FRANKENSTEIN

Re-membering:
every moment -
a salvific whole
a shattering event;

considering the text
of fracture lines;

the steady punctuation
of a stitch.

Behold the creature -
not what was
but is

a clamorous reach
beyond attainable.

HISTORY

History - all that piecemeal business -
making whole out of fragments - making
Eden through the way we hold a thing -

it never was like that.

Broken - always - edges sharp as words -
the wound of departures - so much -
unfinished. Nostalgia - an unconvincing balm.

DEPARTING INHERITANCE

Frost, breath, cloud
break - snow on the
mountain - purple
fingered knot
around a bag -
school boy ascending.

Stolid red brick
squatting - on a hill, on
a graveyard - beneath
the arch - that school
his old man hated -
his inheritance.

Mountain arch, river
bank - generations
grounded - growing
thoughts pressing
out - alchemical
confinement.

Awake - the sleepless
night - the river song -
departure - school days
packed in boxes -
night swimming
to the ocean.

WHEN HE CAME

There was nothing clean or
familiar about him; he had
travelled places, that's all:
strangely compelled to enter
the unknown, repeatedly.

And there had been mad
people, blind beggars, pretty
whores and those fringe
dwellers everyone abhors.
Every collision changed him
quite substantially.

So he was a dented, some
would say a quite demented
man; a broken tangled
dusty dirty man; a murmuring
turmoil at the city gates
looking to loosen everyone
he met with his salacious spirit.

And he came right up
and stood outside the walls,
whose brick and mortar rhetoric
seemed to him quite wrong,
and, even worse, those
tight knit pilgrim songs
that never raised a blister.

He shook his sandles then
quickly turned, surrendered
to the immense and foreign
world, swallowed down
the long road, murmuring.

IF

If birth is like

a fish being dragged

out of water

and 

life is like

a convulsive thrust

in hope of an ocean

then _______

BODY / MIND

My body / my strange animal

sends messages from the war front

that I can't decipher.

My mind / my desperate Descartes 

seeks the soothing false balm

of disintegration.

IMMUNITY

My immune response
a midnight red flag
unfurling down my back.

My assailant
some mysterious threat;
I am suddenly alien.

Emergency waiting room;
the tyranny of linoleum;
desperate passivity.

Steroids and antihistamine;
the flag is slowly folded;
my assailant remains a mystery.

EDEN

Every rib intact
Every body named

The god-snake
deconstructs

Story begins

RECAPITULATION 2

My jesus gravity
still wants
to pull in everything:

word
deed
history

good shepherd
fallen off the page
(more lost
than any sheep).

my myths
my mistress heart
my truth

my brooding babylon

from no hands
from no church

gravity
sheer gravity;
my soul.

UN-AUSTRALIAN?

I trudged out where those old poets,
all melancholy and jowls, rhapsodise
of mud caked on their boots,
to suburban crowds.

And the crowds proclaim
how Australian it all is:
the literal and metaphorical bullshit,
the mangy dogs, the honesty of utes,
the you beaut cacophony of wayward
chooks, muck safe ensconced on pages.


And who would murmur what is that
to us and why's our truth always
someplace else? And if that's truth
then what's it make us?
Are we then un-Australian?

BRUBECK

West Coast sounds more downtown
Manhatten, like the rhythm of desperate
feet; like the cardiac murmur: red green; 
crowds pushing at the seams then 
released; the frisson of a pulse marking
time; the flourish of a horn weaving threads, 
through the brush stroke steady on the skin; 
the bustle of the sound; the movement of 
the crowd,  the rock ready jazz of their limbs. 
Body of the bodies of them all; busy 
with the business of the world; shoes on 
the sidewalk all marking time; sound along
the avenue walls; skipping to the regulated
beat of the endless procession of feet
and the weave and the rush where there's
never enough of the music of the madness
of the streets.

