March 2010
45 posts
10 tags
sounds #15: pleas
pluck my spine
like elastic
prick my
fingertips
with pins
pinch and pivot
my toes into points
plate my teeth
with nickel
and run a current
through them
trick me
into pins and needles
nettles and poison
break me
to remake me
please
6 tags
sounds #14: breakfast
Knives clatter
and argue
in the drawer.
Tea cups
bump handles,
give the silent treatment.
I spit in your
juice
and burn
your mushrooms.
8 tags
sounds #13: creep
talking too close
he’s wild
spider-eyed
and wraps me
in an armchair
to let fingers
drip
like rain
down my neck.
8 tags
sounds #12: belmore falls, february
The big
melaleuca
flicks and droops
like a drunken
Narcissus.
I salute it with half a beer.
A storm bird spits
one gunshot cry
in return.
The melaleuca
nods
with a soft
patter
of spray:
an understanding.
11 tags
sounds #11: electric acoustic
I turn off the radio
mid-song
and sidle to the curb.
Wind sound
rises and falls
above the idling motor
as the whole hectic world
blows down your street.
I take one still moment
to watch your window
before I honk the horn
to bring you
rushing out
with your eyes
in the headlights and good golly Miss Molly
your dress
your hair
electric and alive.
6 tags
sounds #10: stellar
my awareness bright
[Read the rest…]
7 tags
sounds #9: escaping face
every sentence he says
ratchets her jaw a little tighter
he fills the silences
she creaks under the strain
her eyes empty
blue
hollow with echoes
8 tags
sounds #8: teeth
I’m your fox
my tiny bones caught
tremoring with drumming heartbeat
and the slow twitch of shock.
My hair matted
from the damp of your palms.
Thin in my own skin, binding,
unbinding, doublejoints.
I leap
I rip
but can’t tear loose.
8 tags
sounds #7: clockwork
Their hearts beat like a clock
beat like a pendulum swinging
its arc. But together they walk,
and swing out their arc, and
their steps together are not a
clock, they are apart and away
and close together, not keeping
time.
11 tags
sounds #6: washed up
dirty like a barnacle
dull and prehistoric
my torn edges
just above the tide line
I hear his pulse in the surf
his fingers rasp the sand
and search for mine
the sun angles me
dries muck into my hair
my warm breasts
peaking shell-like
I watch the horizon
salt-rough
stare straight
until his hands recede
8 tags
sounds #5: wave
A promiscuous nibble—
[Read the rest…]
7 tags
sounds #4: ignoring kate hudson
a bad movie
and bored
you lace fingers
through mine
pick out the half-octave
of my knuckles
play a new
soundtrack
I tap back an accompaniment
smiling in the dark
silent, ready to dance
8 tags
sounds #3: hungover in tempe
last night’s dress
smells metallic
like boozy sweat and warm coins
flightpath rumblings
drum the ground
throb up
through the rough
op shop lounge
the machine resonates
to match my body’s
damaged rhythms
then bumps to earth
let me be back here
in six months’ time
long limbed sidewinding
through Tempe’s backstreets
not shivering from the cold
and my toxic blood
summer
watching...
7 tags
sounds #2: problem
I learn from… [Read the rest…]
5 tags
sounds #1: third wheel
Conversation
unpredictable and precipitate
as stalactites
mostly silent
but for broken
dripping
deep in my throat.
Jitter
of your foot
without rhythm.
Cutlery scrapes
her plate.
I have nothing to
say to her
and I don’t
want you anymore.
8 tags
making #15: meet me on the golden green
Meet me on…
[Read the rest…]
7 tags
making #14: solo
There’s fish in the sea
but not for me.
Teen girls
board the bus
in shoals
shallow and
glistening.
Driver rearview-
mirrors their legs
while stopped
at the red.
Old bloke picks me
to give advice to—
it’ll be cold tomorrow,
he’s lived here since
1946, before
supermarkets,
before they built
the road.
Calls me ‘luv’
as expected
leaning to
my shoulder.
Leaves me hoping
for...
8 tags
making #13: fairy
she melts
through my fingers
porous
transparent
and tacky-sweet.
slick with sugar
she slips
out of her t-shirt
and into
my sheets
to stop the light
shining through.
9 tags
making #12: brush away dust
I visit
the threshold
of our bedroom
while the boxes are still taped up.
An archaeology of
rough, shifting monuments
nearly recognizable shapes.
You resurrect
civilisation
while my heart
stalks outside
a detained tourist
in this uninscribed
new world.
7 tags
making #11: prophet
a tiny silver
cup of coffee
crosses my palm
payment for a story
of a more
exciting future.
you’re hissing my fortune
with steam
dark grit
and warm thick lips.
7 tags
making #10: cosmogeny
I am pliable
as beeswax
rolled in his palm
or dropped mercury
careening across
his body’s flat surface.
Molten
newly rounded
I await
the gift of gravity.
6 tags
making #9: mention, definition, usage, quotation
yield: to give a return, as for labour expended; to surrender or submit… [Read the rest…]
8 tags
making #8: square
Inventory:
the pale sun
that the curtains
can’t quite block
and your neck
your face
pulled under the blanket
like a turtle;
the hospital corners
unkicked at the bottom
that we won’t bother
remaking
tonight
and my hair
curled around
snagged on the bedhead;
your day-old stubble
and my rough path
along your jaw.
Our drugged whispering.
Everything sinking within
this deep square...
6 tags
making #7: drown
Your legs cycling beneath the water,
five days of flood
and the fight that stretches,
from before he left,
through phone calls,
into his return.
