lay beside me on
a golden autumn morn,
your hair entangled
in my hair
your  hands entangled
in my hands.

though we never shared a lovers dance
my cheek was home with yours.
though we never  owned a moments grace
our ship may sail its course.

all tomorrows suffer
from beauty's faltered aim
whence we lay betwixt
things without a name.

sing me dearly
sing me sweet
sing me things
to cause retreat
and I will know
that its concrete
when sunlight hits
the street

but do not light a fire
on the face of winter
and do not burn
the masterpiece
or hide the ashes
in your urn

nor cause your hands a moments
idle
or burn your hair upon this old
candle

upon a golden
autumn morn
i watch you wake
with softened sleep,
upon a golden
autumn morn
with hands entangled
in my hair
an hair entangled
in your hands.

Her mouth glittered agape
With sacred promise,
Like a box of unused
Engagement invites
Christening invites
Birthday invites
Still in the wrapper
For sale at a
Lifeline.

When you’d rather live
In a car
Than the zombie stance
Of a modern house,
Clean and soulless
With a hermetically sealed lawn,
Winter pageantry draws to a close
With bogan’s shooting-
Pearly eyed paupers
With constellations in their gaze.
With eyes full of hope and stars
That burnt bright and fade for
Flickering lens light.

Their voices murmur soft
Through catacomb
And underbrush
As only the ephemeral things are whispered of –
Dreams.
The addicts of ideals
The junkies of hope
The drinkers of despair
Have tiger soft tongues.

They lap and feast gladly,
From broken vessels
Chipped with hazardous teeth
That seek to fill their
Ermine mouths with the ******
Draught
Of truth.
Stumbling through wine-hour
They swarm, with tongues ******
And all constellations burnt out.

The hyacinth rides wild
Upon her shoulder,
Writhes in the silver brunt
Of moonlight,
Writhes in the stillness of dead perfume.

Marching to the beat
Of my enemies drum,
My hands inside my pockets.

Little bluebirds spun from dream
Sit on the holy perch,
A branch in all innocent minds.

The redeemed and patient
Make a subtle art from
Long distance perversions.

Similarly as we chase ghosts over Daffodils.

Fields of winter
under lunar glow
sway without us.

Long distance love
lingers with loose lust
along Regret street.

I hung it next to the memory
Of childhood cooking and Indian summers
Without further thought.

It slipped into the novel that took the form
Of an old coat, slipping into the lined pocket
It sank with a sigh.
Satisfied with itself.

Bombarded by the pounding
Dead eyed stare of ***** goddesses,
Broken by the undisputed angelic
And unglued ones,
All moon faced
All hopelessly optimistic
All lawfully rebellious
With green serenity
We pasted our dreams
On a wall so real it shone gossamer.
He counted the imperfections in the glass
With mind hesitation
As the whole world went black,
In a sea of much deserved discontent,
Wishing for the soft.

A moment of pure luck?
Jesus was an astronaut
Smoking Zen by the fire.

Suicidal angst
never had you in sonnets?
What a ******' shame.

Our life is but a song
We never hear.

I chipped away at the excesses
of my baroque person,
each strike took a
Railing
mounting
wall
decoration
desire
demand
exclamation
from the battlements.
All left now, a hill.

I paid for my banquet
with a sip of loneliness
and left behind the question
that asked all quiet poets
the meaning of love,
that asked all quiet poets
to answer with a villanelle
shouted from every
distant peak.

They sent the troopers
to greet me instead,
and my library was put in shackles,
and I kissed their ***** feet.

I answered that I carved this mountain
from the baroque bedrock
upon which they laid their city.
They smiled and asked about the aqueducts.
I wept and spoke of kitchenettes.

A meal provided
on a lead cast plate
my jailor asked about freedom
I answered with defeat.

There were two atoms
One questioned the meaning of existence
The other the existence of meaning.
             -Regardless they looked the same.

An apple on a branch,I took
The same way history takes a footnote.

The same way cashiers are all doctorates.
The same way trains find the station.
The same way you sing like a bird (and I like a cow).
The same way we never really wish to be writers.
The same way our final friend is made of pine.
The same way all streets lead to nowhere.
The same way all jobs **** society.
The same way we always lie to our children.
The same way a man loves a woman.
The opposite way we ****.
The opposite way we make love.
The way that I know a man who’s totem animal is a worker ant and he is unemployed by choice.
The same way we take old memories and turn them into fashion.
The very same way all sacred things become profane and all profanity becomes sacred in the eyes of many.

Dying relic of the Optimistic Seventies,
A new coat of paint for the old irony
     -slap dashed with obscurity.
Although I wear the costume of my enemy,
I will write the exaltation in blue smoke
As **** by an unsuspecting victim
Occurs in the dark.

The face of another love stares down at me.
I smile.
Yet I know it is not her.
I weep.
A sudden method sparks revival.

Jackie Pleasure wore a gray smile,
The anthem of a lost generation:
‘Happiness is lost in smiling.’

You are dead to me,
the boatman calls
I will not taste of your amber lips
I will not taste.

The welfare of all never hinged on darkness as we fear the fall,
A multitude of angels sang their songs
And never learnt to say goodbye
Or cast a long distance eye
Over half spent desire.

