tidal

mute
empty whiteglow alphabet
take a photo make
practice tattoos
seething on
time taught syllables and
nappy-dark stains -
chocolate water and thawed muscle
and blood from somewhere.
how didn't the dust spill,
coruscate spiral fingers
wagging dissonance at figures
to long-gone character,
attempts at grass
white picket heaps
titter titter
mine and mine and mine
weep at buds and drip lush
chemicals - photosynthesise heart's
timetable.
forget a pair, shadow packed
like gossamer tell-alls in reading
trains, flush necks red in
sunday greens
how did this work
before?
after tidal lives found tidal ways to be

After Scanlon

You’re near, precipice falls

it just occurred to me to write

while I dream of you

soft white tattoo

elongated in defence of suns

you’re my more than this

seeping about m, in

every step of out-sole

worn like skates to hard

for parquetry floors and

double-dance doors.

A man, tall black

the mountain stumbled

struck from dark stars

in iron nights

I heard him talk once

enough for seas to moan

and you to slip away

I hear him outside now,

his hand poised at the

door

A knack – deep and ringed

old like firs buried in

ruined cities

An unfinished play on

one hand – dead white

tune the other. Count

me out of goblet crusts

and sandstone fires.

mine is nothing anymore

mine is nothing before

love’s bright bursting

Sonia

When watching pornographic cinema,
One has to wonder,
how 'Young Sonia'
Gives such good head...

*after watching documentaries I;

See

Starving grimaces, all teeth and angles.
Children in men's rags cut to pieces. Women crying salt to feed a child.
Fuck the idea of any country.
This did happen.
Are simple responses sophisticated?
Necessary Complication is a fallacy of the avant garde -
I beat my breast to feel a millionth of their pain.
I strike my face to detach tears.
I am not them as much as you are not your father, sliding his bayonet into
my grand-grand mama.
How did it feel?
A duduk plays in a field filled with ruined thousand-year-old churches.
They're your ashes now.
Hold a starving child to you.
See how it feels.
It feels like genocide.

Inquisition

There's nothing to it. No easy answers. No way around the facts.
It happened. I wanted it to. I let it.
No, not all the way. Never. Not even half.
Not even that.
More or less.
No.
Like sugar soap and oil for blood.
Null. Void. A quiet desperation.
A secret terror. At myself.
My stark incapabilities.
My lesser moments.
Self-loathing and self-destruction dancing.
Firework-bangs in empty streets.
Dark hedges and secret lounge-rooms.
My empty bearded fear.
Yes.
If I was left to it.
I can't help myself. Those parts turn off.
Some parts turn on.
Most just run idle. Half-ass, half-on, half-in.
For you? Of course.
More like a bad accident.
No third-party cover.
Blood on glass and seat-belt burn smells.
More so than ever.
Cloying.
Inebriate condolence.
Drinker's guilt. Pride.
Seething dark resentment.
I am not to be trusted.
In the long run.
Sort of, more idiocy than anything.
NO.
Never again.
Sure, later.
Thank you.