safe harbour

a tree, far away,
fragile to the forces
of nature
but well grounded.

a lone cannon
maybe
but i've never known
you to shoot off
without good reason.

you do not choose
to live in a box
like others
creating mansions
and cascades
and freefalls all
carefully sculpted
in mountains of paper.
we both love living
in those paper mountains.

so alike
but different
in the detail.

forceful
or forthright?
who cares?

when it's all
stripped bare
between us
inside those paper
mountains, you mine
for diamonds while
i like to harvest
the shadows.

you are wise
council, when
all around me
is in disarray
you float a boat
on my tears.
you are wise council.



for martin.

voodoo doll

i do to the voodoo doll.

i do to the voodoo doll who.
i do to the voodoo doll who is you.
i do to the voodoo doll with pins.
i do to the voodoo doll with pliers
i do to the voodoo doll who is you with pins and pliers.

one hit

you break my heart, and my face,

with one hit, of your fist.
battlefield bed,
homegrown warfare.
terrorism is everywhere.

wallflower, or tightroping on a quiet rage.

fear of chemistry,

electricity
best kept at a distance
measured in empty arms.
looks like laughing/
feels like crying.

unprepared for the

impromptu moment,
too rational
or too damaged
to let a little
spirituality in.

for even in the great unfolding
there are still
mis-understandings
where someone says
‘something’
and nothing is
clear anymore.

for you, at two

this is to you my little mirror gnome, strong and mighty,

unburdened now and chasing a life that

excites you and ignites everyone around you.

you are the seed and the farmer,

you are the beautiful flower,

you are wisdom and discovery,

you are history and the future.

you will learn the language of the seasons,

tie them up with your instincts to carry

lightning in your veins.

you will fall in love with the moon nightly,

not to any prescription or code of honour

but from a faith so deep and mysterious it cannot be named.

on some sundays and during thunderstorms you
will struggle with insomnia, and monthly,
always monthly you will be reminded that

life is a struggle but you are strong.

affirm yourself often.

bang your own drum loudly but listen out to other beats,
they will inspire you.

some days you will be singing in rainbows,

others are nothing but the blues.
celebrate both days with grace.

let the sound of distant buses be a dreaming

of possibilities to take you places.

don't fall for the fast laugh or the quick

friendship, worthy people take time and are

the framework on which to build yourself.

be loyal to your sisters, treat yourselves

with respect then everybody else will.

aim always to be better than yesterday.

dream in architecture, dream in riddles,

dream under sunshine and in the halflight,
dream in truths, dream in solutions,
dream for your own amusement then
dream for the entertainment of the world.

i wish you to speak the profound and run

with wild abandon. i want you to be proud, stake your claim,

hold boldness in your heart and in your hands.

when all around you is madness i want you to

come to me and be your own kind of crazy,

i can say ''i understand''

because we are family.

tribute

the blackbird of unhappiness

lays dead on my feet,

shot with lithium

and other feelgood drugs.

it’s written like a habit

all over your face.

your tunes ride on

the ties that bind

so inspired by crime that

kylie had to die

for nick to hit the mainstream.

i love you like coffee,

you make me so edgy.

you caught me maintaining

my secrets on a leash,

wearing your songs

like wet socks on a dismal day

(ringo starr in the minor key).

because you can feign sadness,

but you can’t pretend togetherness.

so tell me i’m beautiful again

while i play morrissey music

till there is no tomorrow

just you

and me

and his words

killing me softly with a blunt object.

did you ever wake up in the middle of a nightmare?

where a man from the 1950’s has just cooked the barbeque in the great outdoors and is walking the tray piled high with hamburgers over to his all american family who are eagerly awaiting the feast at the picnic table and it’s all fresh and healthy and completely normal and even a little bit sweet until i realise that he is on fire, he is literally engulfed in flames. trying to recover from the shock of what i am witnessing i approach from the north to look across to his family who are also ablaze yet behaving in a serene charade of real life. i look down to realise that i too am on fire. it hurts, sort of, but it’s more just cumbersome when you’re in the middle of the inferno, and noisy, so noisy. i contemplate the pain, or lack thereof that anyone is suffering when i look overhead, up into the trees, where against gravity there are people lying face down and horizontal, looking like a troop of ballet extras or circus folk in their green body paint that camouflages them but not quite until i realise that they are all in the throes of grand mal seizures, they are fitting before my very eyes and i just know that television is the devil. they will be there for eternity, an eternity of fitting. it kinda puts my pain in perspective.