Drawn out caricatures,
Paraded intoxication
Flirt with our mistress death
And have her pick up the tab.
She pays with silent music.

The ***, we learn, is a bridge
Between all words and waltz’s,
Our Light Brigade to conquer art.

In the twilight of this, our mansioned night
Let us ring out true with indulgence,
Excess, abandon and the call of ‘yes’
Kali rang on the wire of a golden telephone.
Her name
“Kali, Kali…”
Like a quarrelsome minotaur
Flew through the waves of silk ideal
And strangled the babe
With cool breath.

There was ice (oh yes!) and fire and song.
With our candles burnt down to the ash of all streets
We walk then. We walk.
All life is but a song.

The ghosts of all forgotten stamps
Now echo on the wind of speech.
On High! Oh speak!
Of songs sung but never danced
With our broken dream.
When starlight meets the dust, and
Shadow eats the snow,
All our stories are satin sheer
And all our wants are gone.
We watch the memories march, until
They find a sliver of chrome that showed that place
Where all piano’s live and breathe.
My father in the wishing well,
My mother played trapeze.
My sister never saw the light,
My brother never born.
That was that,
Where stars meet dust
And floorboards sing off key.

I see all the pale faced hipsters
Staring through windows losing hours
And days
And evenings
And memories
In this unlived time of ****** incarnate.

Suffering cotton mendacity of the soul
Cursing the wind coiled clouds
Rushing past
Missing their own minds
Losing their own souls
Inch by torrid inch
And gracing us all with their plastic complexions
And soft minded delusions
Mincing words with fashion
On paper from a burnt out Bible

I see all the pale faced hipsters;
They see the mirror reflecting hollow.
Chosen by the inky hands of
Moses
Allah
Elvis
God.

But not Jesus.
He's too real for these cats.

I traced a map across your senses
penned a sonnet in flesh
Under setting noon day sun.

The scent of forgotten nostalgia;
A tinge on the breeze
A speckle on a stone
A whisper through the city
Where we no longer roam.

And auburn locks
In golden light
Brought music
to the dead silent night.

At the old hotel
the one by the wharf
with the peeling paint
(those clapboard memories
that linger as summer does)
we traveled to exotic lands
foreign for these travelers.

Our fingers were the compass that led the way
for two fugitives sailing silken waves.

Your hair was morphine
in the sweetest way,
Your lips were like ice
on a hot summer day.

We never questioned the reasons why
the afternoon crumbled us into dust.
Yet I recall the handful you took from me,
and you recall the teaspoon I took from you.

On the pier I was cast to the wind,
and on the shore I let my passion burn you
into a diamond.

Goodbye.

Beauty wears the cold breath of death
the way a ******* wears a smile.

Is this casual brutality a sign of the times?
Or have you watched the news in the last
24 hours?

The mirror sung a thousand prayers
to the God; now felt forsaken
with 31 flavours to his love.

They pierced your body
with their spears of love
and hung you up by the hair
to dry.

You recite your green finch song
to the deafness of those above,
and they still hold
your lace burdened hand
to quiet your sorrowful heart.

Lay your head upon the pillow
as tiredness takes us both
as the morning rears its ugly head
and the day becomes yours again.

Then raise your golden brow
to the freedom of Night Angels
who know your secret kiss
where all desires roam amiss,
watch yourself seek for home
in the city's barrio's and filth
down *** sodden alleys
where happiness
is spilled.

The Centurions of hunger
who's empty bellies predict
this shift of power.

By these shadows of delight
you don the mantle of delirium
It stretches down
to your wrists
and grows taut by this slip of Fate
your barrier of Morpheus
a tattoo by Bacchus
a scar tissue kiss of Eros.

Your beauty burned like an ember
that puckered my skin
My love wrote a sonnet
in invisible ink.

"Goodbye"
a silver bullet
that is tasteless
unlike your kisses.

And your finger slipped upon the trigger.

Cross me now roombound
over the threshold.
Cross me now hellbound
over the bed.
Burn me now everbound
to your silken touch.

Bind me to the sensation
of skin upon skin.
Hang me from the rafters
of desire within lust.
Tie me to the taste
of mouth upon mouth.

As we flow as tides do
that endless ebbing and rolling;
With moon-tormented need
the waves make love to the moon
and the moon ***** back.

Hold me now with the grip
of your sinewy arms.
Taste me now with the whiplash
from tongue to flesh.
Hurt me now with the kiss
of your desire and mine.

Is it your blood
that crawls with art?
A bold union
that cries when the distant
sounds of Bach wisp from there.

I wonder if you were called
by the sudden beeping that
resembles the stain
on a rusty coin from a long buried culture.
America perhaps, but also Caesar.

All the while, we weary wounded
stumbled through charisma and over altars
pristine in silk and lace;
the holy plateau where snow falls only;
amidst this shipwrecked coast.

And above us all
waving and trembling.
And below us all
stains upon the snow
as charmed blood ran deep
to the ghettos of art and science,
collected in this Hermetic vessel
sealed but for a hole
where beauty alone caused tremors
to rage and spark in fires.

And you alone, bound by blood
saw through the night,
through the forest of dreams
to the stars.
Not being burnt by their light
was your cause; bound by blood.

This morning is a picture postcard of our first ****.
Sweaty and enclosed
a symbolic fan dawdles slowly
over our youthful bodies;
Velvet with electricity.

