Downhill.

If I were a better friend

with a braver heart

who didn’t.

I would say run, run

Run.

faster than your feet know how

to the place

where the echo of your footsteps should be

with the ruins of that boy

instead of the confines 

of that man.

Ignore.

With your sister peeking
under the door
She said
She said
She'd tell our mothers
if we didn't stop.

Stationary.

It's the colour of veins.
their oily tentacles
dripping through newspaper.
bloodied paper mache
Ever so repulsive.


Surprise found her,
gazing up
at her lovely face.
but she reasoned with herself.
After all,
she might be dead.
That would explain things.


So she fell backwards,
and saved herself from drowning
face down
In her own reflection.
She's still sitting on her feet
wondering
who's looking at who.

Until Now (Hiding Place)

She was nine years old,

and would watch the bats fly low

over her hiding place

their elongated cut-outs

dotting the orange dusk

with cartilage and bone.

The scary bird.

A frame made of rubber over wire

with a face only a mother could love.

she liked the way

they called one another

from their slumber

the calm and gentle shrieking,

the space between her eyes.

Their cries,

became the end of another day

the death of another sun

and she imagined what she must

look like there, pressed as a flower

petals curling at the edges

eyes peering out into the garden path, at passing strangers.

A feral cat.

She had a secret that was hers

and hers alone

A knotted mess of plants and wood

A thousand figure eights of foreign weeds

strangling the natives

knit so tightly,

only beetles found their way

She found a way too

through the gnarled lantana

tiny arms and legs

delicate enough to slip through their thorns.

She crouched

down through the spiky gauntlet,

rubbing her belly on the damp.

A tiny carpet snake.

The branches snatched

their pointy claws, tearing through

the clumps of curls

her little eyes were cunning,

enough to avoid the teeth of Pandanus

its serrated edge, hungry to cut her

like soft bread

Cobwebs tangled in her lashes

was the middle of her nest

An empty crop circle

a hiding place,

just right for one

she breathed in silence.

A feathered mouse.

The withered grass was pressed

into the earth

as if they knew she were coming

and the long curled branch unfurled before her

A natural stranglehold

from unrelenting weeds

It would be her perch for many years

until the sap hardened

and her legs lengthened

and she would lay in it's splinters

crumble into the hole she dug with her toes

and dirty the hem of her dress

(But she didn't know that, yet)

The worker drone.

She set to work at once

smoothing the dirt with the bottom of her shoe

Inside, her bed went unmade.

Here, amongst the leaves

A long-stemmed silver rose

sunbeams pooling in the rim

A metal goblet, carvings against the lip

From the time of Camelot

Raised to the mouths of Kings

Torn from the hands of Knights

Tossed into the treasure of pirates

long-lost and forgotten

she knew it was meant to be hers

the diamond chalice, hidden in the brush.

The phoenix from the ashes.

Fallen, from it's dusty throne

She decided that she

and she alone,

would be it's secret-keeper

and whispered her eternal allegiance

in the blood of bark

by the shadow of a gumtree

she never told a soul.

Until now.

The South-Easterly

The blue of the end is
miraculous in itself
A dusky mural not unlike
the dawn I drew
but I have painted this one
and it's strangely forgiving.
I look too hard and see
the torch flicker
Backlit, flame licking cloth
suspicious in this weather
and find a ubiquitous calm
humouring me.
Close by, birds titter
in clusters
seemingly aware of my need for the obvious
My shoulders sink
While I unpluck the quills
and I breathe
And I reverse the sails
and I think
that I need to stop thinking.
It's a lonely thirst.

poetry standoff # 2

**All posts originally appeared on poetry standoff

SUBJECT: Your first love
15/07/10

Quietly.

We would walk the silent roads at night
so quietly, I would tip-toe in the steps you left
pretending to look at stars, either one not knowing what to say
He told me his family was Orion's belt before he came
but when he did, they gave him the little star on the right
the one that doesn't quite belong.
And he would twirl his wrist round mine
and I would forget about the time,
He'd find my fingers and bend them to him
my heart would follow their lead.
Lying in my bed, we were knotted at the knees
loose ties, crumpled collars
and I would pull my hair out and sigh relief.
How often we would fall asleep like that
so quietly, I would tip-toe in the steps you left
your arms of sweet content.

