crow files

gull

2011-10-12T21:45:00.002+10:00

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

2011-09-07T10:03:00.001+10:00

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.

.

city

2011-08-29T11:29:00.000+10:00

i will be the gap

that one minds.

i will be the blank space

on a crowded wall

i will be the footprints

lost in a maze of others

i will be the air

in a conversation

i will be the cigarette

one must not smoke

i will be

an illicit meal, high

in fats and sugars

i will be every alley

and rat’s run

i will be

broad boulevards and

tall buildings

i will be the hole

i will be the city.

it started so simply

2011-08-17T02:56:00.001+10:00

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.

.

when i am very thirsty

2011-08-15T21:13:00.000+10:00

and i kneel between your feet

and drink from you

as if you were a cup

and you look down

and i look up

and then you look up

what is that?

if it is not love

what is it?

six different kinds of bejesus

2011-07-27T14:56:00.000+10:00

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

2011-07-27T14:16:00.001+10:00

"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

2011-07-27T12:53:00.000+10:00

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.

.

postcards to a lover

2011-07-19T22:44:00.004+10:00

Barcelona

It came from nowhere,

in a steamy Irish bar just off Las Ramblas,

your hot flash of fury.

The pint glass like lightning struck the wall
(struck his head, if he hadn't ducked)

showering us with rage and glass

and sticky fluid

black in the red room.

The split-second cessation

of that careless craic.

He up off

into the crowded

Catalan night,

and you too

by another door.

“Oh Christ” i thought, and left

to look for my lover

and our friend.

i found you somehow

and dragged you back to our pensión

by the wrist

like a child,

remonstrating over your objections,

while you hung back

like a child.

“What on earth did he say to you?”

And you, too drunk and silly

to answer straight.

Locking you in our room i took the key

And went again into the night

to search the streets and squares

in the dark soft Spanish rain

for our shell-shocked friend.

Shaking my head

laughing quietly

loving your

temerity.

Athens

In Syntagma, in the shadow of the Parthenon,

made fearless by my foreign-ness

i stood in a pharmacy

asking haltingly

and somewhat too loudly

for something with which

to treat your candida

while the aged patrons

lined against the wall,

variously nodded, winked, cackled, slept,

scowled, and chewed their gums,

hearing my carefully prepared speech

clatter piece by piece

into the chemist’s

cool ceramic mortar.

Whereupon he pestled it

into a powder,

and made a paste

using the spittle of those ancients,

while speaking in what seemed

almost oracular fashion (i could not understand).

He invoked the great god Ciba-Geigy,

and produced an unguent

to our universal acclaim.

i crossed his palm with silver

took my lover’s gift

and left.

Naxos

In our sight twin pillars,

the remains of Diana’s temple.

Astride a blubbing scooter,

the small roundness of our pregnancy

gently nudging at my back,

in the louvred shade of squid drying

like so much dirty laundry,

amid the nagging gulls,

we had

although we did not know

our last hurrah.

Of all possible treasures of that time

what blind prescience made us

choose to souvenir from our studio

a homely, hand-carved, battered

wooden spoon?

Florence

We did not ascend

to the ballooning crown

of Il Duomo,

sandbagged as we were

by the Child, the stroller,

the bags and bottles and blankets.

Moored in the square

with the poster sellers,

exhausted by our argument

at the station that morning,

we could barely rise

to the level

of civilised dispute.

“I’ll wait here with her. You go.”

“No, you go.”

“no, you.”

Neither of us was prepared

to leave the other.

That would come later.

Earthbound then,

we left

in search of refreshment,

the Child between us.

…and home again (a sonnet)

Two years

more or less

since you threw me out.

My bewilderment a small and heavy sphere now,

rubbed smooth by constant worrying and turning over

the nubs and spikes of anger worn away, mostly.

Compressed by countless heartpump squeezes

The bluster driven out like

air from dough

knocked back.

Dense and

massy as a dark star.

“I’ve got bigger balls than you have”, you’d said.

Maybe, but mine are harder.

.

