Magic Awaits

Lovers,
                 dreamers,

                                             co-conspiritors.

It's all for you,

because of you

each incantation
of dark night
of sharp knives.


Drawing pictures,
                                   and curtains,

                                                      and weapons

we're all wounded,
now.

It's a trick of the light,

(trick
or
treat)

each time we meet

each day,
each night.

Behind panes of glass
I regain lost sight

and use this cover
to cloak
a wizards smile

while

magic

awaits.

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.

Both Necessary and Dangerous.

I'm craving epic landscapes

and the truck that nearly hits me
on Brunswick St at midday
comes close enough

giving me a good dose of
danger
without any need for a detour
on my way home.

In this heat the roads
can be dangerous
brains
sweating inside us
any sense that exists
escaping through salty moisture

you're dangerous,
too,

in you
I see pebbles
disappearing off cliff faces
devoured by
swell

while white gulls
circle.

They too desire the shock
of cold water
diving down,
down
through hot hot air
to another element
both necessary
and dangerous.

It's epic,
that's for sure.

Fear of failure
only
keeps me circling

but desire of shocking cold
keeps me looking
for that
cutting
cooling

both necessary and dangerous.

The gulls cry out
mouths wide
wings outstretched

while arms keep close and tight
the secrets
that are both necessary
and dangerous
that neither naked flesh
nor late night breath
can reveal.

Beneath the intermittant street lights
I see only you
in duplicate

summonsed by the full moon
no longer blue

but bright
and white as a seagull
hovering,
waiting
to dive
down,
down,
down. 

This Time Of Year, Always

Climbing roses and bougainvillea
in full bloom
and the scent of jasmine
that gets stuck at the back of your throat

that's spring
in this city

all choked up with sweet smells
and pollen
and other things that make you rub you eyes

in disbelief

always
this time of year
in this city

always

always, as the summer skirts
begin to appear
revealing calves
and thighs
and the odd flash of undergarment

always
revealing things hidden
throughout winter

always
disbelief
and red raw eyes
rubbing away the irritation

though we're probably making it worse

by touching it at all

always
stripping off
stripping back

I remember that one spring
years ago
now
leaning up against the cool poles of the cafe
my favourite summer dress
me
newly exposed
all flowers in bloom
on the street,
on my favourite summer dress

still wide eyed in disbelief
at your proximity
that you'd been there all this time.

Always,
this time of year
that disbelief

I'll rub my eyes
one last time
inhale
the sweet irritating scents
of this time of year
in this city.

Perhaps I'll put on my favourite dress
and wander the streets
we both know so well

wide eyed in disbelief
that we exist
at all.

Trick or Treat

I remember post-it notes on my front door
and a tight black costume
but before then there was nothing
though perhaps some knocking
local kids

the passing of time
unmarked
by pumpkins
or slutty outfits.

I think I'll wear a costume this year
something bold and
perhaps unrecognisable
to most of you

a superhero
or something
active
strong
assertive.

Yeah,
I think I'll go as
myself. 

I'm Not In The Habit Of Making Friends With Ferrets

So, I'm being dragged down Brunswick St by this big eyed beagle X when I'm stopped in my tracks by a familiar face. His name is Allan, and he's a ferret, frozen into an unnatural position and glued to a piece of wood, half snarling at me and staring, glassy eyed through the window of the second hand shop, up near the big intersection with Alexandra parade.

Now let's not get our wires crossed, Allan and I have never met. I'm not in the habit of making friends with ferrets. And yet, I did say familiar, didn't I?

Let me explain. It's not Allan himself who is familiar to me.  It's that glassy eyed stare I used to stare back at in those stolen summers I've mentioned before, perhaps you can remember? Perhaps you can't.  But that's beside the point.  It's that glassy eyed stare, the frozen limbs, once live and quivering now stuffed and mounted. That taxidermists captive, that kept-behind-glass demeanour.

He sat bolt upright, proudly holding an acorn, tail perfectly curled into an S shape, carrying no sense of the violent death that must have befallen him.  That always intrigued me.  I think my mother told me he'd been shot. I couldn't conceive of just how. Tiny bullets? Expert stitching? Black magic?

This little guy never had a name. I never gave him one. I guess we weren't really that close.

And this summer- I mean, a real summer, in the sense of it being an English summer, not an Australian summer lost translation and timezones, transmogrified into a promise of snow and sledding with days as short as your father's temper- this proper English summer, sun shower soaked bunting and sprawling strawberry plants, he was gone. No one seemed to know where.  Just another thing displaced during the chaos of family deaths, relatives rummaging, rash decisions where the past slips past us, disintegrating like old fabric into dust.

 I never gave him a name.

