A malleable night
sea land sky here on my skin
something about sweat accentuates voices
I am out there I am in here
music rises a slammin votive
cars are cheering in malleable night
I am looking for the next key
and the changes
the moon steamy night blossom
Underway
the night doesn't crumble
even with the heavy load
you're not a guitar
you only have corridors
after a meal
and only one leaf is lost
in the telling
harbour harbour
you're no that story either
there are other pains
old ones
you thought excised
they still ride you
so that water dark
can keep to its story
each day something missing
speech falls through holes
there's iodine, salt but
no, no
not the harbour
that's a crossing on creaky wheels
sky spins ever so slowly
paths pick out all the between-ness
that sings too holding
the cracks it doesn't crumble
city stares itself forever
all its fuzzy little points
the water's deep forget
the sharks are tomorrow's gamble
you're not a drum
you're alive
edged alive, called alive
underground gets the circle
vinyl blue, silvered steel
the wolves and cats ignore you
he picks a nose on the night line
can get bored
flesh can be entertaining
somehow you emerge
with the rail song
not crumpled
not particularly safe
but underway
St Leonards to Central, 9-9.30pm, 20 April
Seacliff viewed from the road
Old hospital hidden
within barred windows
below the trees air thins
sea moans
dark green leaving
and ghosts
who died by fire
electricity, scalpel and the strap
No more screaming
birds leave the land
There’s the gate
there’s a sign ‘no sightseers’
What would you see
a backpackers called The Asylum
To bed amongst
takes more
than I could lean on the gate
thinking of the years
they held Janet down
Gear
phones don't take you
anywhere of course
but the kid stares into
the future
a vending machine
he'll get there
quicker than me
he's got all the gear
I have a tunnel to go
as this is not
a message to you
the hard stuff
It’s the grass, you don’t notice but it’s uneven.
The life under a tough sun.
It’s been too easy to lie down, not take any of it.
A smoked out clarity as well.
And loud music always carries in these times.
Fire sits inside the wood, but it dies at some time.
There’ll be time, risen in air, breath of desperate ages.
For knowledge, you can still go there.
How I found out is skin, and underneath.
Nerves flower out bare need.
Sun sits on the air.
A day slowly wears and is moved by turn.
Clouds don’t need to know.
Raw being which moves.
Welcome to a new overlay.
And out there the valley knows nothing.
Of one of the mysteries
Waking as if in dusk
watching someone sleep
mist of morning
not the future yet
or radio damage
life creases forehead
smell night’s hair
still, like nothing is
still, cloud-sun very soon
rain cold, decisions
weigh in the body
lift, turn, flutter
currawong water falls
onto day side
struck dumb I hold
my hands warm
breath needing voice
on later, rising
*
Waiting for the hard light
after dust wattle dance
when fire rings the city
In our day-worn sweat
our city brown horizon
lungs singed petals
laughter in the new year
night open
the last tinkling balcony
here I wonder
what am I doing?
the question seems to matter
but the night laughs
if it's all questions
it matters it doesn't
after hours diner
darkness, tofu, peppermint, storm
gone, fresh, slippy, anxious
each after each in the slick
go-light, smok-o, hang-out, thought-full
swishy, hissing, wooshy, brrring
each along each in the drift
I'm glad my house didn't blow over
I'm sad we'll never see snow
darkness fresh, go-light anxious
slippy, swishy, peppermint drift
day span
the day span as it passes
wrist flick and ancient pencils aside
fuzzy horizons at angles
inside and somewhere beyond delayed
aching bones swivel hours on
out of the box into the night where
a dream of unlimited perspective hazing
pixels dance amongst the drops
golden breath fleshes the street's leaves
when a door opened
Pastures still drink in resistance
they begin and progress beyond singularity
there’s wanting in the midst.
But come, assemble for burial, taste lights
the roughcast water filled from our roots in the sea
swept by the emptied wind
What type of knowledge is this
that continues its being until full of cancellations
and windows — that type of intensity?
Didn't a track barely leave pain behind?
What is the first colour of enchantment?
The prosperity of the unburied lies in the allure.
Here on the hour that ascends gradually
there’s a disturbance of glass in the thickness
there’s desire in melting honeydew.
The present of the city doesn’t exist as façade
so where is the other extremity of the chain?
Grass still downs a dispersion of abundance.
Stood shivering in a night at the other end of the line.
Once there was plenty of time to drink up
as usual, as though afraid of being heard.
Would I be bored by a drained windswept pool?
What more could I eat beside it?
What am I responsible for: lights, water, the ruffled ocean?
To have left scarcely a trace of pain behind
what kind of knowledge is that?
Nor is it complete to this day.
birds, falling
Below in passages, the shadows are shuffled
The moon was full but now discounted, falling
What are the benefits of living underground
If I touch your breath will it release me
Sand replaces sand, and water …?
The birds fall out of the valley
Perhaps it’s because I’ve become excess
The freedom to empty your mind has gone
Careful even laughter is falling
Some days just holding up
Oh my beloved grass, you are like the sea
Within the ear lies the difficult pearl
The crow becomes a small episode
See how stars waver before falling
from The great dive
1.
You cannot separate it and say
this
startling sunlight
attached to clouds, the rain, the moon
cyclones, atmospheric pressure
intensity
if you are a woman on the street
a man in the mountain
the girls, school dreaming future
naked under cruel fixed glance.
You draw with startings
you break even a filament and form
part of destiny
the leaves are unhappy, tomorrow.
No wonder it obtains thunder.
It’s easier to cry for finished innocence
and the newspaper.
To cry harder.
from The great dive
2.
Tears are harder at midday
than at midnight
heavier, needing the public
mass in open space.
The first holds do not fight
same gravity
released by the hesitation
time in hours, of night measured more directly
of undulations in the brain
emotion’s thought
of zero, ad infinitum, acceleration.
Strange attraction
traced in peace
transformed by opiates flickering
on the video.
I have to be harder
and more on the air
tighter on what leaves.