parable

2011-07-18T14:06:00.000+10:00

and on the dusty ground a snowy cloth

its warp and weft as tight and thick

as lover’s moonlit words

and bleached whitehard, and napped and ironed

across the eaten holes and fraying hem

and odd, three-cornered tears

with darning stitches flat as hammered nails

and glossed by starch

the honest glary face of blinded years

a splash beside the dusted road

and on the dusty ground a vendor squats

and rocks on heels

as cracked as tarmac’s blistered path

and grained with souvenirs of roads

as long as winter’s close-held tales

and bleak and endless as a wasted life

with face and neck and arms and hands

deep-scored as weathered wood and charred

and droughted, channelled deep by

flooding tears and scarred like landscape far below

the nagging, scudding crow

and past the leathered delta lapped

by sweated salted crusted cloth

untouched by sun or wind is hidden skin

of breasty white and writ with secret runes

of scrawling calligraphic blue

of maps of paths and cul-de-sacs

and journeys without end or not begun

and vistas long since lost to view

and hid from sight the bitter bastard child

named hope when hope is twisted all askew

and on the snowy cloth a single fruit

of varied ripeness and uncertain hue

inflicted here and there with studied wounds

and greedy hungered sucks and bites and bruised

by blows and squeezed by careless hands

a bellied gravid pulpy womb and cradled deep within

and hidden from the worm which writes unthinking want

between the porous skin and bitter pith

the armoured seed lies blinded deaf and dumb

and waits for ruin’s eager laugh to give it voice

and free it from its sugared tomb

to curl and drink the sun or burn or drown

and on the dusted road a host of feet

and in the bone-barred chest a stuttered heart

and on the snowy cloth a weeping fruit

and in the blinding sky a blinding sun

Fathers and Daughters

2011-07-15T11:41:00.001+10:00

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.

geograph

2011-06-19T12:06:00.021+10:00

i look for words which might elucidate

among my poet friends, their books.

i dogear pages, sit in scattered

mulch of aphorisms and a confetti

of autumnal ennui. i find nothing.

here he is.

he is on a mountain.

a road enters a forest, as sure and wet

as any metaphor. in the deep forest

in the night in the

absence of the moon

he cannot see a hand in front of his face.

he must walk with one foot

on the road, one off.

when he sees the sky, the broad ribbon of stars

which might be a road he knows

is not a road. forest and night collide
like metal.

flesh tears. bones break. the stars are

a lapful of worthless diamonds

and a new red cartography of damage

is already drying on his face.

is there such a thing as direction?

a bare tree is also a symbol for ‘river’.

its roots are a delta emptying

into a sea of earth.

in any landscape, scars only remain

scars for so long

before

the habit of long association makes friends of them.

light does not create vision.

i have built

i have built all kinds of structures. some

for living in, others for viewing
from a distance. furniture too, and other

accoutrements such as picture frames

and the things within them. i have etched

haematograms on parchment eyelids:

a kind of invisible ink

to be read

when i lie on my back, face to the sun.

this is the best position for remembering

and forgetting. insects will

enter my ears. mechanical, electric,

on needle legs, their amplified desires will

become the inner groove of meaning and intent:

a comfort of irritation.

i will let the grass grow under me.

he has torn
down
everything.

he has torn down

houses, cities, whole civilisations of memory

just so he could fossick

broken-nailed in the rubble

for a perfect stone. he has combed coastlines

and learned to read from sand

the deconstructed histories of continents

mountains, alluvial plains,

petrified forests

bones.

he has torn down his present

and his future.

i say

there are two of me. each insists

i prefer the other. he is more...

...synthetic.

we bump shoulders. snigger

at our cleverness. share make-up, raid

each other’s wardrobes.

play the twin’s game of

open-faced

wide-eyed deceit.

we fool no one. we are too alike.

again:

he was in a forest.

he was inappropriate

in dress and manner. his pith helmet

blocked his view of the canopy

until he left it wedged in roots

to gather water, moss,

the brief appreciation of generations

of the chitinous and carapaced

and the fiercely insectivorous thanks of amphibians.

his creased clothing became rags.

he filled the pockets with reminiscences

and stuffed them into crevices.

buttoned a frayed and lonely cuff around a python’s neck.

one day, forgot his boots. left them speechless,

tongues hanging out to catch the rain.

discovered

when there are no clothes,

there is no nakedness.

he stopped collecting everything but light

and as for naming? named nothing. forgot
his own. his hair grew.

sometimes he would see glowing

some brief cruel inflorescence of desire

with its attendant nectar-sippers.

he would stare until the perfect colours

ceased to hurt his eyes.

sometimes he was a river.

sometimes he was a leaf. a tooth. a snail.

once, he tripped over a knapsack full of

things he had no memory of forgetting.

once, he spoke
then ran from the sound in fear and shock.

there was a period when i stayed silent

for some weeks. I was alone. it was

an experiment. i was alone.
time
became

seamless. it was a meditation.

for day upon day upon day things
only entered my mouth. nothing

left it. i did not write. i breathed only

through my nose. I was alone.

i was in love

with a new
virtue. i was a monk.

a tree. a lake. i was

made to speak. i remember

profound grief in that moment.

naked again, bereft, i re-entered the world.

they were saying goodnight.

they walked towards her door.

she was behind him in the hall. he reached back,
took her hands

and laced them on his belly, covered them

with his. their steps slowed.

they were one clumsy creature. he could feel
her breasts,

cool against his back. her hips,
and her mound

a small fire. the serpent’s tail.

he did not try to turn. she did not try to turn him.

they reached the door. the night air was chill.

there are times when,

seeking relief from symptoms,

i cram my mouth with so much sugar

that my tongue swells. rivers

of it burn my throat until the sweetness

becomes the taste of blood. awareness
at once dilates

and dwindles. is this lust?

there are pills i do not take.

in the mirror, i notice how grey i have become.

in the bed, i cup my cock and balls in my hand.

in the dark, i hear the bright chirp of my phone.

i do not pick it up.

he would be a philosopher, if he could.