immorality now

blow me up and hang me in a gallery

i would be the nude in the ruben's room.

feel my libido being smeared across a

palette of indecencies, make me a

water coloured harlot for dante to admire.

source my oils from exotic places,

paint my peccadillos down to the creases,

stroke, lick, breathe me a heartbeat

in a body that has no boundaries.

drip my desire onto pre raphaelite men

then wipe me clean with a turpentine rag.

decorate your cube with a spattered vulgarity,

it will be worth it.

i am the pouting anti madonna with

forever moist and pouting lips, the nihlistic

exhibitionist, drawn & stretched taunt.

it isn't a matter of distance, or perspective,

on display with the pointed arrow lust of

a thousand horny demons, or my liberty

stained over canvas sheets, it's in the hues

of my contours done justice for flesh junkies

to admire and fingerpaint into wet dreams. it's in the

rampant ambiguity between my legs that makes 

the leap from decorum to depravity, it's in

the subtle shade of knowing that however deep the

dive my eyes will follow.

compliments

his compliments were addictive.
she tried to pack them into boxes
with her other emotional baggage
but they came too fast,
too thick.
they began to wash up her body,
to lap at places forgotten
or undiscovered,
turning the tide on the fear
that held her tight
to make it exciting.
and when she tried to fight it,
to hold her ghosts close
(and her mind closer)
he pulled her into the open,
out of the tower and into the light
and he may not be the right knight
but at least for one night
she could see herself
though his eyes.

the unsaid

the unsaid – i’m a scene left out of a documentary.

endless sense of deferral – gets inside you, closer than breathing.

decentering – i rationalise in circles in an everyday sabotage.

decentering – remembering a previous dream then…

subverted narrative – smoking like the world’s on fire.

doesn’t suppress or devalue as the linear does – but chaos will be present.

a thought is not an instinct.

pushing back the edges of depression – it’s a quick-sand of insanity and I want to scream out “no!” but quickly the sand fills my mouth and I am drawn down into a deep and genuine paralysis of ennui. a thought is not an instinct.

blind. finding my level like water that creeps up to my nostrils in the night when there’s nobody watching. my other senses are heightened but not high enough for me to climb out of here. a thought is not an instinct.

the angry cello of depression strikes a chord in my gut like a cat climbing the curtains of a burning ship while the orchestra keeps on playing, keeps on playing; the angry cello keeps on playing. a thought is not an instinct.

howl. till I’m tearing up photographs and dancing with the moon. crippled kittens and limp spirits join in wanting excess and everything that goes with it so I lite up a cigarette to shut out the rain. a thought is not an instinct.

lessons

lies drip from his eyes to his lips
when the evidence of infidelity is everywhere.
rationalisations thunder above them
in storm clouds and lightning strikes
his veins as he flashbacks the day
she discovered the closed door as a
an instrument of torture,
the moment he poured out his heart
and she called the glass half empty,
the point when he slipped off the
edge of happiness into the lonely
freefall of despair.
now he sits somewhere between
what should be and what is.
(it's very hot, and hard to breathe.)

night blind

in the liquid time and space
that it takes to eat an apple
he has made her cum twice.
night blind,
she is learning to resist -
climbing the heights
beneath his mouth
until gravity means nothing.

and then he cums, under

an upside down moon
in a foreign country.
night blind,
his frail male ego
is released into the ether
of inner lives and
secret moments.

waiting for the wild horses

they touch lips and hear a symphony.

falling like bleeding

dangling on a slipknot of desire.
not even the mercy
of hitting rock bottom,
eating alice cookies.

feeding an addiction
to anticipation,
and when the punch comes
i take it like a blast in the ahhhhm.

stumbling is the cripple’s way,
and as i take out the sand paper
to remind myself, sylvia and the moon
watch on with their o-gape of complete despair.

