The gloo, gullet, bottle
Of the bubbling sea
With its waves and the wind spreading out.
The sea - its sparse immensity,
Which rounds the headland heading home,
And hungry - my body,
Which slips into its liquid cool,
With a twisting, turning, arc 'n curve,
As i go under,
Where the white-fibred shadows
Of the cerebral dance of sunlight
Flit the sandy floor,
Where i scrape the barrel of the ocean's bones,
The grit and gravel,
Then the bursting lungs
Falling out on the evening air,
In love,
With the silent walker's seashore path,
The trailing dog, and the city lights.

your hands the trees

and my heart a small bird that sings

high up in the branches, high and sweet,

weaving between your fingers the colours

which turning to leaves you toss

into the air of my more joyful flying,

softly - like when the rain is falling

At this deep pool
Where no light is reflected,
Where small birds come
Clinging to the vine
Amongst fallen logs and silences,
The crush of leaves and the rot of years.

At this dark edge
Where now unassailable trees tower
In a brief clearing,
At this still centre where the wreckage lies
Of river's breach and storm's rage.

Here at the heart.

Where once the workings of long-ago men,
The wild, roaring, toothless ones,
Desperate and dislocated,
Their fierce eyes blazing through dark,
And bodies by day burning through timber,
Cut sunlight in shadow
And nation in nature.

And these men that made the land,
That wove their dreams with dust and dirt,
That needed death to know the flower,
Men of the corrugated country.

Men of bones,
Propped in the rusted windy ruins,
Who watched the movement of the birds
And bartered life with sky and earth.

Men of the drought's bare-cupboard cradle,
Biblical through plague and famine,
Who struck the water in the stone
And fought with flesh to swell the soil.

Time's weathered toys,
Who sought a garden in the sand,
Where the withered streams of the dry season
Flowed with flooding summer rains.

Men of the dark deserted spaces,
That masked their ruined stars with drink,
That fed the shadows with strange desires
And drowned the broken plough with tears.

And the very last, the endling,
Caged in the sunlight at Beaumaris Zoo,
Tired of the poking and the prodding
Paced out of existence into history,
Into emblem and icon
Legend and label,
On to things protected by copyright,
Footage and fable,
And the internet's electric jungle,
And into that great white emptiness
Of extinction,
That giant ship which we are building,
Stacking and storing,
Fitting and filling,
Recording into the grand voyage
Of oblivion.

You cannot touch her,
Tread quietly,
As she overlooks you with her straightened jaw.

Her proud eyes,
Waiting for the moment when your strength gives in,
And opened up,
She plunges into your depths.

Yes - She has seen you before,
As she carries back out of your darkness,
The little light,
And the moisture that was your love.

She laughs,
Dropping them onto the floor, and
With her own,
More delicate hand,
Reframes herself on the wall.

Blessed love of mine,
Blasted is the wind tonight,
Take me, Hold me,
Blessed love of mine,
Tonight.

The half moon, Bright,
Grins malisciously, Ferry me,
Upon an open arm
Into your harbour wide.

Until the storm is over
And calm again this cruel sea,
Blessed love of mine,
Take me, Hold me.

Wash the salt away
Which bites and pierces this ****** wound,
Cleanse the wrecked soul rolling
In the savage swell.

Blessed, Oh blessed tonight,
Blasted is the wind,
Blessed love of mine.

He sits with aging canvas bags
Draped around him on the windy quay
Where blown from busy parks he's come
Sheathed in crumpled rags, in skin
Seasoned by the salt and sun.

An old man by the harbour-side
Mincing bread in callused hands
And casting crumbs
To a congregation of silver gulls
Which parasitic and competitive
Move in a constant emotional state
About his feet.

And he beats a slow sad rhythm as he goes
In tattered shoes
Amongst the city's spirallings,
Between the tidal, restless, to's and fro's.
On habitual, familiar paths,
Which only the vagabonds know,
He steers his ragged ship of bones
And breaks the bow upon the parting throng.

I drive my bus
Full of grotty kids and lunatics
On the bitumen dream
Where middle aged mothers with boxers' eyes
Weep from the sidewalks of toy-trashed suburbs.