he would note in the iterations

of water and sand, the arcs of birds and fish,

the circles we must all complete.

he would use our small spheres,

the orbits we trace,

to map with algebraic certainty

the pinwheel motion of our galaxies:

in the ancient light of stars,

the nebulae of our births

the infinitely massive singularities

of our deaths. he would say

i have never seen in a bottle
anything that i have not seen

in a twist of smoke. i have never seen
in a twist of smoke anything
that i have not seen
in a needle, i have never seen
in a needle anything

that i have not seen in some other's face,
or in mine.

he would say

i have never seen anything.

he would say

i have given birth. here is my child.

my mirror.

he would say

when we meet,

parts of us speak. parts of us

are audience. parts of us reach out.

parts of us remain hidden. parts
of us touch.

we eat and drink of each other

and are nourished.

all will be well.

the anatomist (i)

2011-05-21T11:24:00.000+10:00

...and here,
this organ meets that gland

in gristled grisly meat

in bag of flesh
upon my marble table. Note

the nerves and how they part under

the knife. This

tendon fits its notch and twangs

its drybow damage on a vein. These

constant rubbings
would scar were there but life
remaining. Many

think the hair
and nails still
grow, but no

it is the flesh which shrinks. Aaahh

my arms and hands are cold. The rusted
stink, the black and clotted
blood; I plunge

them elbow deep
to grasp

the fading heat. The scalpel

slips

forgotten to the floor.

it needs a barest breath

2011-05-19T16:41:00.000+10:00

See this brimming snailshell beast that grows

its rings imperceptible, careful, slow -

impelled through landscape

by soft flesh over

barren-seeming brick and moss

meadows that must be rich, because

we stop

to graze.

it needs a barest breath

to make the eyes flinch.

The body curls in

cringing tense of bonelessness.

See how we pause and lock -

hold tight and lock, our

edges sealed while we wait blind

for the blow for the burst

door.

it needs a barest breath

and we wait on crystalline

paths we wrote

from one meal to the next -

furled tight around the centre of

our meat, anticipating

the jagged

shatter

of our curvature.

counterpoint

2011-05-10T17:12:00.002+10:00

sing that song
Mother the one
you sing with your blue
with your milk blue
throat so warm and taut
and beating time
and your breast
your breast so curved
and full your belly
my ear to your belly
your breast i hear
such a soft rush
of life of
love...

sing that song
Mother and let
blue milk-crystal
syllables be baubles

strung between

pink fingers
pink lips pink
nipples

blue milk

sing

mother...

this work first published at

http://www.myspace.com/bruce_dorlova/blog/449935621

November 2008

untitled (after Don McKay)

2011-05-07T11:09:00.000+10:00

Sometimes a voice – have you heard this? –

wants not to be a voice any longer, wants something

whispering between the words, some

rumour of its former life. Sometimes, even

in the midst of making sense or conversation, it will

hearken back to breath, or even farther,

to the wind, and recognise itself as troubled air, a flight path still

looking for its bird. - Don McKay, from “Sometimes a voice (1)”

Today i broke a word. Snapped it.

pestled it to powder.

Made a paper funnel then

poured it into my ear

and after that heard nothing

but

the slurring tinnitus

of radio silence.

fragments

2011-05-04T21:18:00.003+10:00

cat's cradle

the swollen purple

of constricted circulation.

the prick

of thumbs, conscience, etc.

the blue black

of venous blood.

entanglement: (n.)

a snarl.

fingerpuppets

you

point out my flaws.

insert my middle digit

into my mouth.

Suck.

Display.

your fingers

flick your chin.

Later,

we hold

hands.

insensate

there is a scent
on my fingers

there is a stain
on the bed

there is Nothing
between us

riddle

does he close you up inside

his man-sized fist?

does he add grist

to your mill?

am i missed,

did we kill?

do you swallow

his bitter

li'l pill?

.

requiem 1

2011-04-25T01:54:00.001+10:00

earth
has tethered this flight -

the sweet loamy smell of us

the picked-clean bones of us

this microbial

disarrangement of senses.

one perfect pinion

sabred

air to ribbons.

one scalpel keelbone

dissected

air to breathing-gas.

one fishhook toe

snagged

tides of cirrus.

the scattered feathers move

to breath

which left the lungs

and won't return

the slow exhale:

the cage of ribs

unbarred, the door

swung wide.

the bones are cast

upon the ground,

the fortune gathered up.

this headstone tooth

has bit us off

this tombstone door

has shut us out

the heavy sky let fall

the parts that could not fly.

icarus

2011-04-22T17:39:00.011+10:00

jumped

flew

high and caught

the

su…

the burning

sun

high

and caught

(icarus

jumped)

flew

high

and

caught

the sun

the burning

sun

the burning sun

pastoral, confined.