I can still feel the starch strength of your hair,
read the invitation on your lips
(the only novel written solely for me)
and ignore the gooseflesh as I recall the magic of
your perfume from the deepest, darkest past.

Your mystery was forged out of the shade
which followed early mornings,
cool like gold covered ice,
sometimes we drank the Sun's wine
from the Sun's cups
and your ******* were bared to the sleeping city
pale and luminous as two alien moons
while overhead the early birds sang their song.

Now you live in the future,
as so many others do,
and I am left here;
with a faded blue rose
who's perfume has fled and now smells of old velvet.

The silent street erupted around me the moment I sat down,
a thunder rumbles in the distance
but only reveals a passing truck.

The white swan drifts past
without elegance.

I watch the youths drive by on fish lane
as the silent score of stoplights
play to an impersonal audience-
tonight the pizzicato is on time.

----

The air is dense with quiet conversation
of nighthawks
and the splash  of luck
on a steel  tray.

Elegant servants of style remove the unwanted things.

12:30
The air has cleared,
alone again
with two fat asians.

When did boring become stylish?

GET ME OUT  OF HERE!!

"It is truly a free nation that offers pancakes 24/7"

----

Normally, the solitude of wandering a sleeping city would elicit poetry.
Tonight only nothing comes out.

Not the people nor the smells or secret music. Only the flicker  of a dying neon sun assuring me,
that the parking is open.

----

1:00 am.

A woman in a pink burkha enters a white car, only to be driven off into the night, followed by two taxis.

There are ancient trees twisting their tops through the modern facade. For eras, much like fashion are discarded by finicky time.

They have stood as silent sentinels for longer than I have breathed, and with any hope, they will stand as soldiers long after I  come to pass. These reminders of the ravages of time.

I loved a girl who lived  here once.
She lived in an apartment that overlooked the city
and had  ******* like two soft moons
that tasted like honey.

1:40 am.

Other nighthawks wander as wastrels through the quiet Autumn night,
with a slow, soft  gait one never see's in the rush of day.
If all evenings carried a beat, it would be thus:
a slow jazz drum.

"...psssssh-bop! pssssh-bop! pssssh-bop!...."
would sound the echo of every evening heart
throbbing slow with power.
"...psssssh-bop! pssssh-bop!..."

The car's carry  white  blood cells to  the  suburban arteries.
Taxi's are cancer.

I walk
northbound.

----

Cold beer at 2am.

Faintly lit menagerie
an open cage containing
nighthawks.

Well spoken Eastern girls
corporate white boys
two old tradesmen,
one on a smartphone with a rosary around his soft large neck.
The antique street curves away toward the river,
sloping up
then down
I follow it with my eyes.


And run them back
to the fairylights.
They hang like glowworms
or constellations.

Glowworms hang like constellations, the inside of their cave  is the same fleeting feeling of being alone with the universe, it being caressed by your eyes.
For you are its lover and its mirror.
Inside the glowworm cave, I felt like the universe and everything reflected  itself in miniature. That to look upon their hanging, blue stars you saw everything else.

Treasury  Casino - 2:30 am

From my seat in the smokers section
I can see the Brisbane eye,
the river,
and the  performing arts center.
Streetlights  are mans answer  to the cosmos

"Everything you can do,
I can make better."

Once it was said that we were made in God's image.
Now we can safely say that God was  made in our image.

I am in a quiet place of the universe, the night stretches on
visible through the stately
wonderous
walls
carved of old wood  and sandstone.

I am in a suede armchair, winged for pleasure.
The ceiling in this room is twice as high as an ordinary room.
Circular steel ***** hang down like a path of bubbles
left  by a leviathan.

My water was poured  with panache.

Let me set  the scene for you:
I'm in the  Treasury Casino, this building was once the QLD state treasury, it never changed really.
Sitting next to  window that overlooks the river, a glass of water sits to my left. The room is the size of a double garage, maybe bigger. The floor and ceilings are made of old wood, the walls are decorated with a transparent gray fabric that remindsme of smoke. An old marble fireplace sits in a wall studded with tiny lights that resemble stars or candles. Above me is a series of hanging circular light fixtures that resemble a trail of bubbles left by a leviathan.

This room was designed for,  and houses opulence.  
The TV plays Eminem.

Peter Garrett dances like a Parkinson's sufferer.
And looks like Disco-Nosferatu.

We have  killed the night
and neon power
and infomercials
**** the romance
once held
by late night solitude.

Treasury Casino, 3:03 am. Monday morning.

Casino bars shut at  3:00 am in QLD.


I missed a place to sleep by 9 minutes.
My timing is impeccable.

2 hours to **** until the last train home.

An older man in a slate suit enters stage right.
Crosses.
Disappears.
Reenters stage left with  brass buttons
lit up like embers.

The 9 network wants me to buy
stonedine frying pans.
And warns me about harmful gasses that have killed household budgies.

I wish I was more interesting.

You havent lived
until you've seen a man blow a pancake
off a frying pan.
Onto a plate.

----

3:12 am.

Late night bar personnel work in silence
cleaning beer nozzles and coffee machines.
They wander in and out of the scene under sophisticated lighting.

