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.

HABIBTI

She was not a cat. She just had long hair. He found strands on the bed, or on the couch, after she'd left. She laughed when he said the cat’s visited me again.

They met once a month in secret. She was afraid of honour killings. He was afraid of losing her.

He called her Habibti despite the colour of his skin. She called him Baby despite her far younger years. They made love and watched DVDs. They ate chocolate.

And then she caught a bus, and then a train, back across the city to where she lived.

She never talked about their future. He never talked about her silence.

END POINT

The surprising thing about his discovery was that he was not surprised.

He already knew his life had followed a certain trajectory. And he knew this had always been his nature but he had never been so alone, in the skin of his predicament, as he was on that morning. 

Even the cold surface of the mirror failed to recognise him.

He shook his hand, in front of his face, hoping that movement might translate into visibility. 

It didn’t. 

He opened the bathroom cabinet, took out shaving foam, and covered his face.

The foam became a cloud of indeterminate shape and meaning suspended in mid-air.

He clawed the foam off his face, took up the canister and threw it at the mirror. Shards fell into the sink and he slumped to the floor and started sobbing. 

It was winter and the tiles were cold and nothing could be heard but the dripping tap. There was a scent of shaving foam in the air and a broken mirror that would be easily replaced.

RETIREMENT OF AN EXPLORER

It was quite a thing to be home,
with the wind rapping promises
at window panes, and his mind
full of sails and horizons and
the great life that was stammered
through departure to return.
He had written books, as though
words could mirror oceans,
and his maps of foreign shores
were universally acclaimed.
But all he saw were lines 
and notations that were soundings
of mere measurable depths
and easy claimed domains.
And he knew it as deceipt made
to entertain those dreamers who
consumed adventure stories in
their safe and cosy rooms. But
beyond all publications, and those
warmly greeted speeches, was
the all he couldn't utter and the
distance that remained.

COMPOSITION

My old fat typewriter
held, in its belly, a silver
spindled chorus line
of letters. On late nights,
when everything felt lost
in that certain dark
of neatly ordered suburbs,
my fingers worked and
words were high kicked
onto pages. There was
hope in that midnight sound
and hope in the black
pressed pattern of the poems
and hope that I folded
neatly into daylight
and sent to the immense
and foreign world.

1960'S DECONSTRUCTED DAFFODIL

Unconvinced by solid regularity,
my lonely cloud breaks up, rains
down on golden daffodils; their
paisley spinning petals tongue
my mind; so trippy happy pretty
pretty cool; everything constructed
- meaningless: the way you walk
and talk and act so wired; why
not just unplug your robot mind;
meaning comes when ego just
lets go; take off your noose tie
and expand your life; feel the way
the air is breathing you; my fingers
peace like branches in a tree,
settle your bird frame, come,
land on me; everything is merging
into one; everything is heavy
as a cloud; everything is rising
like the sun; our mind blissed
life shines gold as daffodils.

HOWLIN' WOLF

Six foot six and bull muscle
fierce: the stage is barely big enough
for that man, who looms over
the mike like the genesis angel
over water. He peers out, takes
a measure of the room, brings
the harp up to his lips to start
the murmuring:

Something coming
right out of the night,
the sound his Mamma
labelled Devil's Music.

He stretches lungs and sounds
out a long dark yowl; soul trouble
shaken down, low as thunder;
all that lonely never left behind,
homeless boy now singing
in a man: oh don't you hear
me crying.