SUBJECT: Tutankhamun
12/07/10

Entertainment Tonight with KING TUT**

King Tutankhamun, King Tut for short,
was robbed off his childhood and forced into court,
Royalty at nine with love from civilians,
He sued both his parents for stashing his millions.

Cashed up and alone, betrayed by Egypt,
He moved to New York and bought a new crypt,
He invested his cash in temples and threads,
A new found messiah with a head full of dreads.

The Prince formerly known as 'Tu-tank-haten',
made a smash record with Bjork and Mike Patton,
If was highly acknowledged the tune was a curse,
If the listener decided to play in reverse.

A shy kind of fellow, not one for publicity,
he strived for the normal, a life of simplicity.
His intention short lived, with a shorter shelf-life,
When he mentioned his sister was also his wife.

Betrayed by a lover with her 'tell-all book',
He tried to sue Gaga for stealing his look,
Two DUI's, and a charge for possession,
Saw a stint in rehab for abuse and depression,
Busted five times for breach of probation,
King Tut became an international sensation.

No one quite knows, how King Tut did die,
A chariot fall, or a messed up drive-by,
By the end a has-been, one fallen star,
hiding behind his cleft palate scar.

Like Jimmi and Janice, River and Kurt
King Tut was taken before his pay dirt,
The original celebrity on borrowed time,
Nineteen in death but alive in our minds.

**Only 25 per cent historically accurate.

SUBJECT: The BP Oil Spill
13/07/10

‎

All You Can Eat 

(Read with a French Accent)

Good evening my customers and welcome tonight,
to an evening of (gas)tronomical delight!
Tonight I'm your waiter, My name is Felipe,
Tonight specials straight from the oily blue deep,
From our founders and patrons, the men at BP,
A selection of morsels and delicious debris!

Perhaps I could tempt you with Scallops on shell,
braised in petroleum, and straight out of hell?
Or perhaps whet your appetite with Nemo Le Stewed?
It's demon clownfish with pippi's and crude.
There's oil-gusher prawns with black salmon in foil,
and dolphin blow-holes stuffed with pepper and oil,
Contaminated turtle and polluted crustacean,
are both a good cause for tonights celebration!

I'll give you one moment for you to peruse,
the selection on offer cannot be refused,
Because it's all that we have, and it's all that you'll get,
And we need a large profit to cover our debt,
I must warn you in advance there's no chicken to serve,
But I recommend the pelican as a tasty hors d'oeuvre.

FIN.

 

Today I am...

To the ones who are artists,
for the love of their namesake,
and an even deeper love
of themselves.
Behold.
For I... am an elephant.

poetry standoff

**All posts originally appeared on poetry standoff


SUBJECT: Getting dumped by Greeting Card
10/07/10

Dumpsville, Population? You.

A welcome surprise from the postman today,
A pink envelope and a giant bouquet,
I tore through the pink with delight and intent,
Taking the time to breathe in your scent.

Rose petals fell out, a clever attack,
With a smile on my face, the card smiled back,
Glossy, embossed, I was confused and amazed,
At the seal on the front with his flipper upraised,

Your intentions unclear, the meaning unknown,
I pondered the card that was waving ‘hello’
An interesting choice from a tempestuous lover,
But you can’t always judge a book by its cover.

I opened the card, expecting great things,
Creative expression and the good that it brings,
Cursive calligraphy, ‘I’s’ dotted with hearts,
Yearnings about my most intimate parts,

You’d promise me loyalty, passion, romance,
You’d cross oceans for me of any expanse,
You’d tell me my beauty is like Helen of Troy,
You’d tell me without me life holds no joy,

But you wrote me a letter you’d never written before
For all that was written was ‘I love you no more’


SUBJECT: Mesh underwear and dinner with the parents.
09/07/10

Meshed Potatoes

It’s quarter to six, I’m feeling quite stressed
Dinners in ten and I’m still undressed,
The laundry’s still wet, no knickers in sight,
I can’t go to mum’s without a fanny dressed right.