I wonder what to do about you, and what I'm feeling.
What our  hold on each other is and when (if) the sword of Damocles will fall.
Is this truly tragedy to which we are destined?
I shudder to think.
And for this am I classed by the title
"coward"
or
"lover"?

----

3:20 am - Existentialism strikes a vicious blow. No coup de grace.

The blackjack dealer on the $15  table has a gorgeous face that makes me wonder how her body feels on a post ****** morning. Satisfied and relaxed, taut through anticipation of further pleasure?
Straight raven tresses frame a heart shaped face that peers over the ridge of a white collared shirt, sprouting from beneath a black vest, tight at the elbows.
She deals with deft machine-gun efficiency. Not all bullets hit their mark here.

Her back curves with natural elegance down to a tight, young ***. The shape of  it magnified by the black business pants writes itself as a factory on my mind. Light hands would fit well there, one on each cheek, her mouth open seductively, trading  tastes and sensations.

There is a dying rose in my lapel.
It's sad.
I contemplate leaving it somewhere poetic but  cant think of a place.
The thorns are still sharp.

----

3:45 am

The only place where time is invincible
is a place  where it is hidden.
Casino's are such a place.
Here time cannot be killed.
Yet I have smuggled it in.

4:11 am - The nighthawks are starting to resemble pigeons.

Train station is deserted.
An employee checks the bins as the tunnel fills  with the ringing of a distant bell, heralding the arrival of the morning train.
42  minutes till my train.

I can smell the acrid fumes of the Ferny Grove train.
The behemoth pulls away-
empty.

At least I'm not existential anymore.

There is an installation of a coffin made from old bits of railroad,
"Not everyone makes it across the tracks"
This reminder of mortality is strangely fitting in a place of transit.
The true face of memento mori is  shown.
Remember that you too will die, and everything will come to pass.

It's times like this that make me wish 'The Sound of Silence" was never written.
For its perfection in this moment comes as a burst of pure divine bliss.
The kind you wish would never fade away. But inevitably does.
And all we are left with is a memory of that bliss,
everytime we hear the song (after the first time).
As if we are recalling the curves of an old lover from the shadow of yesterdays gone.
Dancing beneath our fingertips, always out of reach.

Memory is never as divine as the moment that burnt it in.

----

4:29 am - It was ephemeral.

The trainyard announcer has a cultured voice.

----

4:41 am - I fear the muse has left me, beauty fled.

DEAR GOD - PLEASE LET THERE BE A CAB AT THE STATION FOR ME.

Selection 11 gave me the water i desired.
11 minutes till the train.
D.O.B. 11/2
Aquarius,  11th  sign of the Zodiac.

Will I see the dawn rise from the train?
There is no light at the end of the tunnel from where I sit.

Inexplicably: I recall the cool river air that bathed us as we lay naked in your apartment,
the smell of cigarettes on our skin, the evening peppered with
scurrying, fighting possums
that danced upon your balcony.
I recall being inside you.

(Then I imagined you being eaten out
by a woman
her lips inside yours,
her curled tongue
inside your hot, bald
golden ****.)

And I came.
Warm and glorious
my children of pleasure
caught in a latex coffin.
Your heaves of pleasure pushing against my chest
with the rhythm of waves.

----

4:46 am - On the train.

Fluorescent lighting is the devil.
Everything is garish yellow.

We  pull up to the station near where you lived.

Your blue  rose lives in a Chinese vase
and no longer smells
of Marlene Dietrich.

5:00 am - Happy New Year!

I look like I should be a musician not a poet.

"It's so easy being a poet
so hard being a man"
      - Charles Bukowski

----

5:14 am - Passing Rocklea, no sign of the dawn.

Coopers Plains station.
3 people get on.

Florescent lights cast a spell of sleep.
I wish I could sleep right now.
Eyelids droop like sad flowers  from a convenience store.
I write metaphors like a drunken amateur.

Trinder park - Sounds like a bad neighbourhood.
**** ME ITS WOODRIDGE.

Where even the McDonalds sign is ******.

XxXxxxxxx, Xxxxxx Xxxxxx :
She could be fun. So tight, she sometimes felt  illegal.
Tight and bald. I would slide up to the *****.
She loved it rough,
golden hair wrapped around my fingers
as she was pushed into the pillow.
She was loud in the mornings.
I could feel her tight ***
grinding against my thighs
as I ****** her harder  and harder.
Until I came :
either inside her.
Or on her chest.
Or in her
prim
pink
suburban mouth.
Tightening my grip on her hair as the hot ***** spurted against the back of  her throat.
The head of my ****, throbbing as she  gulped it down with silent satisfaction.
That only happened twice though.

----

5:37 am - The Dawn begins to rise over the Suburban Nation.

Final remnants of night
twinkle like stars
against the silhouette
of society.
House lights
Street lights
(and the omnipresent)
fluorescent light.

Beenleigh station - A pinch faced older woman gets on.
Business suit, lunch box.
Short hair, glasses.
Her earrings are imitation mother of pearl
(step-mother of pearl?)
She  sits next to a window covered in graffiti.
Prim, tight  mouth
incarnadine lipstick.

Over in the distance a smokestack cuts through the sky above the horizon.
Trees do mask the sun and sky.

"Hippies; they spend their whole life trying  to get to a microphone and when they do, they don't tell anyone  to *******." - The Wolfman.