MILES

In some dark, cavernous club,
he puts his lips to brass
and plays a weaving sonorous
delight; smooth spread then
shuffled: musical card play;
we hear, we feel our fortune
rise and fall: some truth that's
ours beyond the scope of words;
he plays, we hear jazz feeling
out our dark: the lonely busy
primacy of sound.

RETIREMENT OF AN EXPLORER

It was quite a thing to be home,

where all was made to brace

against the gale; except his canvas

mind, that strained the anchor, and

breath that turned to water on the pane.

He had written books that tried to mirror

oceans; black ink could never

catch the monstrous deep. His maps

were celebrated, in safe places,

he saw the lines as nothing but deceit.

His body felt the gravitas of years

where he had once been lean and quick

to flight; the oyster world, that slid

into his soul; now deep discomfort

through his lonely nights.

CREATIVE MELANCHOLIA

He stepped back from his creation and allowed himself a phantasmagorical moment: fire-flash success, homecoming parades, applause, back-slaps, pretty girl hugs and you the MAN high fives.

She looked over the creation with that quizzical look, said it was nice, and asked him to remember to pick up milk on his way home from work.

They said nothing, regarding the creation, as they tossed it aside and generated their standard rejection slip.

He lugged his creation up the well worn steps to the attic, added it to his crowded menagerie, and wondered what might come of it all after he was gone.

EROS DELIVERS

THE CYCLOPES

APHRODITE

HUNGRY CRONUS

NARCISSUS

LEDA

DIVINE APPETITE

Cronus overthrew his old man, Uranus, so was forever nervous of his own offspring.

His power lead him to eat his kids. A little trickery and lucky Zeus escaped.

THE CYCLOPES

Those one eyed freaks learnt their skills underground;

prisoners who Daddy never loved;

resentment fuelled the fire of those blacksmiths.

DIVINE OFFSPRING

No one to date but the first born son: Gaia gets it on with Uranus.

There followed the ego-centric Titans and some mighty ugly monsters.

Uranus locked the scandal undergound.

APHRODITE'S ORIGINS

Cronus castrated his old man, Uranus, just to make mother Gaia happy.

His old wedding tackle fell into the sea.

Aphrodite rose from twisted love and violence.

LEDA

Zeus, the master craftsman in the art of subterfuge, feathered over his divinity.

Olympus thrives on all our secrets and, gods knew, Leda liked a little swan.

A live feather boa and a surprise entry; when gods come, it can be a beastly business.

SISYPHUS

As soon as he got it up, it was back down again;

the ultimate dilemma for a control freak.

If only he'd been kinder to those who crossed his borders.

Back up that hill you go, King Sisyphus.

ZEUS

Zeus.

Migraines.

End of story.

IF YOU'RE GOD THEN EAT YOUR BREAKFAST

Here's the thing they don't tell you about divinity when you're training: it's essentially a juggling act, right? You've gotta keep the whole lot propelled into continual existence. So nimble hands and keep your wits about you. Right?

I knew one god, dropped an entire planet, the whole thing just smashed to pieces; five major civilizations scattered like broken eggs on the cosmic floor.

Of course he was embarrassed. It wasn't as bad as being knocked off by your mortal underlings but still. I said to him, "Franky, you've made a right fucking mess of things there, haven't you?" And you know what he said to me?

"Sorry Barry. I was in such a rush this morning, I didn't have time for breakfast so me head was a bit dizzy when I clocked on for work."

So lesson one: if you're intending on making a success of this divinity business then make sure you get some breakfast into you. Right?

HIS OWN PRIVATE EDEN

Little big man’s built another nest: torn fashion magazines, yoghurt and a pair of musty socks.

Yesterday he waltzed into a crowded food court: hands waving alleluia in the sky; pants down around his ankles; privates dancing carefree in the breeze.

Little big man doesn’t subscribe to wearing underwear.

He’s in his own private Eden. Lucky bastard.

BROKEN MORNING

The sidewalks were covered with glass but the trains were still innocently efficient.

Stars were simply objects in the sky. Old women stitched nothing more than patches.

Nothing would return to what it was. Brute night was gone but grace had long departed.