unseen danger don't scare me.
courting death and the rapist
on a nightly basis,
as i smear my scent, like a cat
around my unlocked doors and windows.

falling like bleeding

falling like bleeding

falling like bleeding.

tsunami

it wasn’t the white flash winter

that we all expected in the 80’s,

or the terrorists as the hot flushes

rip and we’re forced to watch

the apocalyptic film clip

wishing for an alternative ending.

serendipity shuns what it does

not understand with waves

that answer to no one. water

is not life, nature is not my

mother and now they tell me

the earth has shifted.

there’s been a deep rift of spirits,

and everyone’s left with muddy feet

as we gaze into the agonizing chasm,

surrendering to the waves of emptiness,

wishing for an alternative ending.

     why do we tempt the fates then wonder

     what we’ve done to anger the gods?

one word

one word
cant change
years of emotional abuse,
but when he said
pedaphile
i knew
his struggle for control had started early.

dangerface

i fell for his dangerface instantly.

stripping my inhibitions i look sideways,

hitch up my skirt and climb through

the dilated windows of his soul.

i fell for his fresh from treatment face addictively.

the twitches still itching his skin as i watch

him swap one addiction for another,

wishing he’d swap it for me.

i fell for his stubbleface co-dependently.

we clung to each other from the ceiling

then crashed into a crazy love,

hating every minute of it.

i fell for the back of his head gratefully.

we couldn’t remember the words so

the music stopped playing,

and goodbye ran away before i had time to wave.

wild at heart

dismounting the last train

to walk the secret paths of memory

and longing,

turning in circles around

the real issue,

which is forgetting.

you are never coming back -

i know that now,

but your replacements are just pretenders

poor imitators and pointed reminders.

and the moon will supervise the exorcism

as i  laugh with the junkies and cry with the

saints when i know it should

be the other way round,

but it’s like walking up a really steep hill, or a

dingo, all i want is to be wild at heart.

running with knives on a slippery surface

insanity doesn't run in my family,

he walks slowly, and carries a big stick.

he takes me to the park of familiar noises and

spins me too fast on the merry-go-round.

he takes me walking though mine fields in clown shoes

with my little red wagon, collecting victims and empties

and things that go thump in the night.

he takes me stalking the corners of a lifestyle that

no amount of pretending or latex will ever let me join in.

he takes me running with knives on a slippery surface.

he takes me.

he leaves me wrapped up in costumes, too afraid

to get naked.
he leaves me blessed with a vicious beauty, making
me feel more manatee than mermaid.
he leaves me confusing my muse with an addictive personality,
spiting distance from reality but it's all done
with smoke and mirrors.
he leaves me seeing my fears in double vision.
he leaves me.

he drags me along in the hand of illusion, cold hands

for good or evil.
he drags me (kicking and screaming) down the aisle
to my permanent pew in the chapel of unrequited love.
he drags me to the roof and makes me dizzy.
he drags me under the riptide, where it's darker than
a month of new moon midnights, not waving, not drowning,
not even really treading water.
he drags me under.

insanity doesn't run.

winter kisses

squinting at the winter sun

through skeleton trees.

blinded eyeballs lap up

soul drenching heat.

hair raising majesty,

i almost have an orgasm.

*          *          *          *

the clouds,

a low moving ceiling

unstables my balance,

like a world moving too fast

for the humans to catch up.

*          *          *          *

drunken socks

stumbling home minus shoes.

winter is a bitch

*          *          *          *

winter kisses my lips like a dead lover, then

rips up my skirt in a non-consensual frenzy that sends

my shivering shadow to be pack raped by the clouds,

and i am left to remember the sun.

this night is full of rogue stars & wicked surprises.

she met him at the entrance

of the wilderness

invested him

with memories

and ghosts,

thought she knew the ropes

but missed the

blatantly obvious.

he found her by the forest,

wild and feral

invested her

with red cordial

and earthy expectations

but didn’t look close

enough to read

between the lines.

their similarities drew

them together

and their differences,

their differences

ripped strips

off both their egos.

he was another planet

and she was too grounded

to follow him there.

and this night may be full

of rogue stars and

wicked surprises,

but somewhere it got lost

behind the black clouds

and predictions of thunder.

the goodbye is implied

i've been in your shoes,

that's why i'm not keen to see

them back under my bed.

i've said those words,

that's why i hum old smiths’ tunes

when you tell me that you love me.

i've hit that brick wall,

so i can give you the helmet

and the body suit but some things

i just can't make better with a kiss.