----

5:52 am - One more stop.

The clouds  are the colour of smoke against the pearl blue sky.

----

6:00 am - Arrival.

Clouds are tinged with fire and blood
incandescently.
You can watch it spread and grow
with intensity.

Taxi driver  was  a foul mouthed Indian.

We are the eternal marriage
Of blood and mind.
The saints in their rapture
Ne'er held eyes as sweet
Nor hands that unearthed a homecoming.

But I, lost among the found
Stranger in A strange land
Have but the dawn to spin for your veil
And each star forged in the host of man,
Will take your cheek only to gift a kiss
Upon your lips.

With surf stained sigh
These are the dreams
In which I sink
And tomorrow you will think of me,
And tomorrow you will think of me

As I remember
These leprous hands
Which once danced in
Carfuné
Betraying a dream.

We pass neath the arms of shadow,
and autumns gaze turned away.
With the air filled thick a promise of winter
Layed true by the albino commissaries
that float listless abroad.
Ranks in gray/blue/white.

Slow through pass they are revealed!
Marched immeasurable in form-
By pearly hand of Christmas Kings.

Whilst low round the cavern pass
Forked lightning roared all round us!
Forked lightning soared all round us!
Under heat of wastrel march.

And we all flashed out blackened blades!
flanked by ancient everglades!
Defeat! Defeat all cold and shade!
Slit and slash their marching grade!
Impossible was their victory made!

Soon we sprouted victory wreaths,
Of strange and seeming wonderwood.
For silence hath taken
winters pearly rings.
And death hath taken
their princely king.

Dance me to the end
with your beauty
in each hand

Dance me, lover
Dance me.

through the shades of beer
and the nights we missed
let me hold you tight
and baptise with a kiss.

I will take my body
I will put it on trial.
for a moment of your cruelty
in the summer of your smile.

Dance me, lover,
Dance me.

Dance me to the end
with your beauty
in each hand
to the pyre of your love
in the summer of your smile.

Dawn is locked in pastel reverie. A witness to the slow, fleeting genocide of stars as they are burned out one by one. The morning expands suddenly over the course of dawns gauntlet. The traffic and life of all men begins to trickle in time as the heavens die. The waltz of civilisation and Progress has entered its overture. Let us pray the dancers knows the steps. The jazz of night-time has left, only the instruments remain, frozen in morning dew.


Dawn licks up her pastels in a binge that leaves the day a clean blue plate. The scents of jasmine and wet asphalt greet this day; it is the stench of midnight mystery dying in the sun.


Poets have words for this condition; we have written about maladies for centuries.

The suicidal optimist with his noisesome breath
watches the moon for shooting stars.

He talks a lot about it;
but everyone's seen Christ in the clouds.

Picks his way to an early death
with romantic subtitles
and a continental breakfast.

He halts his noisesome breath
and checks for excitement -

"Darling..." he whispers
"I must have you."

Your sob was like a thunderclap

Your sob was like a thunderclap
in the deep and ancient night.

And the stars did sigh
For servitude
in the deep and ancient night.

Clearing his head
whilst muddying the meter
He realises :

Jesus was an astronaut
Smoking zen by the fire.

And everything makes sense
in an unexpected moment
That he thought
would never come

And all our yesterday's lighted fools
the way to dusty death.

Another cigarette,
Another glass
another night alone.
More memories to fuel the fire
one more sin to atone.

The waitress smiles with sharp delight
As she braves the plastic night,
the workers work,the talkers talk,
the dead lie quiet in peace.
I question where I went wrong,
Did I play the part too real?
And if this is was the very case
did I make the audience feel?

But none of this, in any case
can recall that final kiss,
the way you melted with a sigh
and caused the sheets to hiss.

Maybe one more glass will ease the end
of questions such as this.

Early mornings
With us wrapped
In the wings of our sweat
Ignoring the muted call of birds
And the bright,
Screaming
Sun.

I pull you close,
Lose my fingers
In the passion
Of alligator eyes-
The cheese sharp
Scent of your ****
Closed it's noose.

And I found myself upon the floor craving a halo.
But the saints are dead, and bleed like violins.

The unmistakable relief
Of your curves
Are distant now;
Where once we stalked the city's
Whispering night;
Now we entertain widows
Full of secrets.

Only distant eiderdown
Holds our halo
Holds our breath
And monochrome death
In relief of
early mornings

I coiled around  your coast
and gazed at the foreign shore.
The breakers, they did break
and the sirens they did call
to the clipper upon that fallen, foreign shore.

Were we sailors then, you and i?
Or were we shipwrecked?
I think we were shipwrecked.
The mast lay rotting in the waves.
Rope and sail- strewn as a discarded scalp
Upon that foreign shore.

I know the day of leave,
As i know that sirens call.
And I felt the breakers
and the hidden stones that rose as black teeth round your coast.
The wind pulled forth and we did nought to stop the pull.
And crashed upon your fallen shore.

Now we are castaways;
outcasts upon this isle.
Now we are foreigners
on this foreign shore.

Would that I could
paint the world as poetry,
to waltz each sunset in time with love
this would be my gift to you.

But since I cannot
I shall pluck each ogre hair
that grows upon your conscience
and with that weave a silken tie
the colour of unveiled mystery
the texture of unfallen tears.
And this will become my proud plumage.

