rosebuds

my mouth is filled with rosebuds
petals push between my lips to bloom
and fall full blown
my mouth is filled with rosebuds

The Savage Detectives

Everything that begins in comedy ends in tragedy.
Everything that begins in comedy ends in tragicomedy.
Everything that begins in comedy inevitably ends in comedy
Everything that begins in comedy ends as a cryptographic exercise.
Everything that begins in comedy ends as a horror movie.
What begins as comedy ends as a triumphal march, wouldn’t you say?
Everything that begins in comedy inevitably ends as mystery.
Everything that begins in comedy ends as a dirge in the void.
Everything that begins in comedy ends as comic monologue, but we aren’t laughing anymore.

pages 457 - 471
The Savage Detectives
Roberto Bolano

thistle collector

I am a thistle collector
from roadsides and spare blocks

I pull

roots pale bent fingers

released from soil

as I tug

stalk shapes indent pink on my skin

fingernails stained green

sand clings as if it owns me

aphids smudged black on my breast

snails will be slime bliss bombs for my ducks

I carry thistles in my harvesters arms

smell a cooking stew

someone is using my mother's recipe

the postie skids to give way

handy man paints pickets retain the dream

at the curb side café

morning coffee drinkers

pause

mid sip

I am the thistle collector

my bunch of yellow flowers

nod with every step

and a trail of white seed heads float behind

Di’s Ladies Luncheon With Games

All lovely ladies lunch.

A fat one wheezing on a Ventolin puffer.

Somehow she destroyed her lungs with medication.

Now incurable.

Living the rest of her life with broken lungs.

Another has pains in her thighs after a hip replacement.

 She can never go wandering

at Christmas

champagne glass in hand

on her friend’s property

ever again.

Talk is of aging parents who are old but don’t know they are old.

We are old but don’t know we are old.

We are as young as we are ever going to be right now

says Karen.

Di makes us play a game.

It is Beetle.

A game from our fifties childhoods

before television.

BTV.

You have to construct a beetle with the roll of the dice.

body = 6

head = 1

mouth = 4

antennae = 2

eyes = 1

legs = 5

The crayfishermen in Kalbarri were crazy for this game

Di tells us.

I am creative with my beetles.

I should have won The Best Beetle

but there wasn’t a creativity prize.

cyber baby

been fucking anyone
she asks

too old…but
i have a friend

she’s not my friend
she’s my cyber fuck

my cyber fuck
always wants me
wants my knickers off
wants my genitals out
wants me hot and heavy
wants me over the chair
she wants me arse up
all my bits exposed
wants to truss me tightly
wants to shave my cunt
wants to spank me
to push in past the door
wants to thrust
the cyber dildo in
then further in
then out
tells me she will fist me
she tells me I am open
she tells me as she pushes
that under her i squirm
she says she pins me down
i weep until she holds me
she tells that
she loves me
i’m her cyber baby
and she’ll be gentle now

untitled

I like you
the best eyes
you are a definite possibility
have you got what it takes
check it out yourself
keep laughing at my jokes and I might

midnight passion
and it was only nine o’clock
he came to heel without being called

forgetting

I haven't read
any of the poems
for days
try to wean
myself
try to disentangle
myself
try not to think
so much
my brain
my stupid brain
has no controls
churns out
streams of scenarios
even in sleep
walls are breached
dreams of hands
a white robed body
and ten moons rising
just forget about it
just forget about it
he said on leaving
I begin to try

younger/older

younger me
bombied into crowds
washed in skin
devoured eyes
drank up bodies
blood on my lips
semen on my thighs

older me
contracts
everything is glass
breakable
unmicrowavable
the ache still exists
I name it plague

Commercial Transaction

Commercial transaction

with the corner store keeper

eyes averted

goods and coins

pass between us.

She doesn’t tell me

of her son -

failing

university

daughter

and first grandchild.

I don’t ask.

november heat

i rang my father

he is ok
on the third day
of over forty degree heat
aircon has lowered
the inside temp
a change is on the way
another couple of days
won't kill him
 but dave holds
died in the night
without lungs
or legs
as grog and smokes
took their toll
as he always
knew they would
thats life
or death
whatever
you want to call it
said my dad
riding his eighty-sixth wave
of november heat

Four

In my dream I heard there was a message.

how do words

how do words fall out of you?
i have to perform open heart surgery
while the anesthetist is out to lunch
attack the marrow with a saw
work it out with a pencil
winkle it out of its shell
crush the hard nut
add tears to make a slurry
wait until maleable
set out to dry
hope no cracks appear

Country View Point, Bush Telegraph, ABC 2006

The invitation of gold and red announced a beach wedding in late December- but I have to admit I received it with a little trepidation.

My lack of love for the beach is at odds with my identity. As an Australian we are supposed to love the beach. But with my ancestral memory of five generations of inland dwellers, it leaves me a little intimidated, especially Indian Ocean beaches where waves smash against rock and sand in a deafening dissonance.