The pickings are slim, and now I don’t care,
I suck it all in, for my mesh underwear.
I’m off in a flash! To dinner on time!
A night off from cooking with a litre of wine!

Mums opens the door, with a glass of Merlot,
But there’s something not right with the mesh down below.
I writhe and I shiver, are they starting to shrink?
I send my mum off to fetch me a drink.

With her back turn I strike, at my momentary glitch,
I readjust my gusset, but it’s starting to itch.
I stare at my glass, and ask for ice cubes,
I shift in my seat to unknot my pubes.

Ice cubes in Bordeaux? My father aghast,
he took to the kitchen, while my knickers surpassed
The length of my thighs right down to my knees!
When my mother returned with a side dish of peas

“Alright everybody! It’s time to sit down!
Dinner’s now ready, so please gather round.”
I pulled up my briefs, with a great deal of haste,
Placing the band, back onto my waist.

I gritted my teeth at the hot little fire,
That was knashing my mound like a mess of barb wire,
“My dear”! Mum exclaimed, “You’re so awfully flustered!”
“You’ve not said a word about my unlively custard!”

“It’s hot in here” I stammered, “And the custard is lovely,”
The bread is amazing and the wine is so bubbly”
She smiled at me gently, with motherly love,
when the doorbell went off as a sign from above.

The family distracted, their attention alert,
I strike like a cobra right under my skirt,
They’re off in a flash, and I gather my calm,
As I angrily clutch the vagina napalm.

“Never again”, I say to myself,
Will I wear mesh undies and endanger my health,
The next time I find no clean ones about,
I’ll just turn a dirty pair inside and out.


SUBJECT: A poem about limericks written in haiku
09/07/10

Suggestion Erotica

Dirty limericks
Should be made mandatory
During intercourse.


FIN.

Rest Easy

The day the seat
beside me
bowed beneath your weight
was the day
my mind bowed
to the weight of my heart.

Photograph.

Do you remember
when you were behind the lens
and you took a snapshot
of a pair
trees behind, and wood underneath
limbs bent awkwardly
around one another
faces contorted in bemused expressions
not ready for your eagerness
and you separated
the white from the black
Did you look at the scene
laid out before you
my hair across my eyes
the imperfect embrace
and think
If that were me
If that were me.
Did you wish back then
to be in front of the lens
that covered your face
to be behind
the hair that covered my eyes?

The Kind

made myself a mask of stone
a lover for the heart of glassreprieve from lessons pastinbred cynical, I tend tokeep the curtains drawn to mask theorange light, the dawn ofstorybooks and fairy-talesmade real somehowillicit wants rehashed, reborntraversing the valley of the dolls forstrange times with stranger strangers and then...
crushed velvet sheetshot and flourishing as therain outside, the kindinked under my skinsweet nothings across pillowstwo lovers whispering secrets, the kindonly they can hearpretending their voices arehurricanes, thick and fastelongated shapes curled into oneromantic love, the kind that dies
bed linen dresses, that burning silkeventually, unfortunatelyalways ends with bloodshot eyes andviolent cries
only maybe, who knows, this timenever knowing, if it's never ending

The Morbid Haiku

Death becomes them now
The night is silent and calm
I'm alone at last

With the pools of blood
lapping underneath my feet
my fingers stained red

Those with broken hearts
and ruined dreams with no hope
They are not without

Feet First

Unable to ignore the call
from the wild
from an unknown voice

some mystery siren song

calling me deep
into the dark
without a stick to prod

the muddy surface

I go blindly
following the
enigmatic shepherd

whose cane taps at empty spaces

Keeping the foxes at bay
from the bloodied cuts
on my ankles

by running faster down the hills

with no time
to smell the roses
An upturned beetle

legs exposed

Blush.

