Tareq

Tareq told me I looked
only 18 or 19

and when I showed him blurry photos of
"my wedding"
he told me my husband was a lucky man.

We talked all the way to Hama,
about movies,
about life
and Tareq told me to be careful
as men in Syria could be dangerous.

I didn't tell him about my trouble with the taxi driver
I wanted him to think I was tough
that I could take care of myself
probably because
that's what I needed to believe.

Tareq took me out to dinner
in his villiage
just outside of Damascus
after I had seen the snow covered mountains of Northern Lebannon
and the barbed wire enclosed Baalbek
taking the Hezbollah bedecked bus from under a bridge
in Beiruit
back to this sunkissed city
of deep fried cauliflower, mozaic courtyards
and kind strangers.

Tareq told me I was beautiful
and that he wished to remember the perfect moment
of our meeting forever

but not in the way you'd think

(unless you know a lot about young Syrian men
whose english has been learnt
from Hollywood romance stories
and YouTube videos)

and when it got late
and his cousin's taxi had left
and I was afraid that
maybe I wasn't so tough after all
the city lights of Damascus
and my hotel room for one seeming so far away

his gentle calm and big brown eyes said more
than his strangely idiomatic language
and I knew he was safe

but with his city now on fire
and blood in the streets
no such safety is assured

and that scarf I let him buy me in the souk
so bright,
so unlike anything I would have chosen for myself
hangs on my coat stand
with other precious memories

of sunkissed cities
and kind strangers

and big brown eyes
in cities now on fire.

I'll Spell It Out For You

I can't write things I haven't felt.

Think I lack imagination?

Think again.

The many things I imagine myself to be

are as colourful as the language I use

to berate myself for letting these images run alongside me

more often than not

leading the way down a path

I shouldn't be on.

The space between us is imagined.

Or rather I imagine what fills this space.

Colours, textures

waves and surges

asteroides.

We negotiate.

Slide and dodge,

bargain.

Colours clash.

I'm imagining a torrent of

bright tartan and sleet

that meets

sandpaper gravel

and gushing pink and purple.

I know it isn't real

perhaps that's why I'm spelling it out for you

so I'll have something to hold on to

and you'll have a picture

painted in

unfinished sentences

that doesn't look quite the way it did

in my mind

but will have to do.

Wiped Out

First,
you write a couple of tragic poems about
breaking,
emptying

then you go to a bar
do some more emptying
bottles
glasses
bank accounts

come home
with a cracked iphone screen
wake up in bed
with you shoes still on

it's only Wednesday
and they're only things
the things we break
then fix,
replace

just get a new one
a better one
the latest model

(with some nostalgia for our your old nokia, you know the one
life was less complicated then
wasn't it?
so much less written, less to write)

update software
everything will be quicker now

can't you see you've had enough?
You're full, too full
gonna crash
gotta get a new harddrive
a bigger one
more room
fewer memories
wipe them away

and wipe up that vomit while you're at it.

In The New Year, Out Of Tune No More

I've made up my mind:

rather than resolving
to do
or not do

this year
my New Year's resolution
will be of the musical kind

where chords played previously
out of harmony

are returned
to the sweet simplicity

of the starting key

that root chord, a double tonic
medicinal in properties

my start,
my centre,
my very core

dischordant
no
more.

I Wish

I'm cleaning the kitchen
in a clockwise direction

with Joni for company

I sing along
and as always, get the lyric wrong

my memory won't learn her sentiment,
substituting mine instead

none of my rivers freeze
and when I wish for them
I imagine sailing,
sailing
away
in the breeze,

leaving behind the holiday season
and all those people
still cutting down trees.

If Not Around Our Table, Always In Our Thoughts

I've chosen
Bing Crosby
and Vera Lynn
to fill the suburban silences
of this
sparsely attended Christmas

though snow and sleigh bells
seem
incongruous up against the backdrop
of dried up leaves
and galahs

there's something
about their excessive vibrato
their gentle style
that has led me to forsake
Kylie
and Mariah Carey's anthems,
Wham's ubiquitous
'Last Christmas'.

