gull

into a stiff wind
your impossible still smoothness
and those blades

those blades

with all their small twists, all their
twistings

one does not stop loving

i'm not sure i have enough fingers.
one does not stop loving.

each of you i hold
in cupped hands, dreaming
and with each
dream
dream
dream

each pain and pinch and slap
each loss and lack
each shovelful at the foot
of the mountain

i hold you all, and my fingers
remember
remember
remember

sshhhh
i will hear no voices

but my meat remembers
meat
meat
meat

and the slap
of flesh on flesh

and the meeting of
meat
meat
meat

i say these syllables
into meaninglessness

i stare at my fingers

and i love you
all
all
all

nowhere is it said
that one must stop

and i will not.




.

it started so simply

i thought i'd let you all out

for a bit of a scratch around the garden.
the odd grub or worm.
maybe increase the egg yield.

now you get yourselves up in the morning
and put yourselves to bed at night.
i don't bother with the gate
and the six-foot fence
is no obstacle.

but yesterday
when i came home
i saw one of you walking down the footpath.

i'd swear you had your purse
tucked under your wing
and were off down the shops
for twenty Rothmans

and a head of cabbage.

and the neighbours are talking.



.

the true princess

the true princess cares not

that her robes
once graced a window.

the true princess cares not

that her coronet
was, until yesterday, a yoghurt tub, and buttons

the true princess cares not

that her ballroom
is a tinselled school gymnasium

the true princess
is not born of kings

the true princess
holds court in my heart

the true princess
moves with easy grace

through
a convocation of minor royalty

flying with jack

"HEY! how did you get here?"

my son asked, when

he noticed me behind him.

"i flew"

i replied.

his five year old

not-quite guile-less eyes

widened.

"can you really fly, dad?"

(me, airily)  "oh yes.  but i only do it

when no one is looking.

people often get upset

when they realise you can fly."

"can I fly too, dad?"

"of course.  it's easy

when you know the trick.

but don't let on.

people

might not understand."

a dawning in those

deep brown eyes

the colour of

good strong coffee

in a glass

held to the light

happily

he ran off

to tell his sisters

"i flew"

the combined weight of their

separate scorn

was not enough to

drag him

back to earth

.

i read to them

as my father read to us.
it is about cadence.
rhythm.  shared
heartbeats and the journey.

reading is magical for Millie.
Sometimes she will take my hand,
my finger.  Place it
on the text so that she can follow
more closely.

the other two read easily, but for her
each word is a window and
i watch her push them open.
i burst
i burst

Child, slip over the sill.
run.  Run.  you inhabit your body
so fully.  Jump.
dance.
here is a jumble of letters.
make of them what you will.




.

Fathers and Daughters

It’s possible, I think,

observing some young women in company,

to see right through to

their relationships with their fathers:

mildly, safely flirtatious,

necks curved swanlike,

heads bent to meet authority,

eyes raised; it almost always works.

Like certain caterpillars,

they carry their homely cocoon

spun of kiss-spittle and spared rods

everywhere: it’s in their tote bags

alongside mother’s jealous food-gifts,

adjacent to their breastbud heartbeats

and rubs against their coyly shaven,

faintly pheremonal armpits.

All courtly love ends up in court of course,

too grand to be human;

the contract broken, lawyers called,

sides taken.

The party of the first part

now sees the paragraph called “father”

nested within yet other nested clauses.

To name some:

men who love another,

to whit, the one both ally and enemy

(she of the jealous food-gift)

men who hurt my mother

(by their love, or lack thereof)

men who have or may hurt me

(see above)

men who lie with me - or not

(aah, that horned beast)

men who lie to me

(and yet…)

The various Sins

of Omission

Commission

Intromission.

Ultimately,

and nakedly,

these butterfly-girls

come out.

Chew holes in the fragile vellum

digest with acid and bile

the webby cage of youth,

flap off

on wings like canvas

stretched and sized and

painted gaudy colours.

Deep in the household accounts,

Father, with his head for figures,

chews his pencil.
Draws up two columns

in his ledger:

Women

on one side

Daughters

on the other.

And the entries

double spaced

neatly underlined

in each case read:

those who have or may hurt me

those who betray me

those who leave me

those who will/not sleep with me

those I have held in my arms

those who say they love/d me

profit and loss

all balanced out.

Then calculates the bottom line:

accountants should not associate

too closely with lawyers.

autumn haiku

.

mountain air.  pot lid rattles.

dull clock of axe on ironbark

we will be warm tonight.

.

currawong ('ku)

is there anything sweeter
than the song of a currawong
full of the sound of its last kill?