Before we search for adventure
in the folds of all flesh, remember
the stars that you stole for your eyes.
And I will remember
that the world is poetry
and sunsets do not waltz in time with love.

I felt you kiss the edges
of my gypsy soul last night.
You laid aside my armour
So rusty, yet so bright.

All the poets in all the bars
hung by Morganna's violet hair
casting ideals towards the stars
wept when they landed elswhere.

I let you take the diamond
from between my broken teeth;
and laid the hunter to rest
tonight never to repeat.

Our bodies told a story
full of puns and lifeless caricatures,
for the people we once were
that lived within this parchment
of our long forgotten dreams.

Airplane coffee
tastes the way we think
hospitals smell.

Single reading light
will not help any of us
with inspiration.

Red Curtain hiding
the captain from the peasants;
he has control.

The blinking light
glows like a fire fly does -
Where the **** are we?

White walls like sea shells
so high but I cannot smoke,
lets hope we dont crash.

Big man with tattoos,
I make a bet with myself:
I think he's a ***.

The window open
No stars and I cant see ****,
should've flown ******.
(they have music)

Pale legs spread open
I feel the hunger rising
nom nom nom....nom nom.

I wish I could smoke
**** coffee not worth 3 bucks,
I wish I could smoke.

Man asleep near me
I can see up his nostrils,
I want to poke him.

Beeping wakes the man
long fingers open bottle
pops importalt pill.

Bored beyond belief
how long till we hit Melbourne?
Better Keep writing.

Big man with tattoos,
shaved head with eyes like satan
carries sequined coin purse.

Thousands of feet up
getting the hang of haiku;
we're about to land.

I scoured countless streets
For an exorcist to rid me
Of your ghost.

The neon charlatans
Shapeshifted through
The spicy summer sweat
In forms of wasted witchery
And white hot shots of snake oil.

Each a silver bullet,
Swarming upon me as vultures
To peck the stains of yesteryear
That lingers like the promise
Of cool autumn air.

And now that all evenings have shrunk,
And all shameful charlatans revealed,
I find myself once again
Dancing with your ghost;
A man haunted.

Take the key and twist the lock,
Cross the threshold down into
The Hotel of Hearts.

Look inside the vernacular mini-bar
Sample its delights in pearl strewn luxury
As you lie on a soft bed of nails in
The Hotel of Hearts.

Cover you with diamonds.
Mount you in ebony.
Feed your ego on servings served on
plates of ivory at
The Hotel of Hearts.

Draw the alligator-eyed blind down.
Hide your eyes from the ugly outside world,
The true outside world, kept hidden by the
Hotel of Hearts.

Man so naked under that shirt;
Silk now covering crystal mirrors
Barring their faces from truth and lies
Embracing those who stay at the
Hotel of Hearts.

Pay your bill with a view of your soul.
The clerk smiles petal-soft
Your bags are kept as you leave
The Hotel of Hearts.

Through the nights
of alchemy
and the religion
of your touch
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

Through the eyes of those who seek
for fame or infamy
that climb the ladder
for trust and security
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

Through the rustling of leaves
that heralds your approach
and the sun that turns
its gold to the storm
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

Through the haze of city lights
that silence the moon and stars
and the sleep of the streets
abandoned by foot and car
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

Through the vast abandon
of the pleasure dens and bars
that sell relief and ecstacy
to the dusted and the ******
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

Through the *** of angels
that call forgiveness after saints
Through the empty street
which shares your name
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

Through the passing of time
to the breadth of now,
and the passing of the babe
from mother to sow
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

Through the sacred and profane
and the knife of your beauty
upon this honest name
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

Through the slavery of man
and the freedom of nations
I found myself perverted
I found myself free.

I found myself.

In the summer
we will walk
the narrow
antique
streets.

The city sound
with midnight jazz
stolen and soft,
like the wind.
Cool and soft
as the wind,
wrapped its arms around us
the way I wrapped mine
around you.

In the summer
down the narrow
antique
streets.

Stone fingers clasp the clay
The mind is weak,
The heart is cold.
Ice to the unknown neighbour
Broken and reborn
As a phoenix
With cute desire
As stone fingers clasp the clay
That creates new worlds
New identities
New beings
New desires
New babes.

Clasping their Jocasta heartbeats
Holding it tight
As another pale dawn covers
The empty cobbles
Of this home
And you face the new day.

The winter here is proper,
not like the weak attempts
of childhood.

I put on one of my father's old records,
and sinkdrown
into the swirl
of old memories -
the scent of oil and wood
his workshop
the musicdrone of cicada's
(that signaled the arrival of hot summer sweat and slick)
the scent of musk mixed with coffee grinds
and bodyperfume made sick with wine.

Old roofs
in the distance -
redwashed and orange
by the blood of a dying sun,
trickle blue smoke
from the mouth of an ancient-
         Baal of cold nights
         Suburban Moloch.

Hands are turned palecold.
Dove's once ,
dexterous fish now -
white and roasting
on the hot whisper
from a cup of coffee,
sometimes they
(mechanically or artfully)
invoke the means
to my own blue trickle.

A time machine
to that junkyard of stolen moments
we christen "memory".

Yet the sun still bleeds
and the sky is cauterised
by it's sacrifice.