It's comforting to have
representation
of that generation
lost to us through death
and distance

now that the grey hair
beneath the novelty hats
belongs to their sons
and daughters

if we can remind ourselves of them
in whatever small
abstract
way we can

surely that is a Christmas gift
we can
and should
give ourselves
every year.

On Christmas Day, Looking At The Sea

The sea
is electric blue
and the cicadas keep me company
whilst the sensible
leave the midday sun
and head for cover.

Everything is high def,
every grain of sand heightened
the crisp white ocean foam
and the seagulls standing in my footprints
leading to the water's edge.

There's no one here
but me,
and my enjoyment of the elements
the oven hot breeze
the salty air.

But
I'm enjoying it enough
for all my absent friends

sending them all my
Christmas love
as I gaze
at the endless horizon.

Skintight Memories

The power's back on,

we know,
because we can hear the neighbour's radio
going hoarse over
the back fence.

Lucky,
with three fridges
full of
Christmas fare
that wouldn't be much good
lukewarm
or worse still,
rancid.

Later on, I let myself burn
in the afternoon sun

seemingly careless

but perhaps I want something,
some memory
I can keep close,
skintight
the season's greetings
written across my shoulders in
spaghetti strap lines.

It will hurt me
to hoist my backpack
homewards.

Perhaps that's what I want.

The Lovers Golden Hour

This
is the lovers
Golden Hour

the time that proceeds
the initial
attack
of attraction

the time
that will determine
what will become of
this life

this exterior beating life
that exists outside your bodies
separate,
but still your flesh
your blood.

No helicopter flies in,
no camouflaged doctors
apply pressure,
stop profuse bleeding

what will determine
whether this is terminal
is words

bathed in incandescent light

it is the hour before death
and the hour of birth

and it's exquisite splendour
exists
because you cannot yet tell
which it is.

All Cut Up

I'm throwing all the clothes I'll need
into a suitcase

singlets, summer dresses,

and a pair of shorts
that used to be my favourite jeans
before I cut the legs off them.

They're the only item
left
from the old days
refashioned to fit
my new size and style.

I wonder,
if I still had you
tucked away in a drawer somewhere
what a pair of scissors might do
to make you useful
again.

Saturday

It's Saturday night
and I'm home
alone
in lacy underwear
and I need a plan

not just for the immediate

(a dress to wear,
shoes,
some vague itinerary)

but for life

the new year looms

and I have no idea
whether to attack it
or embrace it

or nonchalantly avoid eye contact
waiting for 2011
to make
the first move.

Can one be coy
with one's career
one's hopes for love
and fulfillment

and if we throw ourselves at
opportunity
allowing the disguise
of insouciance
to slip off
like a dress
discarded in passion's haste

will we feel
red faced
ashamed
in the morning?

In Which Pussycat Tries To Take A Nap

The hum of the washing machine
isn't helping

and the half closed blinds
shine
dozens of
tight lipped smiles

mocking my attempt
at day time sleep.

The fresh sheets
lie flat
across me

and I try
to relax

while voices on the footpath
pass,
fade,
return
and stomp off to the percussive
tussle of the trees.

A motorbike accelerates into crescendo
and I slowly

let it all go.

A Lie Is A Weed, A Lie Is A Mirror

Can you get high
on a lie?

I don't know

but this web that I'm spinning's
beginning
to spiral
out of control.

It's not that I'm hallucinating
it's just that these untruths
are making me
paranoid

I'm afraid to answer my phone
I have to say I'm not home
when I've been there for hours

I'm developing a predilection
for the rush
of deception

And you know what's worrying me?
That I'm losing my facility
for honesty

that eventually
I'll open my mouth
and the words that'll come out
won't be blunt, hurtful or rude
but they also won't be true

'sometimes, even the lies we tell define us'

and it seems there's a fine line
between the things we say
and the things we mean to say
and I'm not sure it matters anyway

because once they've been spoken
the words aren't ours,
they're pieces of us that have been
broken off
shards of ourselves
that embed
deep
where they shatter.

The things we say
and do
(even if they are lies)
are like mirrors,

reflecting parts of us
that are true.

There's no conclusive evidence
to prove it's addictive
but I'll tell you this:

it's leaving me breathless
heart beating fast
hoping to be
caught out at last

to face facts

and finally
relax.