2011-04-14T13:05:00.004+10:00

the way you suckled at it all, poor

you

you motherless lamb all

hard palate and nubs of teeth

letterbox eyes grasp of tongue

and the pulse at your neck.

the way you pulled at those

fingers

braced like

your little legs

your empty belly

crawling up your throat

to bleat please -

the way the bell-wether

stood

in a corner of the yard

in a sting of ammonia

ringing the hours

with each dip of her head.

the way the bucket

rang

as it struck the ground

the way the gate latch

clicked

this boy

2011-04-06T18:26:00.001+10:00

has one foot in the air

this boy

sees liminal

this boy

keeps a cricket

in his cupped hands

spies the moon

from his bed

knows where

the small things live

this boy

is not a photograph.

this boy

knows

that boy

this boy

is as long

as the day is wide

this boy

wand

ers

home

for dinner

sea triptych

2011-03-25T00:17:00.003+10:00

.

1.

it is a twisting spine
           of shell worn
smooth by water.

          he rubs it
between thumb and finger.

   a thing of water,
it was always smooth ~

it is fluted and
   sings to him of seas ~

           exists
in more dimensions than he has

                  he has

he has eyes to see.

              it is
between thumb and finger.

2.

it is the glow he sees.

        he sees

it is seaglass.

       he puts it
into his mouth.

   a thing of earth,
it was always sand ~

it is seaglass.
   moves molten in time ~

becomes
what it is.     he begins

       he begins

he begins to undress.

          it is
in his mouth.

3.

he is looking
        into the sky,

the moon on one shoulder, full.

venus on the other,    risen.

the sky is bleeding sun,
     the sea is washing it

       the colour

      the colour of

the colour of

breathing.

                       the taste

        the taste

the taste

of....

      ~ when he is naked

     he begins to swim ~

.

currawong ('ku)

2011-03-13T17:44:00.003+10:00

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

all your many gifts to me

2010-12-17T15:56:00.011+10:00

“Enclosed within -
our breath, to not
blow out candles
or feed fires”

these walls

we paper with such care

the better to distinguish

one room from another.

(billowing with our breathing)

these walls

of stones or sticks

stacked like memories or laced

like fingers.

(which hold each other up)

the difference between a cage

and a cupped hand.

(how it is roofed)

the thudding heart

against your fingertips.

the confinement of sky.

words.

(the legs round which our ricepaper messages

are bound for flight)

water.

(and a cup from which to drink it)

consonance. assonance. dissonance.

(harmonies)

this door.

empty hands.

(a bird is never heavier

than in the moment it lifts)

when birds sing such songs,

how can we not whisper harmonies

under our breath?

all lines are tangents to a curve.

(what is possible)

many songs

from few notes -

this silence.

.

if i wanted

2010-11-19T13:21:00.001+10:00

i could sing you

clean and clear and sweet as

meltwater.

wrap you round my alphabet tongue

i could ribbon

the sound of you

down my xylophone spine

all snaked and laddered and

lickety-split.

i could speak you

burst you berried

on my palate

whistle you through my teeth sharp

and high.

i could twist with

my tongue a word rope

for you to dance

across with an umbrella in your hand

and a short short skirt you could turn

somersaults

then jump

i could catch

you in my arms.

there would be cheers. applause.

there would be wolf

whistles.

.

2010-11-11T10:25:00.001+10:00

Such a gift of a dream i woke to
this morning. Such a small dream: i dreamed i woke
in my little flat where i had not lived
for many years.
And it was no longer my flat
and i was not with you, nor you
nor even you,
but with one i have met but do not know
though God willing (and there is no God)
may.

It was morning. We had not slept together,
although i think perhaps the flat was hers and she had slept
nearby.
Still she eased herself astride me and perhaps,
i think yes, perhaps
she smiled
as i did - such a small smile.
There were the bedclothes between us and
i was wearing gloves. No
i do not know why. It was
a dream.

i ran my gloved hands along her clothed flanks. She
did not seem surprised by the gloves
or the hands.

There was perhaps a shaft
of muted sunlight
through old glass of mauve
and mottled. It was a dream and
i cannot be sure.
And the smell of sleep. No,
not of sleep
of rest.

There was the luxury of sheets. And gloves.
And i lay in the luxury
of this dream and then, dreaming,
arose and moved through the
four small rooms.
Skimmed my fingers across the kitchen table i had stripped
and waxed those years ago.
Ran those same fingers along the sticky
enamelled stovetop and noted
each small remembered mark
on walls and floor.

swam in the Sea of the Long Forgotten.

i made sure to wake before
the dream could end
so i could carry it with me, with the practicality of my
Ginseng tea, my
cigarettes, this morning,
this early morning sun and shade,
the shush of traffic and the dust
of years swept up.

Now with my second cup
of Ginseng tea, my third
cigarette, this pen and page i hold,
with my remaining (gloveless) fingers
i hold
this dream. Perhaps wine
would hold it better. Perhaps
strong red wine would hold
it better.