Your tenderness spread from the flesh of bitter fruit;
it razed the ground it was born of.
It is the beating of a wardrum and the shadow of death.

And I found myself at the end of a rope
without the aid of drink or dope.
In my hand I held a note:
A confession without a sound
brought me to my knees.

When the day is too hot for coffee
you find the fog wont lift without it.
I am there, groping at the Thames
Without your hand there to guide me.

Her fingers carved a melody
Wrenching it free from the depths of pain,
and the bottom of white horse hooves
sank beneath the waves.

Whilst Lady Godiva sat by the window
and gazed out a heartfelt glance
at the children in the gutterand clothed her naked villainy
In silk and ermine fur.

And under the weeping tree we left each other letters
that cast aside the discarded uniforms of youth.

Strumming like a metronome
the feeling sinks like yesterday -
or Tuesday
maybe even Sunday.

It's all the same.

The days end in Y
and God still sits on the *******
reading Newsweek.

If he runs out of paper,
I pity the Watchtower.
It might come out with
post traumatic stress disorder.

Self awareness is the currency here
but all the mirrors are smashed,
or covered in grime.

The question remains;
When you're not sophisticated enough for here
and too sophisticated for there,
Where do you go?

I love the security
of the way we drink tonight.
I love the ambiguity
of the way we say hello
and the manner in which your taste
like the first drop of wine
sets my standard on broken edge
and my teeth are praying.

The roses in your eyes
the truth in your lies
come from the same place.
Lets just hope you know this
the way I do.

I wonder where the local rock stars
get their rhythm,
if they didnt pay for it
they surely stole it
from Bob, Simon and the rest.

Never trust a man who doesnt drink,
when he ***** a guitar into song.

You can hear it moan and crackle
as its heart seems to crumble
there in his sober hands.

If only I knew what he meant
by this adultery
he might make a dollar out of me.
But since he coats himself in mystery
a poor man pays not a cent
for a taste of his $2 life.

The Big Bopper got *****
by the ghost of Heath Ledger.
Somehow I think it made him smile.

I'm Not surprised;
all shock has worn off in subtlety.

She is silver-nitrate and coal.
An Egon Schiele painting
stretched on dream
and sullen sparking glances
tipped in gold.

It is starlight, burnt through a velvet field
that chains me here.
It is honey and hot wine
that haunts my sleep,
by the onomatopoeia
of obsession.

With a lunar caustic kiss
she hexed me.
Woven in her six-sided circle
those rubies in the
hollow of her neck
and fingers that shimmer
like ice.

The Sphinx of Eros.

That heathen curl.
Smoke to hide the ivory!
Spoke to lock the memory!
Caught in click clack shutters
by the silver foaming pond.
Froth from the chambers of
ebony rough hewn hearts.

O starlight!
That raptures me hungry
for bloodsoaked lips
red as fury!

And I sang;
O lord & commoner, I sang!
To the weepings of a sombre, sudden,
stinging violin,
in empty vinyl crackle
from music soaked in paint,
with a voice
like burning velvet.

All surrounded by
chatter the likes
we have never seen.
A lone tree spreads its beams
up to the sky
in front of an antique memory;
shaping a factory.

I cast a question to a fake fire
that glitters and moves
with the unearthly heat
of an old lover
known in my teenage years.

I wonder where you are
and why we sit apart,
when the moon is a trumpeteer
and the sun is a herald.

And here,
In a small corner of a small place,
in the world, a small man
sings about love.

While a ballroom somewhere
in a nameless Metropolis
holds a God that prays
about money.

I wonder where you sit,
in the shade of broken plaster
spilling out soft Celtic rhyme
in the hands of Johnny Cash
and Jimmy Dean in miniature.

As a slow breeze comes,
a soft kiss runs
all for a lonely girl
with hands all curled
around directionless oars.

Their sky held by a trace
scented like a relic.

And somewhere in a furnace
the rest of us sit.
Somewhere in the middle
of Juxtapose street.

the hour reads
a mirror glance,
advertisements come
with no ones wish

i light another  cigarette
and
flex my ******* finger
whilst snoring sounds
like gravel mating
come from
the other room

the hour reads,
a mirror glance
no longer
12:22

She wore mountains round her neck

           (“No, lower.”)

Peaked with scented minarets

           (Softer and sweeter than strawberries,
           grander than a psalm.)

In the gulch between words
I offered you a prayer
and you wounded me with a poem.

I watched you  move
like a summer night
to disrobe the cover
of your collected works
           -a landscape of fire and blood
            that beats a wardrum
            deep in my hungry river.

Your petals pressed against my lips
           to drown , to drown
                      gladly.

She wore mountains round her neck,
and I wore her ankles with a smile.

Lay with me, darling
Within the New York summer
And hand me softly, a Gershwin kiss
Under celluloid sky.

We will dance, you and I
Beneath the bridges of central park
And we will sense
The Broadway skyline.

Frames pass by unseen
With imagination and ideal
Burnt into their core, as
The music of a thousand orchestras
Start our fandango
As we fall in love
With the freedom of tomorrow.

Time and the sea stripped gold from his face.
Caesar lay in ruins on a burning velvet bed
round him danced the debutantes and believers.
His sullen chamber lit by his burning velvet bed.

