On the Slink

Bottles in gutters,

alley cats on the slink

under streetlamps that crystallise

in the corners of my eyes —

shopping trolleys gliding by

like giant legless ice skates —

this brittle night taken out of the fridge —

it’s spring but cold still,

still as glass.

Sobering up, a breeze —

if I cast a rock up through the air,

between the wires, the tooting owls,

beyond the rooftops

into the twisting funnel of stars —

I could almost crack open the night

and swig.

(highly commended in the Aesthetica

Creative Works Competition, 2011)

Beelines

Anyone with double vision

can tell why the small black dog

steers clear of astroturf;

why the dog’s eyes follow magpies

navigating via street junctions;

why veering in squares, not circles,

the blue car makes a beeline

for a lamppost, the traffic light

goes gridlock-orange, a bullet train

is trapped on never-green tracks,

and jets fall out of a marooned sky;

why, on waking today, my vision stings

and my face is puffy: dreaming

is forced to move along paths

that are too well-paved.

I’ll sleep with my eyes open,

stop my shadow running away.

(published in the Paradise Anthology, and highly

commended in the Brisbane-Reason Poetry Prize, 2010)

Irritations

I plant forests, and they wither

behind me. There’s a traffic light

in my heart. Which colour? I don’t know.

The high-pitched whine circling my head

isn’t a vulture, it’s my halo. My double haunts me

in windows and lakes; the size of his eyes

erodes my mettle. Wherever I travel, metal

detectors go mental and the stink of burnt

sugar stalks me — crackling, always crackling.

When I fuck, my mind drifts. My whores

say it’s a lack of friction. I guess I’m made

of cold blood, my skull is full of earwigs,

my visions littered with wheezing stars:

in the mirrors on the ceiling, miracles

have ceased. I blunder across these bitter

nebulae, hemlock on my tongue — no wonder

I’ve got the sniffles! Only a nightmare

will help me sleep tonight.

(published by Otoliths, 2010)