be smokey and smooth


while writing the next fairytale
that's bound
to come
true.

Mid Summer's Sky

Indigo shadows
and dancing
and 'don't know's

the moon's almost as full
as our festive bellies
fat and heavy
with too much good cheer
it's that time of year

everything ending.

We're in between
we're breaking

we're mending

no one likes to be alone
but sometimes it's too hard to talk
so typing and sniping
and feigned cleverness
seems best.

The sun's taking a day off
and the rain can't decide
whether to leave cloud comfort altitude
or just hide

I've got two bottles of whiskey
to whisk me
away
from the corner that keeps me
like the lover
whose proximity
is their sincerest attempt at
intimacy.


Let me untangle you
from the threads of your sorrows
and I will sew them into silk cranes
and we'll watch them as they fly
effortlessly
across the glowing mid summer's sky.

To Doris, from Phil- 1915

Boxing Day

I've got skyline envy
pumping through my vagabond veins
and my train of thought
is scattered
and fraught
with summers and winters
and inbetween dreams.

It's Boxing Day
and I'm being strangely
well behaved
though a tonne of trifle
beckons
and the ciders chime out as I open the fridge
to force feed myself
salad.

I'm thinking about first times
and last times
and past times
as I cram
Christmas ham
into my mouth

feeling a bit
defeated
a bit trapped in the patterns
stitched up
sewn up
neatly

(it runs in the family)

but promises are made to be broken
and doors are closed
only to be opened

again

unexpectedly.

This time of year
brings that repeated heated symetry
and the thoughts in my veins
turn anxiously
to the people
still cutting down trees

amongst them,
amongst the axe carrying,
chainsaw gripping,
sharp word weilding

is me;

dragging an old
rootless
barely decorative
sad collection of sticks and leaves

to pin shiny things on
and pretend
that it's some kind of deity.

Perhaps promises are unnecessary
and
'first', 'last' and 'past'
just a literary menagerie
of beasts
that
need to be
set free.

Good Together, Tonight

From the back of the cab he tells the driver,

'I love this woman'

while his hand slides down my thigh.

This was five months ago
and we'd just met.

Tonight he whispers,

'We're good together'

And he's right-
from the start we've been
good together
palm to palm
open hearted.

It's just got dark
and I can't resist the opportunity to say your name

'I would have married him'
she says,

while we drink someone elses wine
on a footpath in Northcote

and with no legitimate claim
it surprises me to think I could have said the same. 

But his hands on my knee
and we're hailing a cab

we go back to my place
go back to being
good together

we don't worry about whether our reasons are
wrong
or right
we just know
we owe it to ourselves
to be
good together
tonight.