“sweetness, sweetness i was only joking when i said i’d like to mash ev’ry tooth in your head. oohh ohh oh oh ohh ohh.”

the idea of invisibility

visibly pretty
she brushes her hair
in a mirror that
rarely tells the truth.
quick eye flicks
catch just enough
to inform the extreme.

she’s seen it in the media
read the mocking analogies
but cannot face the sadness
of a life lived in imitation,
(and the mirror is still unwatchable)
learning that life is exactly like
a box of chocolates, which
is all about sorrow and gluttony
and lack of self control.

she’s finished fantasizing
minor love affairs with
emaciated popstars
to hang out in bars
for the disasters to follow,
drinking til her skin
has a pulse
and her nipples match her
eyelids, red and swollen.

then like a magicians trick

that goes horribly wrong
she take the idea of
invisibility
one step too far
on the outer ledge
of an inner city building
“beautiful girl in mystery fall’
the dreadful headline will say.
disappearing into the moment
the next step is easy.

awake at 3 a.m.

awake at 3 a.m.

mainlining the soft

porn content of the

ab swing commercial.

awake at 3 a.m.

crawling into the refuge

of the the unholy trinity -

coffee, cones and codeine.

awake at 3 a.m.

there are dangers

in this forest.

reaching down the throat

of my dreams i find that

patience is not a virtue

but a psychotic vortex

where there is no satisfaction.

i sift through the details

of previous conversations

looking for clues,

but the words fall too quickly

and the meaning is lost.

so all i’m left with

is this gritty feeling.

awake at 3 a.m.

riding on a bleak train of thought.

setting my sights on you in the night train,
riding along on a bleak train of thought.
my resistances crumble like rocks from a siding.
the tracks say my name to the serious night.
they're calling me on, calling me strong.

evil knows evil and knows where to find it,

the music turns nasty and dancing's macabre.
slamming our bodies to the beat of the carriage
i open the window and then you are gone.
i don't hear you cry, you don't hear me sigh.

darkness does not come only at night time,

it's here all the time in corruption and lies.
arrogance alibis nothing but destruction...
reconcile your sins before you step on.
i may not be far, from where you are.

cigarettes and speed don't work anymore

dancing with dali in stocking'd feet.
he puts his hand up my skirt
then is appalled by the blood
(running like teardrops)
he finds there.
soft clocks watch
my everyday activities
but what more can i expect?
when nirvana is just
a flash of maybes.

having coffee with freud in all the wrong places.

he wants to sort out my
intimacy issues until i say
"old habits die hard, but
i will happily lay them out
and sleep
with their
corpses."
and the clouds, pregnant with rain,
wait for him to run.

linking arms with jesus cos he's the only one with clean needles.

he follows my lead, feeding
the ghosts, we say "hi" to
the guys that
we know.
the lap and slap of the rivers edge
as erotic as an invitation
to cunnilingus, but he's like me
and prefers illusion to despair.
cigarettes & speed don't work any more.

beslan angel

suddenly she’s

an angel black as soot,

restless, burdened,

focussed and resolved.

holding death in her fingers with

the cool, cool stroke

of the barrel

on her temple

makes her tremble

under there.

wires rule now –

her world wide web is strung

above the offspring of her offenders.

bombs beating their wings

heavier than their contents.

the hardware’s getting hot,

the software even hotter.

only show your eyes,

no surprise, no smile

for the camera, just

the cool, cool stroke

of the barrel

on her temple

makes her tremble

under there.

she didn’t tremble when

the russian fuckers

rolled her little sister over,

she could not move.

she didn’t breathe when

they jacked off on her oma’s face

and set her crippled feet on fire,

they would have heard her,

they would have found her.