I would blush when you sat by my side
on those hot languid nights, smoking
in a red wine haze
or whatever else
was lying around at the time
Legs piled in heaps
on the coffee table.

Little prickles
from my hair standing to attention
would itch my neck
Goosebumps creeping
from your arrival
I would blush when your arm touched mine
but you couldn't see where.

Clever.

Whilst patiently waiting for others to speak, their words become foot soldiers -- tiny uniformed syllables with their inflections raised in combat. Their fullstops mock you in pretend victory, claiming this verbal landscape as their own.

As their lips close, you breach the gates.
Your voice erupts, and the cavalry is released!
You lance through screaming commas and dangling participles, pools of bloodied tense on the ground.

You hang opinion not your own in the gallows
and the noose is made of mockery.
You imprison debate in the town stocks and
the locks are made of ridicule.

And when all is said and done, (and they cannot be unsaid or unheard) you raise your sails, prepare the cannons, and clean your pistol... ready for the next onslaught, the next jousting, constantly waiting to spar your next opponent in the ring.

Constantly waiting, to place a head on a spike
so the whole world can see
how clever you are.

How clever you must be.

Dictate

When you speak

on your imaginary podium

rings of smoke escape from the gaps

in your teeth

like maggots sliding down

the bin-liner

as rampant as mosquitoes 

breeding.

The cleaner comes 

on the morrow

to lay the sawdust over 

your last release

damp woody splinters,

letters swimming in bile

such drips from the garden hose

billowing out filth.

Crowded bystanders

raise their eyebrows

at the girl in her mothers clothes

Pointed tail between your legs

you scurry back

between the rock and the hard place

as predictable as the corner piece 

of a puzzle.

Dearest (Alternative love letters # 4)

Dear Mother,

I am at the edge of a precipice.
I have fallen in love.

I had imagined my world
full of notebooks, endless scribbles about floating kisses
and sweaty bedsheets.

Instead I've a desk of bleeding ink, crumbling pens
avalanches of paper...
falling no where in particular.

George.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear George,

Love is a rare and beautiful thing,
worthy of your attention. Tend to it
as a gardener to a rose and watch your
world bloom.

Love and light,

Mother.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mother,

Don't send love,
Send money.
Don't send light
Send disarray.

Happiness is a useless muse.

George.

Stain.

I always left the room
as the stain on the bed
not the lipstick kisses
on the vanity
Cigarette burns on my chest.

Quill.

Tiny holes, perforating the 'i'
You can see how angry I am
Where my pen has failed
between the 'e' and the 'n'
A knotted scribble, torn pages,
Words burning paper.

Creepy crawling, looped 'L's' and 'S's'
The tip of my pen slices
through the parts
where I leant too hard
pressing metal into the fudged white
scoring ink like pink meat.

You can see how angry I am
The scene fuck you
hollowed out with the blunt end
of a spoon.
It doesn't quite translate.

Acid & Eggs

Yvette had ordered a banana smoothie and banana bread and commented on how she might turn into a banana with a breakfast like that. He wished he could tell her not to say such things because they were inane and embarrassing, and didn't she know he might unravel her hair, peel her skin back like a troublesome orange? His eyes travelled the surface of her arm and acknowledged the fresh bruises. He wanted to reach over and press them hard to see if she would fall apart, scoop her flesh like soggy pudding, an arm full of hemorrhaging fruit. He put his hands deep in his pockets and played with the loose stitches at the bottom, fondling the side of his thighs instead. It wasn't until the giant fruit asked him why he wasn't eating that he took them out again and wiped his sweat down his jeans. Greg wondered if that came under the definition of irony, but thought he had better shovel down a few forks of substance before his thoughts looked suspicious. 

...He was eating the essence of the chicken, the fucking formula for their existence. He wondered if he would feel more inclined to climb the human pecking order at work. Reproduce. Scratch crumbs from the floor. He liked that one the most, unable to to cover the smile that had now spread across his face like the Cheshire Cat...You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself. 

