Oberon

there’s scruples in the lessons travailed
hymn of him gone Oberon way with
a fire-brand in his eyes, droving,
seeking only water-tank Golems -
he arches left through tense Lantana
and seeded eucalypt crushes
that’ll be the necessary
‘indolent and capacious’
‘more fuel than last time’
‘only the timid, I love –
that’s the least of the dividers
that mark, there on the trail
between the Holden, rusted
ochre, an dirt-paint bleached
I make a dark circle, walking
the route more times than ants aroused
it always sweeps to the left,
past the first, past the second
fire-trap, scorch tin-foil mark
empty ‘2-minute’ wrappers litter
tagalong patois cities
a dreaming from the time
outlander, starch white, stiff cane
stumble stumble to a carve mark
they met this tree, a bollard to death
boil leather to thicken the gruel,
horse-jerky for the road
bury a buckle for all to find
something tells me the mountain’s
insurmountable
but bitumen eat through trestle-tables
and picnic spots
gilded tractors, primary slick and painted solid
they don’t allow tree-houses anymore
too much pin-stripe action and
aspirational summons
close the parks, fold up the cinder-block castle
‘it’s too Norman, don’t you know’
‘but Battersea is closed’
‘farewell to old Eng –
we’ll not find acacial-fields or Banksia men;
they’re spending cheques at 6am pubs,
scrubbed up for pay-day, the welfare
all allotted, neat, sleeved portions
head up to save money,
facing Mecca for all we know -
isn’t isn’t good no longer
they taught me to ride a bike there
chain-teeth, prop down, revved
in a blue woolen jumper.
They’ll find the body with a teddy-bear -
someone has sown it magenta over-alls,
their buttons match
‘found one’
‘not dark, not like –
‘the rest, no.’

torch-light

Torch light
A boy runs through the space, small, blackened with soot
The torches follow him, searching
Their beams pick up the smoke, curling upwards as the boy disappears
The torch light grows until the beams crisscross the space;
endless, sweeping, building upwards like a fire
Crackling, sirens, wood...

penta

i
I'll carry weaver-lock baskets
reeds made mute with wed-
lock times down on the river

ii
You'll make jelly-fish allusions
bite deep cores of fruit
bowl a pitch too high

iii
He'll not take stock of
brown high-waist marks
of furniture arrayed in rivers

iv
She'll keep candelabra vigils
at ease with Tudor sentiments
can't see our rough delight

v
why we're grass shewn illusions
to idyll Picts and pinafore days
dreaming that we're going




and people, far prettier of mind,
recite our verse into the ether -
safe, knowing the benevolence of
interpretation does not sully meaning

hope, where it once was forgotten

Something's usually wrong if you're not writing.

That's something I am getting used to re-discovering

A fake Ah as you reinvent the wheel on one more stale thoughtless night

gap-jaw

A week gap.
Slices of sun, wind, ham - tidy domestic
terrorism, bi-partisan passive
aggressive sorties across
laminate and nudist beaches
with split leg promises and
beach-head cosmopolitan
brashness. It's de rigueur to
be blasé.

>>

I'm a construct half to foil
half to please the idea of
me. 1 third experiment in
ego to inquire obscurely into
my own relfection. Have I
begun to play myself, how does
this arc work devoid of
intervening tragedy and tight
coughs? A side-long glance
a writer-off, no stiff competition
that's hands down a quicker wit
more sinisterly applied to all
and sundry. Ever feel that
no words are left to you, none
untouched by countless
nibs, unscratched pecked fingers
typing this and that, predicate
and prejudice. We're gonna be
the wildest people we'll live
to see.

>>

I'm nothing if I'm not this high
I'm afraid of never fitting in, of
slipping out of my own skin.
Forgetting it. In a hotel. On a bus.
Heart stop flight-or-fight - frantic
pat-down, momentary relief.
Over there. Familiar.
Taut.
Grey.
One size fits all.
Each arm at a time. Pulled
tight, all re-arranged, settle
back into my head.