Please God (but there is no God)
send me tea
rs and cigarettes and strong red wine.
Yes send me strong red wine
but send me no more dreams until
i am beyond
waking.

september song

2009-09-23T15:51:00.001+10:00

go to sleep.
draw the paintshades
down across your rivet eyes

go to sleep.
fold your bullseye head
under your switchblade wing

go to sleep.
let sweet lips of infant pity
kiss your kerosene tears away

go to sleep.

dream of flying.

dream of flying.

vanishing point

2009-09-14T13:57:00.001+10:00

(i)

he stops. says he has been waiting.
she smiles.
he asks her where they are going.
she smiles.
says all roads are like this one.

she says she takes her coffee the way
she takes her roads.
he brings her coffee. the dark liquid slips down her throat
the red tide of dawn flows out towards them,
sweeping through the thin scrub
to break over the low building.
beyond it the heat begins to gather.
he says it is time to move.

if there were bends,
around each would be
a carcasse and crows
there are no bends.
crows are lifted and scattered
as they pass.

he thinks he sees ahead,
at the limit of sight
a kadaichi man
walking on his reflection
singing a thing into being
his feather shoes
rippling the air.
he thinks he hears a bone flute.
the tyres hum with the sound of bullroarers.
he thinks he hears his name.

when they talk they say the same things
in different languages.
she says there is no leaving.
he says there is no home.
their words hang with the dust motes. the heavier ones
settle with the flecks of ash from his cigarette.
the radio rattles with a sound like irrigation.
fragments of song spray out, and evaporate
when they reach the ears. she turns it off and they listen
as the road spins the wheels and their talk
is plucked out through the windows with the blue smoke.

now there are bends.
she touches a place on a map.
when he shifts his feet on the pedals
the needles on the gauges
flick like dowsing rods.
he turns off the road, the wheel
light between his hands.
when they stop, the red dust rolls over them.
she writes their names on the dashboard
with a wet finger.

now they can hear the heat
pressing on them with the sound of locusts.

there is a look between them
which neither of them owns.
above them leaves hang blue like blades
and dull chrome bark is streaked with rust.

they share water. the water is warm.
they eat. bread, salt, oil.
after they have eaten
he presses her lips against her teeth with his.
she tastes of olives.
they talk tongue to tongue
omitting the spaces between words
not trusting the air. almost
everything vanishes.

(ii)

there is the sound of water
and the sound of sand.
they walk
towards it through the low grasses
scattering crabs and lifting gulls.
her calves are cuttlebones beneath skin
and the cables that anchor her toes
push bow waves through the white grains.

she stops.
he smiles and asks her which way.
he knows
which way she will say.
she says
this way and her gaze slides
over and past him. there is
a grain of sand in her lashes and the smell
of salt in his nose. the sand is
a broad ribbon of shot silk under the white sun.

a quick gust raises a nap of grains which briefly stings
their legs the way a puff of breath through the nostrils can
sting a lover.
he wants to cut her the way
he can cut water and slide up the face of her
beneath the skin of her
breaking wave,
to burst through with both their strengths and
crash back into her.
he can feel this, and certain muscles
flicker beneath his skin in quick rehearsal.

behind them, behind the dunes,
the road waits crouched in the heat and ticking.

they are talking. she looks
now here, now here, while he skips
his sight over her face and darts it
like a tongue into what is between her open lips.
her voice is low and measured, and he uses his
to wedge open sentences so that words flow
and spill and pool. water and sand.

he carries his shoes in his hand. he is
closer to the water than she.
as they walk and talk she is edging them
slowly
gently towards the water. he feels
he can see beneath her bones, and
he smiles with the side of his face that
she cannot see.
small waves spend their strength
hissing up the hard-packed sand to lick
their toes. there is the crack and pop
of breathing holes opening behind each
recession of the sea.

then they are walking through the water ankle-deep.
it is cool, and now he feels the prick
of sun on his neck and face. the water
catches at the cuffs of his trousers, climbs
through threads. later
there will be tidemarks.

ahead is an abutment of rock. molten it has squeezed and bulged and run
so that it twists and spills like flesh.
they climb.
at the top they sit cupped
in each other, watching the water.
they talk of the past.
they talk of the present.
they talk of the moment.
they talk
of falling.
almost

everything vanishes.

(iii)

they are in the car. they
are on the road.
voices
from the radio buzz.
he drives,
his eyes
drinking red miles through a black straw.
she sits,
her eyes
behind sunglasses and milk-blue lids.

two flies
entered the car with them.
now they write in the voice of
their wings
on the windshield. beyond the glass is pressure of air
enough to
destroy them.
against the glass, they are safe from
the pressure,
trapped,
and in terrible danger. he
bats at them with the back of his hand and stings
the tips of his fingers beneath the nails against
the glass.
for a moment, the sound vanishes,
taking
the small black bodies with it.
he peers at the dashboard and the car
slides off the shoulder of the road.

he twists
the wheel and the flies
lift
from where they have been hiding
on the black road of two names
winding through
the red dust coating the dashboard.

already a fine down of red
begins to blur the black letters.

she breathes
a deep breath and her head turns a little
towards her window.
she opens
it an inch. two. more.
there is the harsh sound of air
being torn.

he speaks to her
of the flies.
she bats at his words with hers
and a crease appears
on the side of her face that
he cannot see.
she says
she will drive. certain muscles beneath his face
flicker in quick rehearsal
of speech.

he speaks.
she is silent.

they do not need to argue
to argue.

the car is stopped.
he climbs out and walks towards the thin scrub.
he makes red mud with water from his body
and looks out across the red metal heat.
he thinks he sees
a kadaichi man
sitting crosslegged on his reflection
singing smoke into being
his feather shoes
tucked beneath him.
he thinks he hears
flies droning.
his ears roar with the sound of roads.
he thinks he hears his name.

his eyes roll up
beyond the sun and into the red.
and then the black.

everything vanishes.