Parity

We're writing letters
to past lovers

hers is sealed and stamped
and sent off hastily,

mine has five chords
and a chorus that
isn't quite right yet

I need to make it rhyme
without manipulating facts
to fit
form and rhythm.

We feel we can
be honest
here
where we can be naked
within the privacy of
these four walls

when lies are the most
common currency
in current public exchange

(because they'll buy you more
than truth, so everyone seems to think)

Is parity
ever likely?

Will the decimal places
that separate
honesty
and calculated deception
ever even out?

Is my truth
worth
more or less
than your lie?

And what value is lost in the
conversion
of one
to
another?

Today

Today,
my tongue is sandpaper,
thick

scratching
the dry
insides of my mouth

searching
for the right words
to offer my calloused fingertips

so that they may
play with them

mold them to the tune
that has come
so easily

the rain has washed away
coherence

it's down there in the drain,
it must be

otherwise where else
could it have gone?

I'd get down
on my hands and knees to look,
but I don't want to get my jeans dirty.

If We Stitch Ourselves Together, We'll Never Be Alone

I'm waiting for him in the rain,
umbrella unopened
hair
wet and heavy


I could easily duck under the shelter
of a Brunswick St
shopfront

but it seems more romantic this way

my lashes dripping
eyes searching
every passer by
for the familiar,

'Hello, darling'.

Then, they arrive
in matching helmets,
an unexpected
double happiness

and we eat burgers
and talk about boys.

Later that night,
we're perched
on the side of my
unmade bed
collaborating over
the transformation
of a white lace dress

and I enjoy
the closeness

thick as thieves

tearing up the stitches
but
sewing something
more important
deliberately,
carefully

a friendship
of rainy street meetings
and
confessions
sharing the ridiculous
and the profound

and a white lace dress,
with the potential to be
so much more.


(For my friend Russ Pirie, let the stitches never come undone)

Just Because Our Jobs Are Shit, Doesn't Mean We Are

It's Tuesday
and I'm
pushing my trolly through
the congested
intestines
of consumerism.

Today,
Safeway is digesting
middle class mums
and geriatrics,

at lunchtime
snacking on
paint splattered
tradesmen
excreting them
into the heat
with bread rolls
and sugary treats.

I take a break
in the secluded
frozen food aisle,
relax my plastered on smile,

before being propelled
across polished floors
by the promise
of a pay-check.

Nothing more,
nothing less.

This system
chews us up
until our lives
become unrecognisable,
homogenised.

If we are lucky
we will disagree
with the sensitive stomach
of the beast,

be regurgitated
covered in
saliva
but still alive.

If not,
we become
excrement,
shit on the floor
of some corporate monster
that has squeezed us
until
we steam
with
capitalist
heat.

Things That Are Taken When We're Not Looking

A promise made
insincerely

buzzes round me
like a mosquito.

I know it's there,
waiting to settle
to take
take

it waits

sooner or later
I'll be
caught

off guard

I'll hardly
notice
as it
penetrates.

The Players

We toss around
tired cliches
until one
or
both
of us gets tired

and calls it off.

Stalemate.

'I'm not playing.'

Childish, I know

but when you can't figure out
the next move

(or when you know you're being beaten)

It seems easier
to
just
walk away.

Memories Of Leonard Cohen

I ask her how it was
seeing the man
whose voice narrates
the silent post coital scenes
in that old film of memories
I play
from time to time

And she unfolds
the magic of the evening
as if taking something precious
from delicate wrapping
placing it
gently
in front of me

I am as fine boned
as this fragile memory
any swift movement
or cutting phrase
could crush me
as I want her words
put pull warily away
from each exquisite detail.

I remember.

We were ugly,
but we had his music.

Time after time
he would arrive
with honest words,
whilst we would lie
naked
our heavy breathing
accompaniment
to every track.

Now,
no less ugly
but more polished
I'm here on the shelf
with my dusty memories

I still have the music
but without them,
the lovers of my past,

it doesn't sound the same
anymore.

when I shared this with her, she shared this with me, so I'm sharing it with you. we all have our Leonard Cohen memories, sung, in stanzas or unspoken. The one below is Emmy the Great's. It's pretty great.




p.s if you don't have a Leonard Cohen memory, go out and get one.