But I spent hours, wondering what sort of life he had led, wondering  if the little red squirrels that you'd see occasionally on the Heath, rarely now,  were descendants. Wondered if they ever peeked in the window from a branch of that old tree (surely you know the one? I suppose you probably don't, but if you paid attention you'd know exactly). I don't suppose they'd give a damn, I doubt squirrels have that much of an interest in genealogy. In family trees? That's a terrible joke, but you know that old tree carries my family's history too. My family, dying out like the red squirrels, that you hardly ever see any more.

I spent hours looking through that glass at the face of extinction, of death. And that's what I see staring back at me from the window of that second hand shop up near Alexandra Parade.  Death. Extinction. The past slipping past us.

I want to take his picture- Allan's picture.  I don't know why.  I mean, other than to run it through instagram, post it on twitter along with my faux-artsy shots of flowers and coffee and pictures where the filter has made me look younger and prettier. I would have done the same for Allan, it's only fair- he'd have come out looking quite dapper- he might have even looked lifelike.

But there's someone cleaning graffiti off the step  and the smell of disinfectant is overwhelming and the dog is tugging at his lead and I leave, looking over my shoulder at Allan, who is staring at me from behind the glass, mid snarl- frozen, captive.

And I think that perhaps that's why he seemed so familiar.

The Letter 'B'

Berlin comes back
to bite me
two days running
as I wake up with words
and pictures
channels of former worlds.

She's coming back
with her own inverted image
reflected in a man
I've never met

and even my face
seems
unfamilliar.

There, there
are moments captured
silk scarves and night time gathering
history remade, repeated
defeated
or so we thought.

The letter 'B' strings
me along
purse my lips to speak these things
like I'm kissing
the possibilities

and I'm missing
those silver earrings

as unreplacable
as the feelings

that are gone
gone
gone. 

Wild

She was domesticated, those days
dinners on time
and television by his side

now she's wild
as cliffs
half descended into the sea
exposing
raw and rocky jagged
insides
sprouting mad and tangled
hardy species
that flower, if you're lucky.

Wide eyed as one
newly born
into a world of waking up at midnight
saying yes and yes and yes
dancing with devils
dutch courage
we're dynamite
combined
already part water
each of us our own type of acidic
at the right temperature
explosions
if you're precise;
you've got to be precise,
it's science.

Whirling dervish of destruction
spilt drinks ,
rips and cuts and splinters
for each other we will walk on fire
on air
we disappear
we are a reflection of our former selves
the mirror's image
that takes the imperfections of the glass
steam and streaks
we can write new names across our faces.

If you slip back through time,
to where it was warm and safe and dry
you can here the cry
of one domesticated,
longing to be wild.

(I wrote this ages ago, which seems important to mention, though it may not mean anything to you).

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 Once Had A Lover

I once had a lover
who had gone head first
through the windscreen
of a rented car in Greece.

When I ran my hands over his forhead
I could feel where the shards of glass
had embedded themselves in his skull,
where the skin had grown over,
how the pieces of windscreen
had become a part of him
the way the weeds will grow over
anything left lying long enough
to be tangled in green tendrils.

Later,
after the cracks had appeared
and another type of shattering
left everything broken
there were pieces left beneath my skin
that sometimes I can still feel
though the skin has long since grown over
and the lumps are imperceptible
to eyes and hands
and lovers' lips.

Shattered and broken,
embedded
the leftovers of loves casualties
beneath the skin
impreceptible
barely there
beneath a new lover's touch
suspended in flesh

we are one,
the past and I
entwined as are the weeds
and anything left lying
too long
in their path.

Once In A Blue Moon

Midnight makes me
a loose
cannon
and the hand
of gin
has painted me happily
pink and joyful

Hemingway's hiding
beneath my bed
and once
in a blue moon
he waits for me in vain

while I'm wrapped up
in another's
arms
waiting for morning
waiting for something
waiting to know the appropriate move
I should know the appropriate move
by now, right?

But
I don't

I only know that I can't give up these vices
without the fear of being boring
wordless
lining up glasses full of
false idols

wanting to be
at the very least
the mistake you could learn from

I'd do that for you

the rain gives a staning ovation

we don't deserve it
 I don't
I'm reprising the role
it's autopilot, really
I know the lines
the blocking is stale
unspontaneous

only fear keeps
my glass full

my mouth shut
fleeing
with sunlight

and all my clothes,
hopefully.

Once in a blue moon
fear and
false idols align

and the best I can hope for
is that I've got
all
my
clothes. 

Empty Beer Bottle Dreams

Towels that attack in the breeze
empty beer bottle dreams
and sweet sunshine promises
peeping through the trees.

