Eighteen Months for Silvia

Eighteen Months for Silvia

I saw you.
Azure blue vomits fond memories,
celestial visions of our dance.

And how we danced.

But the song distorted,
hideous spasms controlled my mind
and forced my foot on the throttle.

I was starved of light in a summer sky,
minutes stripped hours from my life.
I drove a wicked road past vicious memories,

and crashed against introspection.

I craved for your nicotine
and to chase your caffeine buzz
while my salivating rabid dog of addiction

spewed shackles around my neck.

But in the distance you sang our song,
somehow the bruises hadn’t stolen your vision,
and you stood braver than I could dream.

Eighteen months is a long and short time
to stand in one spot and travel,
a lost weekend? a lugubrious retreat?

This poem should read as a song of ‘thank you’?

Gripped in the Middle of a Week

Gripped in the Middle of a Week

 

Wednesday crashes

like a drunken friend.

Gripped in the middle

of a week.

Too late to turn around,

too early to start

plans for a real life.

 

Separated

from your lungs,

weighted under

the water of week.

Wednesday washes

wishes away.

Only Tuesday

 

Only Tuesday

 

Reds and orange

attack the black

from the eastern horizon.

Car engines start

(the earth’s tired moan).

And today is only Tuesday,

but, like all others,

it is the best one ever.

Another morning

heralds

the best day of my life.

Monday Cripple

Monday Cripple

 

It starts again.

And the memories

of laughs

played last week

have faded

to black.

The end credits

have rolled.

 

The next movie begins.

Title screen:

“A new week.”

Starring:

“You.”

Directed by:

“You.”

With Special Guest Director:

“The Unknown Force.”

 

Fade in:

We find the protagonist

struggling

trying to lift

a great weight.

“Monday.”

Souls Reunion

Souls Reunion

 

After the long sleep,

after the dark tunnel,

comes the light,

the warmth of mourning.

 

Somewhere, hidden to terrestrial minds

reunions happen. Great heavenly dances

celebrate the end of loneliness.

Souls that travelled together

in frail earthly bodies

rejoin in ethereal flight.

Forced Words

Forced Words

 

Coffee cup stains on empty pages,

sunlight fights the poet’s eyes,

mourn the darkness remain in sombre,

dreaming dreams of unborn lies.

 

I called for you to add your coinage,

and build upon the mound of junkyard spit,

but found you lying in accidental sobriety,

prophesising doomsday millennium bullshit.

 

Force the words to fill your pages,

seek acclaim from those who count,

drop the pen in fits of laughter,

seek to blame the ones who’ve found.

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day

 

Sitting haunted at the end of a rented bed,

he lets his head drop into the paper he holds.

Paper from a happy past,

paper pressed before the bottle.

 

Tears drop from his bloodshot eyes

onto the crayon coloured picture

of stick figure girl standing between

stick figure pretty lady and stick figure tall man.

 

Old hands shake the ageing words underneath,

Daddy I love you, Happy Fathers Day.

Words from a happy past

a long time ago.

Scattered Glass

 

Scattered Glass

 

Glass scattered across the road,

like rain,

glistening.

There’s been an accident.

 

Ordinarily I wouldn’t give it a second thought

I’d just think “there’s been an accident,”

but this morning I think

about those involved.

 

Hundreds will drive past

this pond of broken glass,

some will catch a reflected gleam,

some will hear a crunch,

 

but long after the glass is cleared away

someone will still hear the crunch

echoing in their memories,

and will still wince from the

reflected gleam of their vision.

Seiko Staring

Seiko Staring

 

Time slides.

Seconds drip

into hours

into days

into a life.

 

Life slides

and drips

while a man

stands

admiring

his new Seiko.

 

Life catches the bus

our man

still. Seiko staring.

Eulogy

Eulogy

 

If I should die

and you survive me,

don’t you cry

retain the memory.

Have me cremated

in front of a crowd

of the people I hated

then shout out loud;

 

laugh you may as you see him burn

but with this thought he left you

it only took him a few years to learn

the mysteries that stand before you.

 

Then watch them cry

as you read this out

that I should die

without any doubt.

All

All

 

All

Because

Content

Dying

Evolves into

Form.

Getting

Heavier

Inside.

Just

Killing

Life.

Maybe

Now,

Over. Over

Periods

Quietly,

Rightly

Suppressed,

Tightly.

Under

Viral

Words,

X factors.

Yours,

Zealot.

it ergs me

it ergs me

 

i don’t like it

but i need the money

so i shut up

and put up

and cow the milk

and spread the honey

The Legacy of John Winston Howard, Prime Minister of Australia 19

The Legacy of John Winston Howard, Prime Minister of Australia 1996 - 2007

 

Johnny say sorry

              for ignoring land rights.

Johnny say sorry

              for the Cronulla riots.

Johnny say sorry

              for the children overboard.

Johnny say sorry

              for this fucking stupid war.

Johnny say sorry

              for sanctioning book burning.

Johnny say sorry

              for ignoring global warming.

Johnny say sorry

              for aiding your media cronies.

Johnny say sorry

              for all the Alan Joneses.

Johnny say sorry

              for detaining refugees.

Johnny say sorry

              for raping the ABC.

Johnny say sorry

              for preaching your evil hymns.

Johnny say sorry

              for marginalising muslims.

Johnny say sorry

              for abandoning David Hicks.

Johnny say sorry

              for poisoning weetbix.

Johnny say sorry

              for the I.R. reforms.

Johnny say sorry

              for the sedition laws.

Johnny say sorry

              for the soldiers who have died.