(iv)

the white sun boils red
at the back of his eyes
and crowbars up the lids.
he turns his head and stones burn
his cheek.

she floats and flickers above the road.
she is moving around the car. the car
floats and flickers above the road.
the road floats and flickers above
a reflection of a road.
a reflection of a car.
a reflection of
she floats and
flickers.

heat squeezes his skull.
he thinks levitation must be a sin.

he thinks
they may be lost.
he says
he looks for himself
among the crowd in
her ears and behind her eyes.

where she looks for herself.
she is too far for his small words
they
rattle against his teeth and drop pebbled
onto the red sand and the burning rocks.
some are blown into his ears
with the sand and seeds and feathers
twisted up
by the screw of dust and wind
which moves like smoke.

if there is a look between them
it belongs to them both.

they are too far to see eyes.

she calls.
her words
drop through the thin air
aquiline
and stop to hover in the blast of heat
above the road.
what is between them
crouches like prey
trying to turn its skin
to stone.

his thoughts are wax melting.
his thoughts are a father
watching a son fall.

his thoughts are a sun
falling through the red
into the black.

in the black,
everything vanishes.

(v)

the shadow of a low building
sweeps away through the thin scrub.

when he looks down at his feet
he sees feathers.
there is the sound of singing.
he begins to walk.

in

a trick
of perspective and curves
and the lensing of heat

everything vanishes.

nothing disappears.

outlines

2009-09-07T13:58:00.001+10:00

to beat a birdswing of desire against her
fluttered lids
        head cocked to one side
        in an attitude of listening
        or to drill a gazy hole and crack
        a carapace. A beak. Chitin. Keratin.
and cup her tales of when and how
and too
        some words drawn by a needle
        through holes in parted flesh
        Dissolve. White ridged scar lips
        compressed against exit. Entry.

to wake from sleep and dream
to breathe
to write in skin
on bone
        there was water here
        still tidemarks blur the lines
        of sentimentary rock. Process.
        a trans-substantiation of minerals.

to give                voice
to keep              silence

        there is smoke without

        an impasto of air, the marks
        trapped. Imprints.

        there is fire within

to never ask for what ought
to be offered
        fingers beneath skin. A game
        of scissors
        ink in flesh. Parchment. codex.

to leave a line unfinished
to leave

to turn and turn and turn these
the parameters of reverence

water bottle

2009-08-24T10:40:00.001+10:00

it has become the custom

among our kind to always carry

Water.

this is the age of Aquarians

each polycarbonate amphora

spilling greedy

for want of lack.

i embrace parching

wrap it in thickfurred tongue

close it in creaking voicebox

surrounded by small seas i

drink not.

salt sharpens thirst.

This is the conundrum of oceans

da capo al coda

2009-08-08T22:39:00.001+10:00

Given a certain latitude
can these be called songlines?
Hymns for Mercator’s spider
poised in the geographic centre of
her blue orb.
She weaves grace-notes through her histories.
Sticky strings, with glue-beads of
quaver and breve

His throat catches at a melody
tangles in the cross-hatched web
of lines and staves
Chokes on the dry black specks.

he feels her
tugging at the corners
of his mouth. This is not
Silence.
Long fingers move contrapuntal.
bracket the refrain

when i was a boy

2009-02-28T13:26:00.002+10:00

when i was a boy

our house was built by men whose grins were hard-earned
and hoarded like our pennied pocketmoney;
Who wielded tools made of
ancient iron and steel,
of ancient shapes;
ancient sound.

They were nailing floorboards:
tik (to set the nail)
bangBANG.
And two inches of steel nail were
driven within a whisker of dead flush
by a sixteen ounce clawhammer at the end of a hard arm
through a hardwood board into a hardwood joist,
and not a single half-crown in that floor
or at least not where anyone
would see.

In three strokes:
tik (to set the nail)
bangBANG
tikbangBANG:
Fast, and with a rhythm so precise
you could sleep through it.

Sawdust fell like summer rain
from the teeth of the ripping saw
pushed by the conrod arm;
and don’t touch a man’s chisel.

A plane brought forth
the fragrant golden curls
of a well-kept woman;
caressed the buttery wood,
wreathed the hard arms,
the ringlets shaken free,
their gratuitous beauty unremarked,

And curses were tossed like oranges
in season and cheap, man to man.

And a house grew up

in the time it took a boy
to learn that a man
could love his skills

the way he loved a wife
with open eyes, and
a calloused caress.