I've got a horrible snorty laugh
which escapes
in an all too familliar scene
and those that don't get the joke
laugh anyway

but the joke's on me,
me
and my empty beer bottle dreams

and those things that attack
in the soft summer breeze.

The Living And The Dead

We slept upstairs,
in the attic
in sleeping bags on a hard wood floor

David was always naked
naked cooking quinoa
naked in the sun doing downward dog

naked when he asked me
in the middle of the night
to give him a cuddle

I exhaled extra loudly
to give the illusion
of a deep deep sleep

JC was dying
brain tumors
had forced his eyes
to search
for each other
each pupil straining
to face the other
so that he always looked confused

but I think he was more clear
about a lot of things
than
those of us
looking straight ahead.

He was out of hospital
wild hair
and red hoodie
fishermans pants
so calm

the goji juice was from the himilayas
and it was going to cure him
they said

and we walked,
barefoot
the hundred meters to Venice Beach
which you could see from the front porch
once the haze had lifted


I heard later that he died

I was already in New York
fully clothed
swept up by the rush rush

and I had forgotton the calm

until just now,
now,
when a man with wild hair
and eyes,
each searching for the other

calmly told of how he had seen his family
killed

as a rooster
an ugly rooster squarked
it's cry echoing
over the water filled canoe
suspended in the air


calm rising out of chaos
those searching eyes
the story that must be told
and heard
and retold
and held within

what if i could turn my own eyes
inward
roll them around to face each other
to examine
what story it is behind them
to not loose sight

the chaos, outstretched in front
the calm within

we are cursed to see
and not see

to know
and not know

to remember
and forget

wild hair

I can see them now,

those eyes
that see the living
and the dead

that in the midst of chaos
can still find
calm.

Silver Lotus, Strangers Kindness

I've got a silver lotus
wrapped around my finger
and I'm rippping weeds from between the bricks
trying to keep the wolf from the door
and that old coyote from my bed

i hear him at night time
between the howling of the wind
and the rain trampling the tin roof
the gutters overflowing
with murky water threatening
to rise up and flood the house
with evaporated memories

he stays away
but the white of his teeth
a beacon in the dark night
winking at the full moon from a far
he's a hunter
waiting for a feed

(which he'll get if I stay out too late
loose my way
find myself face to face
palm to palm with strangers
sipping and slipping
tripping
skipping formalities

it's a strange kind of intimacy

a strangers kind of intimacy

strange

and kind)

Stay a while longer
coyote,
I'll sing you a song
self conscious and breathless
i'll confess
I'm really more a cat person
but dogs like you
have some appeal
by the light of the full moon

sipping and slipping
tripping
accross tram lines
to quiet corners
face to face
palm to palm

strangers, intimate
with strange kindnesses
and
unnecessary excesses
you're exposed too
beneath the glow
of an August full moon.

Refections From The Road.

The road trains argue with the air conditioning unit
and the rain cackles as it clatters on the motel's tin roof
I'm huddled beneath with electric heat
cold feet
full of whipped cream clouds, strawberries and sweet sunsets,
rogue sheep and roast lamb.

The bright light beyond the coluds billowing on the horizon beckons,
is heaven just past those rolling rocky hills?
Or are we already angels, floating on a raspy voice and celestial melody,
buoyant

on waves of laughter.

Breathe in the country's air,
as the road completes our third pair
we dance the only steps we know,
going where we go, blowing where we blow

feed the fibres of our earthy selves
before walls and bricks and city streets greet us
and fresh sheets in familliar shades meet us
and all this luminosity fades into distant dreams

the sky is a brightly burning fire, flames of cherry red and rich gold.

We are millionaires tonight. 

Heat Horizon

there is heat
and desert clear clarity
somewhere
where blues and reds and greens grow out of the earth
sprout
from horizons that stretch out
and reach that forever away place
I endlessly chase
i spy
it's no coincidence i can see
that spot
that would be pale blue dot
from where I lie
foreign streets
where in my mind we meet
in the heat
desert clear clarity
that seeping creeping doubt fear tide
that drags me down,
wrung out
I can beat it in the heat
the childhood comfort of
crisp dry crackling skin
solar powered
i charge
at that horizon
which today is grey
and calls a strangers name.

Songbird

Eva's my morning songbird
she knows the score

it's simple

the chorus is just three chords
C, G and D
which is alright by me

still half asleep
unwashed in pjs

unable to leave the cave
today
I think I'll just play
and play
it's a solitary game
three chords
(unwashed in pjs)

These days are strange
too many tunes
but laughter heals and calms
and reassures
the best medicine

I'll take the strongest dose available

and sleep
til morning songbirds greet
with
C, G and D

they know the score;

"I love you like never before".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKjjRz0TEUk