Yvette is staring at him across the table. Her big deer eyes wet with tears all the time, moist dewdrops at the end of her lashes. Yvette is staring. Her pregnant eyes are dying to burst out their salty placenta all over the cutlery, but he can't have that. Not at breakfast. Not here, like this. Not with Yvette. It would end him. Fork in egg paste, Fork Fork Fork, Egg Egg Egg, Repeat. His once wobbly mountain had turned into yellow smear and he yearned to dip his fingers into the goo and wipe it over his cheeks. He would be the the anointed yolk warrior, champion of breakfast, god of embryos, KING OF TOAST! He eats the decorative sprig of parsley instead of placing it on his head. Its a welcoming mix of heady tang and sickly sweet.

He hates this cafe- this place with its grey carpet and white walls and pictures of spots on the wall that are grey. They remind me him of Yvette, so small, so grey, so boring. The eggs are steaming inside his body like last weeks forgotten garbage. The gas is rising, painting the inside of his throat a putrid green. It makes him gag. He knows the smell in his nose is floor disinfectant but he knows it's not real. The smell lingers anyway, an imaginary shadow reminding him where he is even when his eyes are closed. He hates this place. He hates it even more than he hates himself.


 The walls begin to resemble fluid, small ripples on an unmade mattress, slick wet bedsheets. The kind he used to pull off his bed when he was seven years old and was desperate to hide the evidence from his father. The memory makes him cringe. His stomach feels like rust, there is something crunching on the inside, scraping together like clustered terra cotta pots. The walls are grey. The walls are wet. The walls are bedsheets. The piss covered walls are closing in around his eggs, his plate, his split ended moffet. You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.

He takes a few breaths in. 

He breathes. 

In. 

Then out. 

In, then out. 

The walls recede, slipping back into the solid. The walls never moved. The walls are walls, and nothing more. He catches a glimpse of his smile in his butter knife and wonders why his Nana's wedding china is in his mouth. None of that seemed to matter now, as he realised the waiter had forgotten the mushrooms- and acid and eggs isn't complete without mushrooms.He thought he should write that down, but he didn't.

Etch-a-Sketch

There on the low table, the drawing, you had once done for me. I cease panic and reach for it, curious to why its here, of all places. I know its yours from years away. its done lightly across the surface of the paper, grey dust settled around the edges and in the cracks where you kept it folded in your pocket. Your usual style, there was no indent in the grain, just whisps of soft lead, curling, stretching, threatening to leap from the white in a silver cloud. I told you to use hairspray but you were always too busy washing the stain away. 


Instead, I am careful not to breathe.
She's swimming in the sketch, pursed lips, dreaming like an angel. Chin and cheeks submerged, tentacles of black flowing behind her skull. I thought it was me for a moment, before I realised. It looks so familiar, closed eyes, darkened slits, tranquil lids, floating faces. Is it not me? Looked for your mark in the corner just to make sure and there it was. 
Bunched scribbles, the only hard in a trace of soft, Dog eared and crinkled.


It is not me, after all.

Tectonic (Alternative love letters #2)

Dear....you.

Try not to screw up this this letter. I know you've just realised its my handwriting and already turning the paper into a crumbled hen, some unrelieving stress ball at the doctors office. This letter is not target practice for your trash can. Just read this once before you hold it over a flame.

There are certain tides I cannot resist.

It's those tsumnanis which I stand still for. They encircle my ankles and drag me into the calm of the cold and the arms of the deep. The internal shift that drags one long fingernail down along my spine, lurking as an awkward, pretty shadow. I wrap myself up in it, content with silken promises, curious to weave lies. Even now, after so long, it lingers like an uncomfortable hug and I am unsure whether to let go or press harder.

It's here where I'm free to relish my increasing state of decay and so I do. I become my own turning hourglass of liquid mortality, red mercury floating on the surface. I wake in the morning and my coughs are full of powdered bones... my tectonic plates colliding under the surface. It changes me in ways that scare me, destroy me, excite me. I am willingly suspended in it's silky dark, a salty prisoner pickling in the rapture of misery, immune to the screeches of gulls and the hallowed calls of the outside world.

