easy prey

it doesn't take much

a touch, a tender breath

for the completely inappropriate

not to matter, and for love,

or something like it

to sit on the worn out sofa,

stroke my hair and tell me

that the underside to everything

is easy prey, so we must press

our bellies together,

show our shells to the world

and edgewise find tomorrow.

but this is no ordinary rapture.

meaning spans mystery but

not far enough,

so we are always left

wondering where truth sits,

and where we do.

meanwhile it doesn't go

unnoticed by either of us

that by living the nomadic

lifestyle you never bore

anybody, but then again

where does it end?

layers cannot cover

what is really needed

which is an unfolding,

an opening to the moment.

we try to patch

our ragged bones,

dem jangling bones

and agree

that the minotaurs will

always be hiding,

but as a fear

and not a threat.

when i am with you

we are plunging the divine,

emersing ourselves in

the sheer white light

of our connection.

then when the rapture comes

and it will come

we will drink with

long and gorgeous thirsts,

throw off our burdens

and dance.
.

holding on

i taste you
the next day
in my mouth,
feel you on my face
memory scratched
skin to skin,
connections formed
in the heat where
science and chemistry
assist in our passion.

again

my ovaries call
helping me find
the letting go,
the giving in.
i tell you it's the journey
so you show me
that you can hold on,
and you hold onto me.

fever

there is something hypnotic in having
a fever, and romantic,
where you want to play with pain thresholds
and already pressed buttons,
want to be bold, hold your body
at its word because in reality
you are not really there
to hear it.

you get taken away
in the heat of the moment that radiates
from your pores, and
which he takes to
make a fire storm of your
every nerve ending.
you clutch him
as if he were the edge
of a sheer clifftop,
with you
the only pirate in sight.

its in the edges

of these things where you are
brave enough to ask for a favour
or a fantasy
to be fulfilled,
to give this pain a meaning
and a memory, melt delusion
into truth to fall for
the sheer pleasure
of it all.

this time

this time depression

dressed in sexy knickers
so he had trouble spotting it.

when he was with her

they laughed till they cried,
then he went home

and cried some more.

he couldn’t tell her,

she might think it was
her fault.
and it wasn’t,
it was definitely not.

so he took his fight

to the canvas
pouring his resources
into his art supplies
and eating at
his parents house.

this time depression

dressed in sexy knickers

and kept him warm at night.

travelling to noarlunga with secrets

it was a long way

on public transport

stretched with secrets.

they sailed the back of the bus,

she liked what it did to the

bottom half of her body

and he was beyond caring.

he told her where he was going

but not what was happening.

he told her he had

“feelings”

he needed help with.

things he did not like were

making him….what?

don’t dare tell her that.

where were the words for the

woman who rocked him to sleep

with a violent hand, who

haunted his dreams with

her foot on his throat.

it was a long way

on public transport

stretched with secrets.

fan mail for daniel

if i painted you a picture
i'd use lots of black paint
and red, and brown
because life is shit.
i'd use a fat brush
and lots of strokes
to show i know that you are complex,
made up of many parts.

if i sang you a song
i couldn't sing in tune,
wouldn't need to,
i'd just have to yell a lot
with passion to sound like that
nihilistic shit you listen to.

i have written stories for you,
sunk low then lower to impress you
your loyalty drags us all along -
you and your crew, we rise and fall together.

you are my brother from another mother,
you are strong like ten men
and stunted as a puppy runt,
you are clever like a dictionary
and feral as a fine porn mag.

you taught me men can feel, and listen,
your happy ending gives
me the strength to go on.

the paroxysm editing team - thank god the pretty one's holding the camera

e.e...

falling in love
with him and e.e
cummings
at the same time.
trouble was e.e
was the only
one cumming.

haiku 3.

on distant nightmares
the sandman changes trousers
and surfs back, dreaming.

haiku 2.

when questions are asked
the chainsaw does not know why
accidents happen.

haiku 1.

around tank blank walls
people paper poetry,
literary fightback.

good speed son

hanging with elemental boy,
stretch till it hurts
(it always hurts but that's
his lesson to learn).
then he navigates
a different passage
wrangling the unruly stallion
into understanding.

straddled in the middle world
where black and white turn
murky grey while
gazing at the miasma
of adulthood.
he knows there are things
he doesn't want to know
but cant stop wanting them.

he teaches me
my boundaries
and inconsistencies,
reflecting me in a way that
terrifies and amazes. he
amazes me constantly
and we love
the story so far.

suburbia 7

she has a habit of headbutting her shadow
long enough to remember the amnesia
that put her in these calipers of
self medication and despair.
because unlike the television
where incidents of tragedy lead to
true love and happily ever after,
the only road that she can see is down
and the devil has welcoming eyes.

suburbia 4

the man next door has a tic in his eye and a slack jaw

from his constant masturbation and chronic alcoholism'

he knows she knows it.

he pretends to be interested, hides his insecurities

with laughter and likes to scream for no reason.

he fears everything – and brings some sugar.

since anything is better than nothing

disturbing fantasies will follow her for years to come.

those moments

it's in those moments

when i'm caught

between touching you, and

not touching you

and finding out that the truth

doesn't always move

the narrative along -

that my life takes on the

orchestration of a car accident.

it's in those moments

when i keep finding the wrong

way to express myself

that i get the feeling i'm

a tourist here,

in my own town

in my own home

in my own bed.

its in those moments

when i'm pushing

myself too far, but somehow

it's never far enough,

and the burden of

carrying ugly

is just a knife slice

short of too heavy...

it's in those moments.

generalisations

he hated generalisations.
he tried so hard to be
a good man,
a kind man,
(keep bad at bay).
“all men are bastards”
she would say.
it made him want to be
an arsehole with her.

they played

they played word games
and dice games,
gambled for sex acts
and painted the fridge
in primary colours.

they shared books and beers,

laughed at toilet humour,
hung out of windows and
drank coffee by the bucket
full around the kitchen table.

they told jokes about

serial killers, made

love on the beach,

shopped at markets and

yelled abuse at television

personalities and right wing politians.

 

they had parties,

ate at friends houses,

kept spare change

in a jar and smoked joints

in the reeds of the cities river.

they caught trains

for no reason,

waited at staitions,
told stories of their pasts
and slowly wove their
futures together.

they had fantasies

to fulfil, but
neither if them
were working to
a timetable.

normal

in the early days,

the hay days,

the “hey get here and

fuck me” days

when she would

and he would

they felt indestructible

they felt teflon coated

they felt they had

climbed aboard an

invincible narrative

of eternal back rubs

and sex for no reason.

it was the stuff of soap operas

so love was muttered

under the covers then

over breakfast, and

normal was not a word

they thought about

because they were.

you're not the only icon to make this country great

bush man pushing dirty dogs to droving,

cattle on the run in a hard man's land.

red sun keeps setting, bush man keeps betting

the money that he's making will see him through the dry.

so i plucked the fucker from the landscape

and threw his skinny white arse in the nearest billabong.

i think that's where i left him.

muscles meeting meltdown as his axe arcs swiftly,

trees disappearing as his hard hacks hit.

never seeing forward, life turned into floorboards,

destruction can be easy when you’re told what's right.

so i plucked the fucker from the landscape and

catapulted his skinny white arse into some old growth forest.

i think that's where i left him.

cocky is the farmer who surveys his harvest,

tossing up his bales as the stacks rise high.

horizons never ending; but he doesn't do the mending

so the harsh brown land keeps spreading and the salt levels rise.

so i plucked the fucker from the landscape and

strapped his skinny white arse to the top of his tractor

then made crop circles till sunset in his golden fields.

i think that's where i left him.

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.