As a child, I had seen my aunt dumped by the surf on one such beach. She emerged struggling for breath, bathers askew and sand in her hair.
“Look out for dumpers!” my cousins warned.
I was wary of waves that heaved themselves up on the beach. I have felt them grab at my ankles and tug hungrily, trying to swallow me up.

So wrapped in a shawl against an unseasonable southerly blast and waiting for the arrival of the bride and groom on Redgate Beach near Margaret River, it was not hard to become absorbed in the drama of the surroundings.
Here you could again become embroiled in the sight and sound of the wild surf, thumping against granite outcrops.

It was easy to visualise the fate of the Georgette on December 1st 1876, drifting into the surf and slowly sinking because of a leak. The ship has entered local legend. With its pumps not working and boiler room flooded, the crew and passengers tried valiantly to bail the rising seawater but it was futile and the lifeboats were lowered.

Up on the cliffs, Sam Isaacs, an aboriginal stockman working for the Bussell family, saw the foundering vessel. He galloped to the Bussell homestead and returned with sixteen year old Grace Bussell. Armed with ropes Grace and Sam rode their horses down the cliff face and swam them into the boiling surf alongside the steamship where passengers and crew faced the perilous seas. After four hours Grace Bussell and Sam Isaacs, with their horses and ropes had rescued fifty men, women and children. Twelve were lost.

One hundred and twenty nine years later, although the weather conditions may have been similar, there were no riders on the cliff tops with heroism in their hearts. Instead, a string of children dressed in traditional Indian outfits of red, threaded their way carefully down the cliff path, tinkling bells, shaking maracas and clashing cymbals.

They heralded the arrival of the bride and groom who were warmly greeted by their families and friends gathered on the windblown sand and spray drenched rocks under a cloudy sky. Vows were taken and blessings made as the waves smashed and sprayed the wedding party as if to remind us, just a little, that this was once a scene of tragedy.

Everyone laughed and cheered and spirits were high. This was a wedding day and Redgate Beach was, on this day, the backdrop for joy and celebration.

after the slam

someone ordered a bloody maria
someone didn’t want to be there
someone claimed to be smashed
someone couldn’t really tell
someone’s light brought the moths
someone’s voice was a bell
someone was talking nonsense
someone was capable of anything
someone fell through glass
someone was skewered with shards
someone’s sex drive was in overdrive
someone didn’t know the way home
someone was a honeypot
someone was over the Moon
someone was wrangling the bees
someone kissed someone
someone did somebody else
someone wanted to have group sex
someone danced with someone
someone was nobodies boy
someone rejected their fan base
someone passed someone a joint
someone forgot about everything
someone had nothing to tell
someone was guilty as charged
and someone was visiting hell.

I am the dog

I am the dog that follows.
The dog you wave your arms at
shout: Get home!
I am the dog that stops – watches.
Fifty yards on
I am the dog that follows again.
I am the dog you throw stones at
I am the dog that slinks
a dozen sullen steps
sits
to watch you go.
I am the dog that runs to the spot
breathes in your leaving scent.

Quote

And, in the end, the love you take
Is equal to the love you make.
Abbey Road (1969)
The Beatles

Fifth of November

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

the end

the night
she held
a knife
to his
testicles
was the night
he called it
quits
and slunk
away
with nothing
intact

Melbourne Cup Day 2009

I went to a garden full of colour and light and water and bronzes of naked women kneeling and reclining and one holding both legs to her breasts exposing her cunt to fecundity all round. There were walkways of roses, wisteria, plum trees, orchards of citrus rotting, avocados hung like sinister black baubles, the garden shed with stained glass windows and chandelier, poppies filled to the brim with bees, pansies irises, violets, roses, nasturtiums, clematis, clouds of white camellias, stairs and seats and lily ponds, red rose avenues to fountains with a view as purple and orange push into the dried yellow dull green of the summer eucalyptus forest. Guests waved their free hand to explain the property extends to those trees over there. They bought that block too for privacy. And that is the dam. All the water is pumped from there to the lily ponds and look they are building a gallery for their collection. The workmen have the day off.  
In this garden of prosperity and good fortune we drank champagne and exclaimed how blue is the sky and how perfect the day.

yes

we are privileged

yes

we are lucky

raise up your glasses

because out in the ocean

some of us founder

some of us flounder

and some us of drown.

The writing moment?

At best a flash flood of words.
Worst, dry mouth can't spit.

“he has discharged his weapon on to himself”

silicone
soft sack
pliant round full
replaces shrunken fallen flesh
breast

To Begin

To begin my novel
I clean my teeth
mint clean.
Cleanse my face.
Consider botox.
Look at the palm fronds
in the wind through the
bathroom window.
Check the washing machine.
Check the pool pump.
Note the wind chimes.
Drain my tea cup.
Put on my ugg boots
Light my pipe.
Raise the slatted blinds.
Pour a glass.
Find a CD.
Outdoors, shadows fell on the washing
sheets billowed.
The wind makes it a drying day.
There is a spiders nest in the peg basket.
Boys are kicking a footy in the street
only 128 days to go to the next bounce -
sons of the woman I told this morning
I am a writer
I said it out loud -
nothing happened.

And so I began my novel.