Driving my bus,
Through the unfolding flower of dawn
And through the tangled tears of night
Where the boisterous poor
Wilt in their gardens of excess.

Driving them home,
Driving lover to lover,
To their acrobatic fields of fire,
Driving the madman raging in his seat
And the girls with rainbows in their eyes.

Driving
Driving
Into the sorrow beyond the sky
And into the hollows of the lonely hearts
Who linger, speechless, at my ear,
As we drive, and drive.

Where the gutter ghosts rattle their dying coughs
Into the emptiness of night
And the half-cocked girls smoke toughness and cool
And the burning boys
Writhe in the furnace of desire.

The streets are crying in the pools of time
And the dogs are howling in the summers of their heat
While the ladies are waiting at the corners of our youth
With their handbag smiles,
And the faces we will never see again
Go sliding, Go sliding by.

the joyful indolence of a summer's day,
the siesta lull which wakes
to a slow pushbike ride,
or momentary lapses into conversation
under the shade of the banyan tree

Crow - black skyship
Sometimes in groups
Often alone
In the evening

He is dead, and
He used to come and knock at my door
With his shoes undone
His face lit up with a van Gogh grin.
Young artist in the world
Contracting his vision from the noisy space
Of busy, night-lit, city streets,
But he is dead, and
These streets I walk are of a meaner face
Now he is gone.

Gone beneath the brown and barrowed earth
Heaped over him,
Gone beneath the life I've piled
On top of passing life to stop
His sometimes violent memory,
The vivid recollection of moments that
Won't come again,
That haunt the chapels of an aging mind
Which can't escape or span,
Which cannot bridge the water's deep
Disturbing flow.

Yes, you are gone my friend
The choreography of life is lost
Though life rolls on,
No eyes with which to see the world
No voice to fill the world with song,
The sunbeam burst through the sudden shower
Which lights along this city street,
Moves nothing now, moves inland,
Far away from this
Unconscious world.

This is the flower
Which you lay upon,
And this is the vase
Which I put it in,
These are my thoughts for tomorrow,
Here are your clothes,
Take them.

This is the tree
Of the winter leaf,
And this the train
That won't stand still,
These are my fingers bitterly cold,
Here is your heart,
Thankyou.

This is the castle,
And this the rock,
This is the river
That can't be crossed,
This is a jar and there are the tears,
Here is a clock
To count the years.

This is a picture,
And there's the sun,
This is a pillow
To pray upon,
These are the stones that cross the sea,
There is your future,
Leave.

At night the boys go hunting buses,
Tight-lipped eyes
Loaded with anger,
Gun-barrel arms
Tattoed at the shoulder
And quarry-stone cocked in their hands.

The finger-high boys
Of corner-store cool,
Snarling boys,
Drinking the dark and unloved spaces,
The public places,
Where they have ****** both grog and girl.

They've flogged the stolen cars for fun
In third gear up Spit Hill
And disappeared in the Wallaby Grass
As the sirens wail
And the cars burn.

Footpath foul round cul-de-sacs
These branded boys
Have made their name,
And window panes
Have felt their bitter
Forceful curse.

And tonight the boys are hunting buses,
In tobacco-black suburban hollows
They're taking aim
And will sleep
Smiling
Once the **** is made.

Throw your blankets over the past, Summer's gone,
And Winter bites the flesh-buried bones.
Wrap up your heart,
Pack it away in napthalene,
The sun now looks through other windows,
Others will have warmth and company.
Light a candle against the dark,
Set a table for one, the night is yours alone,
To watch the shadows on the farthest wall
And question where, and why, love has gone.

The dream was bigger than both of us could hold.
Sleep now. Let it pass. Move on.

and that one man
blinded
distraught
stuck there in the middle
of that no man's land
that abattoir
that circus
walking round in a ring
and falling down
stumbling round in a ring
and falling down
till somebody
finally
put a bullet through his head

All my words fail, out here on the edge,
In cataracts pronunciations plunge
Onto the rocks of shattered sounds,
The meanings call and drag,
Unable to explain the inexpressible you,
The mental scraps congeal,
The ten thousand half-attempted lines
All erring, marred,
All leaving me here alone again
In the insurmountable anguish of love.

