Fluff

Milling about the city’s nightlife,

she threads through the quilted crowd

who rug themselves up, flattering

each others’ leathers and wispy flair.

She stands on the fringe like a lost

strand of hair listening to the needles,

the knit-knot words, the pinning-up of

phrases — cottoning on to their lingo.

She’s ready to be brushed aside

when some guy’s quip poufs her up

like a pillow, and she responds by

chewing a ball of fluff because, for

some fuzzy reason, she wants his hide.

sewing what’s left of her heart to

her sleeve — a threadbare cliché that

his quiff-like puns pierce like

a pin-cushion. With conversation

wearing thin, his hand reaching for

her velvet, she remembers the lint

piling up in the corners of her

apartment; the frayed curtains she’s

never closed on her view of the city.

She can see it now from her bedroom

window: the silhouetted skyline, a

tattered hem; the stars, little white

cross-stitches forming a sky of blind

eyes; and rolling over Centrepoint,

the moon, a silver ball of wool,

unravelling.

(previously published on the Red Room, 2010, and

in Best Australian Poems 2011, ed. John Tranter)

Dyslexic

Who would’ve thought that

at birth, my double-helix world would be dropped

on its head — that it would spiral on its mis-

informed axis into grand self-delusions

— upside-down, dyslexic! What an

eternalisation of nothing but ego

standing on its head, looking

down at the sky, the abyss —

cities like stalactites,

elevators to the tips.

I drop my lot out the windows,

watch it plummet into space — take

out birds along the way to the cosmic

pits. The poles will capsize (or right them-

selves, who knows?) — so to breathe in the

auroras orbiting the meridians, I hang myself from

lightning conductors like a big red, weighted balloon

awaiting my last breath.

(previously published on The Wordshed, 2006)

Last Night I Lay Awake

Last night I lay awake

in bed, listening to the house

and planets whispering.

I fidgeted and they fell silent.

The universe swept itself

under the carpet,

darkness overflowed the bath: I'd

upset the rhythm of things.

As I held my breath,

the nocturnal sighing

returned: a poltergeist

began humming in the attic,

swinging his hips to the pulse

of the southern lights; a possum

shook comets from a canopy;

hooping winds bundled the moon

through my bedroom door as eerie creatures

from the neighbours’ pipe dreams slid

like liquid sugar down the alleys,

kissing the streetlights out with enormous lips,

and I promised not to make a scene again.

I will lie awake, motionless and soundproof,

as the gutters creak, the tiles crack,

and the windows crystallise,

waiting for the stars to breathe out

and space to unfold

(winner 3rd place in the Fish Publishing International Poetry Prize, 2010)

Meanwhile

It’s when we’re asleep and dreamless

that we miss the silent landing

of snowflakes on the roads

of city and suburbs,

emptying the sky of stars.

It’s when we’re fast asleep

that our shadows play

with the energy of pent-up children,

throwing stars at each other

like great shooting snowballs.

(previously published in The Sun Herald, 2010, and Meanjin, 2005)

Cavernous

He used to tell me the strangest things,

like how there are spiders

in the wind that comes from the sea —

a wind that tunnelled through

homes, cars and towers,

hollowing them out.

It’s hard to argue with him

in the shadows of these cliffs

facing the ocean,

the top-heavy overhangs

reaching for the sea,

the wind-carved caves

of pale grey honeycomb —

spider webs

spun with stone.

Beware of Falling Rocks

says a sign, that creaks

as the wind ups the tempo

of its whistling, eating the land

as only the air can.

And rocks can be heard

glunking into water

like creatures from beneath, or

scuttling in the shadows of the cliffs —

now shadows of their former selves.

It’s hard to argue with him in this

darkness between immensities —

in the face of the ocean,

back to the world,

the wind filling in

what has been carved out.

(previously published in Space, 2006)

Floe

In abeyance, the body sinks

into the weeds for weeks; the mote

doing roundabouts in the moat of the eye

ceases to trouble or seize the soul, flattened

like a rubber sole; deadened eyes

in headlights fade to dust as roadkill

reeks under tyre-tread; tired limbs in limbo,

flags that flop loosely in the wind; the faculties

lose their facility, nothing within arm's reach

or cheek by jowl; no howl from the invalid mouth

stuffed with one insipid mouse; the toes,

unable to tow the two, flat, pinned-

and-needled feet; too heavy like the brain

in a skull full of rain, an ocean liner

at the bottom of the world, wedged

in a fat ice floe.

(previously published in Meanjin, 2007)

Narrows

And then comes the morning when it dawns on you

the sun is not going to rise any more than you will

above yourself; when, in the midst of the mist,

blinkers have crept up the sides of your

cheeks, corridors have closed in like

garbage-tip walls, doors have

disappeared, and the past

repeats ad nauseum,

hissing from the

gutters like

steam.

You’ve awoken to dead-ends stacked up, like bodies en bloc, no

exit signs, no wrong way turn back, where gambler’s

luck is never looking up, and if you’re honest

no one’s sure what you mean, where self-

abandonment is out of vogue, tunnel-

vision is the new black, clouds

have descended so low that

even the supermarkets

are dark and everyone

is looking for some

way out, any way

out, not a mirror,

anything but

mirrors, just

a window

— open

to let

the

rain

in.

(published by Otoliths, 2010, while a previous version of

this poem was published in Literature and Aesthetics, 2005)

The River Seine

(after Paul Celan)

Tonight of no stars, only clouds —

a city wrapped in crumpled paperbag.

The cigarette, a cork in your mouth

like traffic in a bottle-neck

longing to get out.

You can see the horn-sounds

as colour above the river.

This dark-houred clock, your flawless water

will only embrace the open ones —

those who've thrown a stone in their eye

and felt a ripple from the pupil out.

In hesitant hope

your cigarette smokes a thought… ‘rebel’.

But to turn this world to verb —

to hurl yourself in the river

and feel the razor-tooth skeleton bite.

No, something invisible

has summoned the wind

to warp the word into ‘sober’.

O all this hoarded time

gluing elbows to our sides.

Only semi-submerged, barnacles

have formed on the bottom of our souls —

words not worth uttering anymore.

Our reckless abandon is derelict

with insouciant desires.

To turn this world to verb, get a life…

No, not to go out like a firework,

red flower in wilted sky —

to pitch yourself in the river like a stone,

disintegrate and drift,

wash your mouth out in the ocean

where sea-wave and sea-roar,

ssssshhhhh —

even in a whisper

will never cease trying to shut us up,

though we’re saying nothing really at all.

To stub out your cigarette on the vertical stone

and sink into the river unnoticed...

O in the deep upon deep

comes the caesura —

the break between worlds.

(previously published in Southerly, 2007)

Reaching Out

You can wait

like a great sad wolf

for the moon to rise,

or you can launch yourself flat

across the sky:

a pebble released

from fingers

to skip across waves,

clear the jagged white tips

of a shark mouth,

turn the tides

drunk

on aquamarine wine,

gawk at the beauty

Andromeda

chained to a rock,

spit, scream,

vomit,

whatever it takes

to tear off that carcass

of a shell,

slip through

Poseidon’s

falling trident and

wonder at your wake

as you scale the ocean’s abyss,

soar up, above,

beyond the last port of call

and leave behind

a thousand thoughts,

a hundred hearts,

ten nicknames,

six degrees,

skim one

last,

two last,

three lonely skims,

countless in all,

to the cold horizon

before succumbing

to the gulp

of salt,

a pebble sinking

just short

of the pink

sunset.

(previously published in a UTS Anthology, 2005)