And love his work
with a sharp laugh
and a bedroom tongue;

not like it,

and not look back.

kaffeeklatsch

2009-02-27T08:53:00.001+10:00

sewingcircle mornings

the click of needles and tongues

threads caught and kept

and made to darn and mend

purse-stitch closures lipsealed

over rents before they grow

the tut of dear good friends

chairs drawn so close they touch

diver

2009-02-26T17:20:00.001+10:00

surfacing through
greenswell, hefting
his netted finds aboard

the deck tilts.
nothing ever
washes away.

somewhere
in all these shells must be
the nacre-smothered grain
for which he bursts
his lungs.

later, beached,
the tops of his toes
skinned by his rubber fishfins,
sand crusts with blood and wounds
are roughly mortared closed.

tomorrow he will open them afresh.

later still
while casting for bait,
he is stabbed by memory

of a time when bright steel was enough.

february poem -

2009-02-21T10:10:00.001+10:00

ainagainr
inagainra
nagainrai
againrain
gainraina
ainrainag
inrainaga
nrainagai
rainagain

rain again

rain again

rain again

tonight, i have the moon

2009-02-20T23:34:00.001+10:00

today
a black cockatoo

tore holes in the afternoon
with its screaming
painted air dark pinched
a wick of macrocarpus in
two toes
two toes

cracked peace
with its bullet tongue
swallowed hope and let fall
dreamhusks

something was shredded
with its screaming
the song sings the bird
the rough round head
the cortége tail the pocket
handkerchief white flash
breaks the black

the song
sings the bird
the nodding plumes
the lacquered cart the lowered
eyes the bright black boot the slight

pause

the footfall.

flying ants had
filled the stilldawn
air in drifts
at touchdown
bodies leave wings

are reborn
from flight into secret
dark places

Catholics have a word for this.

the wet open
ribs
the bright hard
spear

the sucking
chest wound

i walk.
i walk.

tonight,
i
have the moon.

from here

2009-02-20T14:16:00.000+10:00

from here

the land drops away
the air plunges

down the valley chute
the air smashes

hard into the water
the rock flows

gentle against the good earth
the rock pillows

the urgent water
the hard air

how to walk
the hard air

how to breathe
the urgent water

how to know

how

to know

rock

from here

untitled.

2009-02-20T14:02:00.000+10:00

and then it broke
over him like a wave

and he was flung
down
the face of it

and he kicked

how he kicked

and the white
the white
white

water

and he would have drowned but for swimming

and he would have swum but for drowning

and he laughed in the white
water he laughed

and every drop a bright

pearl

every drop

a pearl

a small madness

2009-02-17T17:39:00.001+10:00

1.

you do not call.
i answer anyway.

lately i have seen many small bodies
the smack of tiny lives ended
on my visor we are both hit right
between the eyes.
Also,
vacant cicadas, mummified
lizards, fresh and incandescent
rainbow toadsmears in my path
and once, a fox
which i rode by over the course
of days until it was a fox
in memory only, and a haze
of once-a-fox-ness

clouding the green air

2.

i would not swim today.

there are bluebottles which
even the seagulls will not eat
and i know the surf
full of their fragments
will drive me outraged, whipped
and wealed

to commit atrocities upon my skin
with handfuls of scouring sand

3.

i do not recognise my voice
others have seeped in
and the white water
bubbles through my brain

crushes memory

so there are cigarettes
books
under pandanus

a bed of rocks
and sleep

4.

you spoke to me

of taking heart, observing
the vital aged.
the childishness
of a much older lover
as if tiredness were a thing
which could be slept away
or kept in lidded eyeboxes
the left luggage of a long trip
parcelled up and labelled
"do not open until Christknowswhen".

i feel not young nor old
rather
too little or too much

so are years tallied

5.

i weave skeins of ink
to thread
and thread to cloth
stitch with memory a faded
denim still life with oilstains
loose around my hips
and belted with strong
and supple sorrow.
Then soft black armour
feathered with
the harsh bark and cough
of many small explosions

the comforting illusion
of movement

untitled

2009-02-05T16:22:00.001+10:00

in the time between sleeping and waking, they talk. she sends him many small messages. the text is white on the small black screen. she sends photographs. he is online. they are connected. they talk. their voices are warm as breath. they touch with their candle eyes. they see with their bloodshot hands.

he wonders if this time is more real than the time of being awake. it is her voice in his ear. it is the heat where their skin joins. it is each hair of her head separate and distinct, its own small scent growing into his awareness. if he doesn't try, he can slip into this time and linger there. it is a time without ticks or taps. it is a time without befores or afters. he wonders if she will let him.

he tries not to try.

when he sleeps, he dreams of them. he dreams knowing that he is dreaming. in his dreams he is awake. sometimes he dreams he watches her sleep and wonders what she dreams. in his dreams he asks her sleeping form many questions and he tells her many secrets. he smiles and reaches out a hand to touch her. in his hands she is a fish, silver and quick like light.

he remembers that in the old words, quick means alive. the quick and the dead. cut to the quick. he feels a quickening. he is breathing deep, and quick.