I wanted to believe
There was a river once
In which all hearts were satisfied
And where maybe even we
Could have floated forever
Underneath its cool and liquid stars

But this is not true

Time sends its ripples
Through our tangled hearts
And the night folding over - presses down
And covers up our lives
We have one colonial secret
Which only the vagabonds pass
In whispers
Upon our unknowable paths

We meet again
We part
We meet again
We part
While slowly the chains
Drag in the sea
Of our deep hearts.

We are wild and raw for it
Here, in a blazing land,
Sand-burning beaches,
The low colossal sky,
The slow fading of our evenings into night.

Night, when the lapwing calls the world home again
And out of the bay the white gulls fall
Into the ocean, the sea's crawling surge,
Northwards, by currents temperate
And tropical,
The long winding range
That loses its footing in the coastal flats,
In the desert's vast and undulating stride
We are wild and raw for it.

With a sky so blue that you could fall forever
And falling, never fall so far as into its red heart,
Its pumping core, and the majesty
Of bodies skin-tight, raw and moving
In this distant nether-world.
Where the real world ends, our hearts
Plunge fountain-flow into the dance of dreams,
We hold the dancer close, we spin,
Star-tipped and wild beyond the clasp and call,
Beyond the river's bend,
Beyond the treeless hill,
We are wild and raw for it.

You move everything which
Is most intimate in me,
Without touching,
You hold up candles
But I stumble in their light,
Without thinking,
You cut deep chasms in my mind,
Without knowing, you test me.

And I love to play servant
Under your stubborn gaze,
You trick me then laugh,
But a piece of my heart
Leaps over backwards.
You make me the hero
Which my mind then adores,
You make me strong like the river,
You make me.

Our two minds are touching
Outside of this world,
I have known you completely,
When you were the gold coin
I was its beggar,
When you were the wind......

You move like a panther
Escaped from its cage,
I meet you on corners and freeze,
My mind like a compass
On top of a magnet,
My legs like a tree.

You hollow my eyes
And fill them with wax,
Your wick always burns
But you never go bang,
For me. I wait by your fire
But you never give heat,
I swallow your swords
But you stay in your seat,
I give you flowers
But you want weeds.

I love you.

From the drops of the sun
They made a sphere,
Some imaginary golden globe
Just right for two,
And lay inside the confines
Of its pleasured fields.

All day as if in Eden
All night each other's arms,
Where undisrupted by the ruins of time,
They, vagabonds,
Walked the opened roads of love.

Wealthy with all the world there in their hands
They afforded extravagant prizes upon themselves,
A king and queen
Residing in palaces whose gilded towers
Assaulted the serenity of arching skies.

Time - ah but time - deceived them,
Ticked itself into a thunder
Turned upon their hearts,
Time rambled like a madness inside them.

To and fro along the castle walls,
Unbearably restless, wrapped in herself,
In the thick red knots, the desired desires,
Springtime brought forth blossoming.

So she tore at the seams to get her freedom's worth
Of pleasures picked up in the streets around,
While he sacrificed his agonies, in pubs, on ******,
To the bank and crawl of the surging traffic
Down busy streets, in vagrant alleys
After all night drunks,
He scratched at the diamonds of forgetfulness
In concrete walls.

And she burnt down the bridges which led to her heart
And the great feast lay lonely then,
And the distant road, led by distracted emotions on,
Ran past the door, and the windows stood
Larger than the world,
And the sunlight was conquered
By darkness.

I am caught, crucified,
My hands trembling, extended,
I clasp for these walls.
I have lost faith, in the night,
In the tight embrace of love
My back is broken.
Prepared, for this crooked bed.
Prepared, for the hounding face of time.

He stored it all within his heart
And when he died a tree grew,
Its roots clutched round his gutted carcass,
It was dark limbed and barren in the winter.

But in the summer it bore little fruits
High up amongst the new growth,
And the birds that ate them learned to talk,
And the children that found them, in the tall grass,
Went happy for a while.

She speaks to me
And I let her in,
Silently, we converse,
She dictates, I repeat,
She sets a mood
Which wraps me round in certainty,
United, word for word,
She casts the scene
I place the thought,
She guides my hand
And cleanses it with surety,
Observant of my need
To master her,
She masters me.