so now her agenda

is embedded in detonators

- and the fight will go on,

watching the shoulders

of the weeping grow wings while

the cool, cool stroke

of the barrel

makes her tremble

under there.

metaphor

mercurial skies
bleed tiger eyes
on a city parched.
rough winds flutter
from skeleton trees,
mute suicides
(lines without context)
scuffing a landscape
that’s fifteen different
shades of grey,
big steps and
urban decay.


chills grip
while lines rip
in carrollian nonsense.
rivers of adrenalin
make shelter come
in strange costumes.
puddles tremble
but do not fill
without fifteen different
shades of grey,
big steps and
urban decay.

unexploded

and overloaded
in a city of punchlines.
caught in a metaphor
of limited success
and minor celebrity.
melbourne, i wear you
like a woollen jumper
that’s fifteen different
shades of grey,
big steps and

urban decay.

chances are

i've been cleaning the house up slowly, preparing for... armageddon?

my doctor says i should view this new development more positively, and despite the obvious paradigm shift i do consider the diagnosis for a moment... but then the beat poets whisper in my ear through the aid of modern technology telling me we are all merely mammals, all eat, shit, crave, love, lose. i'd like to think i carry their flame or at least a spark of it but until i stick it under a spoonful of goofball juice or sleep rough i am just a pretender.

i take my battle to the page where recycled words turn full circle to bite me in the tender parts and i am trampled by my best intentions. but grouping my thoughts does not make them any more palatable so i have to find the freedom in ripping on the page where nothing really matters. we've all cleaned up broken glass before, where temptation sits glinting, asking the question, daring you to answer.

i want to speak secrets locked up in vaults, dry truths that blow dust under closed doors and down the cul de sacs. i want to run with the lions in cites dangerous, chew up my shoes in parts unknown. i want to clear out the dander of shelves full of notebooks to find the right word for every occasion. i want to be the one who makes dogs behave badly. i want to break free of the place where grieving is a noun and not a verb. i am not grief, i grieve and then i am done.

and although i am often beyond the pale the grip of addiction splits me with a force as hard as good and evil, as powerful as yes and no. so i'm hanging with the hedonists but too timid to commit to the spirituality of it, though behind my eyes and in my synapses there's a crackle with the possibilities of another lifestyle, another talent, another virtue. chances are...

easy st.

i'm freezing here on easy street
finding it hard to feel my feet
must be walking to a different beat
while everyone else is feeling the heat
i'm freezing here on easy street.

i'm shooting up in the gallery

in the vain hope someone will notice me
the still lifes go on for eternity
they're the only thing that i can see
when i'm shooting up in the gallery.

i'm stretching out in a limousine

laying down tracks of the purest cuisine

can't see behind me, don't know where i've been
as i watch my life on the multi screen
i'm stretching out in a limousine

i'm having a laugh at the funny farm
detox deflating my usual charm
high on the horrors hell bent on my harm
they've strapped me so tight i can't feel my arms
i'm having a laugh at the funny farm.

i'm freezing here on easy street
my tears turn to icicles before i can weep
the sins of the past that i'm forced to repeat
are dragging me further away from the heat
i'm freezing here on easy street.

waiting for the mania - a villanelle for michael.

elements of schizophrenia appear in my behaviour,
distant thunder trumpets an omen of a closer armageddon
and the saviour of our souls has lost his way.

since you went flying without me i cry unsad tears

at irrelevant moments while the true grief goes unmourned.
elements of schizophrenia appear in my behaviour.

i suffer a loss of consciousness due to the bastardisation

of the documentary form that is reality television,
and the saviour of our souls has lost his way.

st. john whispers in my ear, trying to defend himself

but his whining irritates, and i break out in a rash.
elements of schizophrenia appear in my behaviour.

sylvia did it one year in ten, turned it all into a

circus, then stood too close to the lion’s breath,

and the saviour of our souls has lost his way.

and the answer seems to be in the skies

(sun blind and scared of the dark, you went flying without me). 

elements of schizophrenia appear in my behaviour

and the saviour of our souls has lost his way.

newcastle

winter walks behind me but is sympathetic to my needs as foot falls echo off deaf walls and the gutters give nothing away to the full, fat moon hanging belly heavy in the early sky, mocking my moods and the decisions i make. but, girlfriends forever i never hold it against her even though her body is very beautiful.