Your body running
and no ground to purchase on,
until god divides the oceans
and dries the earth.
8 tags
making #6: coup d'etat
At low tide
the ocean is beaten back
from the beaches
bruised and motionless.
Sinking behind
the rise of gritty
suburban streets,
cracked mosaic houses
terraced up from the cliffs,
flint-rough roofs
and white walls.
This hot city
gasps moisture
out of the air
and the pavements fill—
beak-torn figs
rolling gumnuts
parched leaves to attract sparks.
Streets shed their skin
while...
5 tags
making #5: burrow
I felt it first
pulling
my dress back on—
the change
of the seasons.
Heads back
we gaped the scent
from your ninth-floor balcony
May nights
trailed with foliage
crushed in the cooling west.
Our bedroom hibernation
now a welcome escape
as skinny-fingered winter
piles blankets on the bed.
4 tags
making #4: bliss
Boxed in by primetime
bisected by closed curtains
we make love without touching.
10 tags
making #3: hearts need to do their work in the...
You find a tiny key to unlock my chest…
[Read the rest…]
7 tags
making #2: cupped
A ritual of steeping
and infusion—
you’re my hot water
stinging
and I’m leaves
on your tongue.
We billow and boil
steam rising
my body curled
perfectly in hand
6 tags
making #1: lonely
… like the birds
that kids draw
that look like
moustaches
taking to the skies
… as someone
playing the piano
with one finger
single notes ring out
not quite loud enough
… and edgy
a paper doll
undo the tabs
on my dress
my skin
everything
down to my bones
5 tags
love #16: release
You are the rusty nail hammered in.
I am splitting my bark just to dislodge you, prise you loose.
5 tags
love #15: trial
Over drinks
we reconstruct the end
from all available evidence:
no crime committed
no blame assigned.
The glass fell
outside the window
we broke it ourselves—
I’m surprised it took us this long to realise.
8 tags
love #14: away
You laugh at
my reckless winter sudsing
and remind me
how long you’ve been gone.
Your half-empty shampoo
offers solace to mine.
Warm and familiar
steam curls up next to the mirror.
A ghost reflection
flicks and twists—
shower curtain
bare arm.
I fall with the water
muscles slack, slinked with hair
slip down the drain and away.
8 tags
love #13: seven degrees
(i)
Monday
I sneak out for breakfast
because I can’t spend
one more second with you.
Our room is heavy
with your clothes,
your books,
your snoring breath.
Some chemistry pulls me
toward coffee
and the city’s centre—
a survival instinct
barely felt.
(ii)
My fingers
nearly frozen on
pedestrian crossing buttons.
I breathe from
the cloud of breath
of a high-heeled brunette....
6 tags
love #12: grey
her features are
inexact
eroding into
pillow creases
snoring beside him
exactly as she fell.
still as a rock
the excitement
the mutual landslide
dissipates.
he’s shackled
to her heavy body
gutless as prometheus
5 tags
love #11: show and tell
Sheets rumpled
from slicing me open.
Slick up to your elbows.
You’re put off by my insides
snigger at their pinkness.
Soothed and reckless
I see the truth—
how little you love me
when I’m not looking.
8 tags
love #10: home
You crush me like garlic
while I smooth my hand
along the ironing board’s
head and hip.
I soften from the heat
leave behind my scent
guff under your fingernails.
Me, pinching creases
from clean linen
and you cooking to your own recipe.
10 tags
love #9: love poem
teach me the difference
between lust
and exhaustion
and which one leaves
me silent and shaking
teach me the difference
between beard-kissing
and shaved-kissing
and how each kind
has its pleasures
teach me the difference
between shallots
and spring onions
and why I never bothered
to learn it sooner
teach me the difference
between me
...
9 tags
love #8: epithalamion for mel and nathan
Love does not look down
but casting eyes skyward
finds balance staring
at no fixed horizon.
It is unsteady
and exhilarated
a plunge or a step
taken, unwavering.
You are blind to the ground
fear half-forgotten
now that the object is gone.
Hands stretch to hands
cold-knuckled from the thin air
unnumbing where you fit together.
A kiss that is gravity-less
and your cheeks, your...
5 tags
love #7: steel
co-dependent
co-efficient
i draw ley lines
over the city
and file magnetic
along them
our simple mechanism
works
closing gaps like a zip
6 tags
love #6: lift
Overshadowed
on the threshold
your kiss disrupts
my gravity like an
elevator shaft.
I drop to ground floor
and chase back up the stairs
my breath lagging behind.
5 tags
love #4: lightly
kissing you while you sleep
stealing what you breathe
like a witch
picking tiny flowers
off your lips
7 tags
love #3: equinox
Our nights are getting longer.
In his parents’ house
fingers scuttle over my skin
quick and quiet as lizards.
I stretch against the bed
bite my knuckles like a bridle
and clamp down on ecstasy.
(later)
I cradle his warmth
in a place of worship
this temple of many gods.
(later still)
Made from fire and earth
we are flesh enough
to withstand the winter
our bodies conjoined and...
6 tags
love #2: driven
lose my bearings
passengering
past the
bedroom suites
slanted
in showroom
windows.
shopfronts
throw light
but the streets
are empty.
leave buildings behind
like a mirage
hazed and shining.
his hands
at ten and two
face stealing
intermittent headlights
flickering
dangerous
and perfect.
5 tags
love #1: out of the sea
as he curls around her
damp limbs and friction
flake her skin
squinty saltwater kisses mark their contact
rivers run from hair to bare shoulders
she transfers her energy
slow and sun-hot—
the baked sand, the tonguing sea