I'm sorry I did not hear you when you called for me.
As you can see, I was busy.

Of course, like all things, it is only for the now. The worm cannot stay cocooned forever. The floods will eventually recede. The horizon will suck back the blue, and it's this scene of destruction that scares me the most. These moments are the ones that will damage me, and they have. Bloated corpses and broken wood, blue lips with swollen tongues, some deathly landscape I created, to which I think I belong. Your bleached bones have found their way there, nestled between grey foam and the backbones of cuttlefish. I picked the flesh off them myself.

The tides turn, the winds change, and all that's left is my exoskeleton, hanging from the underside of a leaf. A cicada's shell, a snake's skin, some lost keepsake. The water may have skilled fingers, forming my outsides into something more circular, more solid, than a wobbling mass on a turntable -- but you were more than an artist. You could have plucked me from the silky dark. You whispered through the earth and my green coils unfurled through broken clay...you poisoned the unforgiving weeds when they tried to strangle my fragile roots, you tore through the thorns with your boots.

And I was an epic cunt.

Yours in empathy but not in sanity.


.

An Ode to my Cubicle (An Office Haiku)

The grey walls are bleak
They are most suffocating
I cannot see past.

Numerous dog shots
Adorn their hollow outsides
They are so ugly.

I comfort myself
at least there are no pictures
of kids with big grins.

Pieces.

I am always fascinated
by those girls
you know the ones
they wrap their heads in bows
their ribboned crowns
like fruit hampers on
Christmas morning
only to disappoint the men
who open them.

I am always repulsed
by those men
you know the type
who crumble puzzle pieces
a breaded trail, behind them
they are waiting
for someone to pick them up
rather than follow
them back home.

I am always bewildered
by anyone
you know the kind
who are waiting for to strip
back their obvious layers
salty pearls welling up
in the rim of their eyes.

If I wanted to unravel something
I would buy a ball of yarn.

Bedtime Stories.

There is blood on the moon.

My mother told me once

murder would reign 

on the same night

souls would be snatched

by a murder of crows

like ripe grain in the fields

plucked like heavy fruit 

on a mulberry bush

they would leave only a hollowed husk,

a rosy puddle

of the person who stood there.

My father used to swing me 

upside down to bed

It made his eyes crinkle

a paper bag, under foot.

He feels the warmth from the

people before him 

though they have been

cold and buried for years

He always looks concerned

even when he's laughing.

My grandmother is afraid of crows

She tells me they signify 

the sudden and

unexpected death 

of a close family member

should they roost

in the trees of your home.

She likes to wave her hands at them

from her balcony

and curses in another tongue.

She prays a lot.

I wonder

if it would be better

for a long and expected death

to take place instead of the one

the crows bring.

But I realise the long and 
expected death is life

Both will end the same.

Ghost.

Dark thumb prints alternate

down your rib cage as 
engraved shivers,

It's where I held you.

Skin erupting in a web of fingers.
It's where I held you,
outside of myself.

They, they, they
will feel my fingers intertwined

amongst yours.

They, they, they

will brush against my invisible hand

clutching the inside of your arm.

I hold, steadfast

A gypsy curse cast from the runes

of my womb.

This year without your day

It makes me feel sick

I am drowning in the kitchen sink.

Consume and demand.

Let's compare scars

I can pin yours on my lapel for all 
the world to see.

A diamond mine, an empty cart, a finger 
to the spindle.

Sharpened hat-pins and dusty rib-bones,

pockets laden with rocky lead,

Narcissus in the river.

Perhaps we'll peel the skin back

and expose what lies beneath

Ruddy train wrecks

Bloody track marks

A triumph! A glory!

An empty joyless trophy

A toothless hollow smile

An ugly second face.

Paint me on your drapery,

cupped in the cool of a porcelain hand.

A ventriloquist's puppet,

A collapsed flame.

Wooden legs in rubber ribbons.

soft hearts bound with electrical tape,

tapping softly against the drain.

I keep waiting to dissolve.