Through his window, mottled amber and blue
passed as shades long lost. All that remained
of Caesar, as gold was stripped from his face
now framed by a brilliant half moon;
A memory sent foreign on bitter tides.

It hurts me to think
of those restless nights
when I sat on your lap,
a pen in my heart;
a dove caught between my teeth.

I spilt ink upon  your night dress.
It shone silver with candlelight
and I was reminded of the mysteries
that spun starlight into constellations.

But then I remember;
the way you stroked my hair
and I remembered
the tobacco stains on your lips.
And it took the hurt away.

Without your sun, there would not be tomorrow,
(By)
and there would not be a spring for our hearts.
(little)

Our time will not surrender,
(streams)
understand we are so close.
(we lay.)

Without your sun there would not be tomorrow,
(Your)
and there would not be winter for your heart.
(tiny,)

Our time has now surrendered
(white)
to your cold heart.
(fingers curled)

For once we were laden with love;
(around)
cherubs and devils called to us then,
(grasses)

And we did not dare to heed their stings, nor did they dare to
(and we)
hide their wings.
(did not fear)

Without your sun there would not be tomorrow
(the)
and there would not be a grave for our love.
(way we)

And yet your moon still burns bright
(would)
in this cold night.
(ever end.)

Come now as the Spring Breeze
Kisses our pale flesh
As we lie post union.

Feel the moment
Feel the ship of time
Watch as it crawls forth
From passions depth less harbor.

Raise your head to the light
My night child
My pretty
My darling
My sweet

As cool spring breezes
Brush over us with their lips
Golden and bright
In the afternoon sun.

In the golden, afternoon sun.

Lay here a while
Rest.

Feel it now
Feel it soft
Feel it blow over our embrace
Whilst soft toned breezes
Stretch the time we hold
In the palms of our baby-skinned hands.

Hush my love
Hush your heart
Stay a moment
Feel those cool kisses
Planted fleetingly on the naked canvas
Of skin
As these tides ebb and flow
In time with our blisses.

Touch it now
Softly glancing
As our hair is sent
Rippling
Like tides on the cool ocean shore
Of time-pregnant moments.

Impregnate out skin
On every lazy Sunday
Since the shared time began
Between Cupid and Psyche
And the coals of Hades
Cool softly
In the spring breeze.

Lay here a moment.
Rest.

Lay here with me.

We graced the morning
after wandering
one way antique streets
your pain and comfort found themselves
unwrapped from all deceit.

All you were and all you are
From your head down to your feet
called to me through rising dawn
stung with personal defeat.
And I wished that you would smile,
I prayed that you would laugh
sans misery or grief,
The way you did as we once wandered
antique one way streets.

And I know you seek redemption.
with an eye locked on belief,
And you know I love the way you looked
When the sunset kissed your cheeks.
I was silenced by beauty then,
my words were obsolete
the poets purpose put away
down antique one way streets.

I cannot write like Cohen
Or Cave, Blake or Swift
but all your inner knowings
held me in the heat
and all I ever wanted
is to never feel defeat.

But this I'll know,
and this I'll want
till time starts to retreat.
If I could take away your pain
as I know you know my grief;
I would hold you as I did that day
down antique one way streets.

Let me breathe the smoke between your thighs,
The way a drowning man breathes water -
my Queen of Oysters.

I will sup til hungers end
           the elixir
then sup, and sup again
the banquet of your flesh
with the thousand tongues
of my fingertips and eyes.

This Alligator that hides amongst daisies -
let him sleep in the black garden of your hair

           O concubine of Saturn

Open slow to the brush
rough hands spring petals
that gambol and gyre
in great prickles
through
the spine and scalp.

Let us run to the moon, together
or sleep til the noon, apart.

My Queen of Oysters,
Let me sleep in the black garden of night.

The cover band plays a tirade
of songs we all heard before.

They switch to originals;
which all sound the same.

Originality is as rare as a dollar in my pocket
and just as likely to be spent in tastelessness.

She wore her dinner loose - more of a greasy pub lunch.
******* harder than diamonds in the open winter heat.

Not hungry anymore.

There are creeks which shade made lesser cracks of
That spread as hands and ants up antique walls.
I brush those holes and think:
What breath have you spent?
What death have you seen?

He sits at the window;
His back to the world
His back to the rain and sleet
His back to the dying street.

From across the way I peer at him.
He does not know I am here
He does not care.
That dark figure framed by light
That rests across the street.

With courage I crossed
And came to meet
Only the king
Of rain and sleet
As I crossed the dying street.

And all I found were lowered gates;
Barricades of christian steel
And the dying monarch
With silent death peels.

She is the shadow that hangs around my door,
who's memories are counted in wine bottles
dressed by the winter sun.

She is sweetness and pain,
both beautiful and broken
both complete and incomplete
in her beauty.

And I surrender.

Her deepest desire,
her happiest Herod that dwells in
crystal coves and voluminous virility
now spun as golden spiders webs
where my love lies, sterling.

There, in your grass a
personal criminal writes a
holocaust to culture.
He spins the Atomic clouds around
mycological skeletons
who hold constellations in their
time scarred jaws.

And there we were, the seekers of a golden dream
my mouth fell on yours, and you took me in.

Humanity is a bloodbath,
that takes you in.
The realization takes you by surprise
and we kiss
****** roses.


She is the shadow that hangs around my door...