Push, Pull

Have you taken the time to look at the moon lately?

I have.

In fact, it's becoming something of a ritual, this moon gazing. Staring into the dark, night sky, looking for a familiar face.

Ritual.

Something that's been missing from my erratic, scattered life. Neither here nor there. Both here and there.

Everywhere.

Ever changing, always the same; such is the paradox of the moon.

The moon itself a constant, our perception, changing. What we see as opposed to what actually exists. Starting to sound familiar?

Lately I've felt as if every cell in my body is changing. Vibrating, explosive. On the verge. Of something. Do I look any different to you? Maybe, maybe not. Perception, huh?

Push, pull, sometimes waning, sometimes full.

We can look at the same thing every day, and still be surprised to discover something new. Is it all in the angles? Distance? Some kind of chemistry? I wouldn't know, I failed chemistry. And trigonometry. I can barely spell them, what would I know.

And then, after a while of not looking, thinking we remember all the intricacies, intimacies, we are drawn out into the evening, neck craning, searching for constant only to be confronted by change.

Trigonometry? Chemistry?

As elusive as the moon.

Push, pull, push, pull. Sometimes waning, sometimes full.

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?

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.

When Was The Last Time You Felt Safe?

When was the last time you felt safe?

And I don't mean the last time there was an absence of direct threat (wild animals, knife wielding maniacs, tram inspectors, that kind of thing) I mean the last time you felt that no matter what happened nothing could hurt you? Like you were covered in an invisible layer of bubblewrap that kept you warm and dry- preventing sharp objects from scratching or cutting you.

As if some magical force field surrounded you, zapping baddies left, right and centre if they came too close, sending them flying far, far away/

Can you remember the last time you felt like that?

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.

Words IIII (Just Another Wednesday Night)

Eleanor is asking for cake
and the TV's up too loud
and I'm in bed with poetry
a little light headed.

There's a mosquito
buzzing about
and I'm worried about my bare feet
(it's warm enough for that now)
getting bitten in the night.

The words,
spoken outside my window
here,
on the page,
sometimes make sense

sometimes they're just
letters
ordered and reordered
recorded.

Listen.

Maybe you'll
understand
some of them.

My Room, Fitzroy

It's almost like
falling asleep at a lively house party
except the people whose voices
you think you might be dreaming
won't look in on you in the night
(or cover you up when you kick the blankets off)

It's almost like
falling asleep on a park bench
except there's a posturepedic mattress
and blankets for warmth
while your heart is as heard
as wooden slats
and your fear
mimics the chill of the wind

It's almost like
falling asleep on the couch
except the TV is hers
and you can't ask her
to turn it down

It's almost like
falling asleep in your very own home
until you realise
you're
alone.

It's Science, Or Something

I like the way he looks at me.

It makes me feel better.
About myself,
about everything.

And I know that probably
makes me sound
shallow,
self obsessed,
needy-
some days I am all of those things.

Some days I couldn't
give a fuck,

but today's not one of those days.

We lock in like Lego.
We tessellate.
It's science.
Or geometry,
something like that.

Together we are an equation
that has both a
right and a
wrong answer.

It's mathematical.

It adds up
or
it
doesn't.

Words II

I'm haemorrhaging words.

Please,
someone read them.

Or get me a band aid.

Thursday

Thursday finds me
dragging my feet
through the streets
of Malvern East

The birds tweet.

I can't conceive of
living a life
that smells like
freshly painted picket fences
and cut grass.

A dog barks

They have the luxury
of space and time
the well kept gardens tell me

And the rustle of stooped over
pensioners
making morning love
to the flowers

Add to this
suburban symphony.

AQUA PROFONDA

It's rush hour at the pool. Every lane is packed, I see a textured canvas of arms churning water, heads bobbing, water splashing over feet kicking furiously.

The clock says 7:45.

I'm in up to my waist, gathering the courage to submerge and join the chain of swimmers, up and back, up and back. I put it off, allowing the sensation of being half in, half out of the cool water to linger.

I'm straddling two worlds.

Above there is noise. Splash, splash. My hands itching to wrap around an iphone, a coffee, any addiction. Below is blue nothing.

Take the plunge. Kick, kick. Splash, splash.

Propelling through the water, I join the chain. My arms new strokes on this canvas, the neon pink of my swimming cap tracking alongside the lane ropes. Up and back, up and back.

What have they come here to forget? I wonder. What dreams do they wish the water would wake them from?

We swim and swim until we can't swim anymore, or until our lives beckon. Outside, dripping chlorine and shivering we are individuals once more.

(EDIT- Just noticed my typo- thanks very much for pointing it out guys! Is it at all indicative of my state of mind that i substituted a U for the O PROFONDA, or do I imagine that the profundity of my thoughts out weighs the terribleness of my spelling? I wonder.)

Words.

I'm trying to read short stories, but the problem is; there are too many words. I mean, not as many words as are long stories, obviously, but still, I just can't keep processing them one after the other after the other and so on and so forth. It's exhausting.

The thing about words is that each one is important. Each one has meanings, multiple meanings and when you're faced with a whole page of them, well, it can be quite overwhelming, trying to figure out what they mean, what they're supposed to mean, what alternate meanings they might have.

That's why songs are great. Not too many words, plenty of space between them, a few notes here and there that hint at the mood, a few clues.

And poems, too.

They're like, bite sized, yet satisfying. They fill you up, long after they're gone- after they've been uttered or read. They stay inside you.

Yeah.

They're the kind of words I like.

I Had A Garden, Once

I remember the year they died
and I although I wasn't surprised,
I wasn't any less upset
by their passing.

My once lush tomatoes,
wilting in grief
over the
sundried spinach.
The eggplant
shriveled.

I've never been much good
at feeding the things
that couldn't tell me
they were hungry.

Or maintaining the things
that are kept
out of sight.

Bayswater North, 7:30am

This vacant lot
lies
stretched out in morning sun

Some may dream of building here

others build their dreams

without bricks
or plans
or mortgages.

The light
reflected off the
dewy blades of grass

I can almost see
my dreams in them.

The Disappearance of My Unwanted Visitor

When I woke up this morning
it was
gone

and all day long
I was both
relieved
and saddened

by it's absence.

Blistered Paws

The skin is rubbed there,
raw and red,

a rash decision
vain,
ill advised

has led to this.

Pain can be ignored
only for so long
until we carry
physical reminders

wounds
that heal
but never go away.

I walked home,
barefoot

fearing less the broken glass and bitumen

than the scars I might be left with.