when he is awake he dreams of the time between sleeping and waking. he thinks of sleeping and dreaming.

he is stretched. he is transparent with the stretching. he is running. he is running and not stopping. he knows where he is running. he knows why he runs. he knows who he is... he is gulping hot desert breaths. he is astonished by the length of days.

he does not exhale.

january haiku

2009-01-29T16:09:00.001+10:00

such wanting pulling

you towards me clouds gather

summer storms blue night

gravel under foot

a cricket dies on my floor

we wish words were wings

there is red desert

there is a place beyond it

sweet rain falls soft there

swimming in Ondaatje

2009-01-27T16:48:00.001+10:00

swimming
in Ondaatje

swaying
with Chesnutt about to

choke
in my doorway

watching
the grass open

its arms to the rain

wishing

i had thought to steal

something that smelled of you

the correspondence

2009-01-24T22:36:00.001+10:00

between letters
he fingers the tiny ridges
traces the small depressions
of each postmark on the buff envelopes

inside:

"to..."
"from..."
"yours..."
"with / in
/
i am..."

between letters
he sees small gaps
notes the matted fibres
the warp and weft of creamy paper

marked:

"when..."
"for..."
"if..."
"but / how
/
may we..."

between letters
he reads other, older missives
addressed "to whom... and "it has.. .."
softly tugs the knotted red ribbon packages

hefts their welcome weight

they fuck with their eyes open like books
amid cries of "author! Author!.."

reach

2009-01-21T15:06:00.001+10:00

clicks n taps

a morse languageof
dotsndashes
onesnzeros
andno

-spaces-

a window discloses only
the ambivalence of

- halfdrawn curtains -

in braille
the fingerpads

loom large

and soft as pomelo's
the page makes its many points

the awl always
fitted to the palm ready

for pricking small boxed meanings

the trickle
of watersoundstherush of
skiesandsatellitestherelaystations

bristled porcupine antennae

balled around the soft belly
and the head tucked in
the nose in the navel

the scent of one's self

onthefingersthepen
mostespecially

- on the fingers -

a hypodermic whisper

to inoculate against

- the reaching silence -

sshhhLISTEN

the hush
the hushed
the hhhhhhhhhhhh
we have ears for the unsaid
we have mouths for the unspoken

skin
for remembering
skin

for

- reaching -

astragal

2009-01-20T06:43:00.001+10:00

open and step

certain temples have

a low lintel

a high threshold

one must

look down

bow the head

upon entering it is

a way to honour

cross now

here is an altar

more freeform haiku

2009-01-15T16:28:00.001+10:00

your coin-operated hips

i have change in

my pocket

little spider

gives you something

to remember him by

though the wind

soughs through the boughs

it cannot blow this away

i knew

i KNEW

i knew

and now

i know

three short poems

2009-01-15T16:18:00.001+10:00

walking once more

to the end of the pier

there is a fisher

with a crabpot

there is a plane

overhead

walking and walking

throught the evening

towards a tower

"it's a navigation aid"

"it's a pirate's lookout"

we are in

perfect

agreement

another dog

bounds along the beach

"that one's cute" you say

i pant a little

wonder

if you see

my tail wagging

formal haiku

2009-01-15T15:56:00.001+10:00

clouds are like fishscales

pines are black against the sky

summerdawn Glenelg

freeform haiku

2009-01-15T15:48:00.001+10:00

making out on the beach

like teenagers

together coming undone

my body

speaks louder than i

i tell it hush

you tell me listen

feet walk one way

heart walks another

not stretched but grown

what continents we crossed

deserts and oceans below us

seen through small windows

before coffee

brave little muddlehead

five small poems

2008-12-26T07:24:00.001+10:00

just there

your scent

i am undone

.

speak to me

use

only vowels

.

your steady gaze

thick in the

space

between us

.

the back of my hand

grazes

your lips flower

.

this
thick
tongue
sweet like
treacle

x

thaw

2008-12-02T18:10:00.001+10:00

i rub the glass

in small soft circles

peering

through the

slowly growing

bright coin

shaped hole

through a

foxed and mottled

surface

breathe HAA

then with my sleeve

i rub the glass

.

counterpoint

2008-12-01T13:14:00.001+10:00

counterpoint

sing that song
Mother the one
you sing with your blue
with your milk blue
throat so warm and taut
and beating time
and your breast
your breast so curved
and full your belly
my ear to your belly
your breast i hear
such a soft rush
of life of
lo..

sing that song
Mother and let
blue milk-crystal
syllables be baubles

strung between

pink fingertips
pink lips pink
nipples

blue milk

sing

m-

this ancient song

2008-12-01T11:30:00.001+10:00

, br

this ancient song

made new.

your hands

make birdshadows

beat against a wall.

our pavilion

its silks and streamers

flutter in the chill

breeze of after - noon

await the still

- pause -

the space between

the indrawn breath of day

the slow sigh of night

a moment in time
a moment away
a moment

.now.

your hands

make birdshadows

beat against a wall