desire comes too, clinging to an unfortunate chain of events that eventually show up in my underwear and inner linings. she is slow and chooses the shadows since being wounded in the war that nearly bought the whole house down. i wait for her because her dreams are strong.

adrenalin from within gives me speed, gives me needs that i cannot put names or faces to. and when i see my brother standing by the road i do try a little kindness but that only winds up as another meat hook moment - i just don't know how else to end it when tender doesn't cut it and nice doesn't have him begging for more.

vibrations shake each footstep is a beginning and an end, a moment and a memory making tear drops mix with beer slops as i bumpy ride my way is long, longer than either road travelled no matter which route you take helicopters circle in a serendipity that rarely touches me but shines brightly through the eyes of others.

if it's my way or the highway then i try the middle of a green lighted george street - rush hour pushes trucks thunder rumble through my every membrane where the word of the day is alert to flirt with danger no stranger to straddling the thin white line that is over in a footstep, in a heartbeat, in a sigh.

this is not an occasion for self congratulation

the boys who know i’m touched already don’t touch me and the others bombard with an irrelevant litany that only goes to reinforcing my low self esteem.

but this is not a conversation with myself.

it is an invitation to elsewhere, an unsteady stumble of hyperbole before we call in the editors. it is a fight for art and freedom, a saying no to the ordinary to find the voice that is truly unique.

i know i need some outside help but writing’s an internal struggle that you win when you surrender, surrender to the coffee splats and tear stains on the page, surrender to the adrenalin that gives your words their power, surrender to the moment when time stops – and the pen keeps moving.

so look for the ideas that are edgy, frenetic, keen to be born. feel as they churn and kick in your head and your gut then take it to the mat as you wrestle with the pedestrian to wrangle your thoughts to the page.

don’t throw down words like talking, speak a deeper meaning. discover the subtext in a personal moment exposed or something taken. embrace the bastard child inside to tell a second story that comes from a place that’s forceful, not forced, felt and not found.

then fly, soar, less is more but travel it all. step sideways to be the seconds before the parachute opens, the spark that connects the synapses, the wave that washes us all away.

the boys who know i’m touched already don’t touch me, but this is not a conversation with myself.

green

she felt as though her head
were pregnant, so fertile
with ideas she could have
birthed a dynasty.
she was always two steps ahead,
or behind, or outside,
finding new ways to amaze
as the word orgasms poured
over your green weaknesses
and greener strengths.
maternal to the end she vows
in a whisper that she will be
always be there
                         to hear you roar.

yellow

he was not the messiah
but the message he spread
was so yellow with hope,
so full of yeasty supposings
that he bought everyone to
critical mass,
                      and the tipping point.
let the stars guide him
safely as the demons behind
his eyes don't hold
their power in the face of
such logic and love. he is here
so the globe of the world sits
better on all our shoulders.

white

he took an outside view
with any in-crowd, ignoring
the cinematic demons he
filled his head with numbers,
quantified life in a
new - white - order
to find his place with
the creatives. sometimes
there was an absence
of something, a dried
raindrop, but it was
his destiny to become
the ballast that weathers
any storm.

black

as she looks deep and sighs
she can see the dangers
in dark shadows,
knows the traps
of both roads travelled,
still she slowly guides
the blindfolded through
the black perils, alerting
the melancholic nightbirds
that it is always
five minutes to midnight.

blue

we are not formed by
angels but the more time
we spend in the sky, flying
through blue perspectives,
injecting the discovery
of the seasons we
dismantle the ego
to embrace the whole
keen city.
we go far from the subliminal
world of yesterday and the
maybe promises of
tomorrow, we shun
unexplained metaphors
for the power heavy
pendulum of knowledge
and compassion.

red

in a quiet night light
or in a tempest/
with a sense that
isn't literal/
when you're addicted to
the adrenalin of panic/
you witness mishaps
and disturbing practices
that are wicked
and vicious/ so
you find good reasons
for bad blood/
hide in the red/
which is the dark/
in which you feel
the infinite.