sympathy how the flames! like pines rise, & waves. The foam draws in-recoils. Roll these disparate thoughts, until there’s commerce between them. 2 Professor Al’s a lad even tho he’s 50. You can see him on a clear morning ambling across the campus smiling lightly; he might have found a…
Testing
Inoculant the dawn rain becomes Catapulting the freedom of insecurities of night I can taste the freedoms of a new day The amperage is a little coil
Humanity
Put criminals in a zoo And wild animals in prison For all to mock And see Kill a lion Because you can But only with a weapon Put a metal bit In the mouth Of a horse That longs to be free Whip it until it bleeds When it runs too slow Hook a marlin…
WORDS
Can I get you? With just words? A stupid idea I know But to capture you Just in words That beauty And my insanity Your young body And my old mind
The Calling
I heard their mute calling through the fence, a hedge, and the weatherboard wall to my bedroom. I climbed out of my window crossed the sealed driveway to my parents motels and pulled myself up then over the corrugated fence that I’d painted for pocket money over three Saturday mornings before cricket to answer three…
Master, The Bottle
No shit. Face down, false dawn, it’s the shadow praised, we’re it! And the chase. Out the door. Into the day. The doom, the art hell hold of the home of the street. It’s so, get it down, get more. A deep groan, the roam of gate and bar, it’s a deep, deep occupation, no…
JUST ONE STRAW AWAY
What I do When I cannot afford Anything stronger Is I drink the beer Through a straw It seems to keep me In a drunker state More focused For longer Not as good As spirits And I cannot promise I won’t still End up In trouble But It sure is Cheaper
The Day Mr Larkin Swore in the Library
I slid the books across. Oh, she said, you’ve had Larkin out before. I know, and I will have it out again. Is he a poet, she said. Aye, I said. He said parents fuck you up. She recoiled. Pardon? That’s what he said, that they fill you with the faults they had. Her face…
ripcord
The fantail fluttering under the branches, about my shoulders, could make the difference this morning, swing it back in my favour. Despite my grounded cynicism, I’m sentimental. What can I say. It’s sick, but when I woke with the dawn chorus of the kitchen- As if I knew what was coming with the…
Sober Over Anything #1
When Mingus and I, to Rainbow’s End, enjoined on rides apostate gravity till close of day, in queues of open rain— two males playing naturally as friends, I thought I felt that all these things were written. I could comprehend contortion, but don’t think I want to understand and hold that moment known, how it…
SPONGE
That is the plight of the writer Plied with alcohol In the name of the dream Squeezed and broken Almost to death Until a few drops Of genius Bleed
A Shepherd’s Vigil
The cottage stands alone. Its verandah posts are askew, the walls, here and there, buckled. There is a coal-range at its heart, and a wooden floor made shiny with wear. At night, the old farmer came in alone. He lit the range with cones and his gut with liquor. Sometimes there was more of the…