Johnny say sorry

              for creating apartheid.

Johnny say sorry

              for the rising interest rates.

Johnny say sorry

              for sucking up to the United States.

Johnny say sorry

              for your selective history teaching.

Johnny say sorry

              it’s time, it’s time for the impeaching.

To the Tune of Tom Waits’ ‘Pasties and a G-String’

To the Tune of Tom Waits’ ‘Pasties and a G-String’

 

Staring at a brick wall

              looking through the sun,

my eyes are half-wired open

              and the day has just begun.

 

Knocking on the bleachers

              making sure my throat is clear,

sing a song of cigarettes

              as the midday sun draws near.

 

Throw a fish to Shiva

              watch it flapping cold,

twist my neck much further

              now the day is getting old.

 

Walking on a tightrope

              swinging from a tree,

my eyes are now wide open

              which is why I cannot see.

 

Gently light the candle

              watch its wax wane slow,

drown my head in slumber

              shifting to and fro.

As I Lay Me Down to Rot

 

As I Lay Me Down To Rot

 

As I lay down upon this rock

and watch my skin begin to rot

I place some pennies on my eyes

and spread my arms to be crucified.

 

The sun burns down upon my head

my mind will join where my soul is dead

a sacrifice of no note worth

I’ll bleed into soil and pollute the earth.

 

Eternal condemn as I killed my days

damnation is mine for my evil ways

I cut to pieces my rented soul

used love as a shovel to dig my whole.

Without Archon

Without Archon

 

Too young our limitations are taught,

and recollections of battles fought

are written in history by victors alone,

while revolutionary pages are bleached by bone,

and the stories that scream to be unleashed

are never in so called democracy teached.

Oh lust to be without archon.

In my head the battle is won.

The Birth of Sorrow - Thoughts of Human Suffering

 

The Birth of Sorrow – Thoughts of Human Suffering

 

And they named him ‘Sorrow’,

              for he cried.

And his tears flowed like a river,

              for they weren’t his, but the tears of a million generations,

and every tear he shed

              represented one human suffering.

He never stopped crying until he died,

              and then the world shed a tear.

Too Many Goodbyes

Too Many Goodbyes

 

Too many souls

shifting into the night,

passing too quickly,

too many goodbyes.

 

Fires that burned too furious,

fires that burned too bright,

too many souls

passing into the night.

 

The lives we lead

and the paths we take

inevitably lead us

to the love we make.

 

So at the end of this stanza

there is nothing I’d forsake

for the loves I’ve had

and this terrible ache.

An Innocent Breath

An Innocent Breath

              for Paul Jackson 6 July 1973 – 1 August 2009

 

Into an ugly world was breathed an innocent breath,

uncontained by boundaries of life and death,

floating on air like an ethereal sail,

elevating all who would take time to inhale.

 

Now the breath is extinguished but the air lingers long,

in the dance of a child’s eyes, or a blackbird’s night song,

in his beloved nature my brother is now clad,

in the words of his mother, a rogue of a lad.

 

It was my absolute honour to have shared some of his time,

haunted by his wisdom, lit by his sunshine,

he escaped through dreams into a wine glass bay,

he’ll be forever in my thoughts simply waiting to awake.

The Epistolary Battle for the Soul of Betty Hester

The Epistolary Battle for the Soul of Better Hester

 

The epistolary battle for the soul of Better Hester

was fought in the realm of time and mind,

the church spruiked their bibles and all of their saints,

the left merely offered a find.

 

The imaginary cackle for the whole of Betty Hester

was littered by ghosts in decline,

feinted warriors fought in positions contort,

while the pen scribbled furious lines.

 

The contemporary shackles that were bestowed on Betty Hester

forced her letters to a 20 year bind,

while waiting to publish a shotgun called out

and the battle was ended in kind.

In Praise of Disorder

In Praise of Disorder

 

Somewhere in disorder are the spontaneous mistakes that make a day particular,

paths that lie unplanned, hidden in erratic overgrowth.

 

In the mess of photos scattered throughout cardboard boxes,

childhoods hide in sepia tones.

 

In the disarray of LP records leaning across hi-fi shelves

hum the scratched songs of your forgotten youth.

 

In the rustic cases of second hand book stores

great words wait to carry you to other plains.

 

In the windy change of seasons

streams await to clear the stale ink from your diary.

 

Held in chaos lies a sweet bohemian breath inhaling all order and exhaling life, planting a kiss

on your unsuspecting cheek, eject your iPod and listen to the street.

Need

 

Need

 

What do you need?

A pen,

paper.

Thought.

A simple life

expressed

in the simplest way.

Happiness, grief,

on paper.

Hopes, fears,

in the pen.

A life.

A Single Tear

A Single Tear

              -for Silvia

 

A single tear escapes,

and travels a lonely cheek.

 

One single drop,

slow

and carefully

crawls

from the eye,

through the valley

between cheek bone and nose,

and places a gentle kiss

on the side of the mouth.

 

A single tear,

born from within,

from a single memory,

from one fragment of a life,

not a life,

but a life remembered.

 

One beautiful diamond

into the pool.

I Want to Build a Café

I Want to Build A Café

 

I want to build a café,

where all my friends will drink,

wallpapered with savages,

call it “Ginsberg’s Stink”.

 

Have a jukebox in the corner,

playing music no one can hear,

expounding on the dogma

“the Manipulation of Fear.”

 

At night we’ll ouija monsters,

ghosts of ones who were beat;

Have you come to bleed the freak?

Twelve dollars fifty, all you can eat.