We cannot hold,
neither here
or there,
like uncapped perfume
our sweetness will not stay
its bottle long.
Our essence exists
not within this too-easily
seen-through world,
this parlour,
glass fronted,
of small amusements.

An intangible likeness
to the wind which blows
is all our being here.

Time and its torments,
life and lust,
instill in us
both fear and hope,
and perpetuate
this restlessness,
this ever moving on.

The match, once struck,
must burn till gone,
life, like this,
consumes itself,
while the blowing of the end-of
time-like breeze,
enters everywhere
and everything.

The wind is the ghost in the invisible sheet
Which tears these summer leaves apart,
Which pushes the bird into the distant air
Which carries the watching eye away
Down evening's steps, down sunlight's loss
Into blind night, empty, without you,
Where tobacco accompanies these silent thoughts,
These meditations upon solitude,
Which turn in the thickened, smoky room,
Like old mill wheels.

Thoughts of ruined factories
Where the beat and whistle of pigeons' wings
Disturbs the dust where the rye-grass grows.
Thoughts of abandoned country roads
Which shadows lace as darkness falls,
Of a thousand faces come and gone
Down city streets - Thoughts of thoughts
That rattled on the railway memory
Bring the past to present life,
Bring you to me.

You were all the moments of my life's making,
An undertaking to all the mysteries of love,
You held the deep sea's round immensity
Within your heart.
You are this troubled night, this quiet street,
This passage of brilliant memories
Through my mind.
And who would believe?
Like some rare flower
Which all the world is searching for
Who would believe?
That with these hands
You once were held.

He came with wings
And leaned upon your windowsill,
The streets were wide and quiet
And the flowers behind him were blossoming,
For he was turning the earth to Spring that day
And where he went the world was fair.

That delicate youth
Who worked the Winter from the cold house air,
He sat upon your windowsill
And his smiling lips, tinged with sorrow,
Wove you with words a bed of dreams
With silver sheets and golden pillows.

And leaning out to you he beckoned,
Reaching out through your long despair,
'Come!',he said - You clasped those hands
As if to wait might break his being there.

All the windows of your house are closed
And Winter once more is across the land,
Come the Summer I think I will travel south,
I hear they need good workers there.

Nothing can bar it, my love
Like water through rock
Will penetrate.
I will come back like a flood,
Drowning your nights of solitude
With a sailor's embrace,
And a thousand kisses
I will emblazon across your *******.
I will take you anywhere,
Hoisting your legs up over my hips,
The walls of our house will burn
With the friction of us.
A wild beast thirsting to hunt and roam
Through the kingdom of you
Prepare your madness and your laughter too,
Both at once. I want to feel you entire,
For my hands have grown tongues
And are hungry to touch. Yes - prepare yourself
For my love.

Here!
           Now!
                      Burning!
Each touch transfigured,
each taste,
                    sight and smell.
Each moment,
the mind held from breaking,
thought-stopped and empty,
you let the dance begin.

An ember which ignites the feet,
the spark in the *****, the flame,
coiling through your twisting body, grew upward,
reached into space.

Dance!
             You danced,
like the city streets in a thunder storm,
and like the neon freeways ran, forever,
beyond your out-stretched arms.

And, like you
they danced,
the livid trees,
before the descending autumn's red
deflected their hidden rainbow's light.

And, like you
they danced,
the maddened waves,
before the arching of their backs
began the self-destructive plunge.

And, like these,
you danced,
before the footsteps of the world
stepped round you, and
went running on.

two steps to crazy - let the walls come down
and cover me in ruined kisses
the straight-flying bird is dead
and the bruised heart weeps
in quiet gardens

At the tree of silence, In a dark wood,
I had hung my tears,
But the birds of laughter
With their bright eyes
Sang in the branches of my tomorrow,
And the paths grew good
And the sun strong.

From tree to tree those good birds went,
In dawn’s glow and at dusk they gathered
And they sang their most voluptuous songs
Which echo along these paths I wander.

The birds are singing in their tall trees.
Good lord that they could sing forever,
And the sun stay strong, And the times good,
And the roads run forever further from
The dark wood.