Junction

(after Reverdy)

To pull up

at the lights,

yield my shadow

to the sun,

lean back on the wave

and take the lip

for a pillow...

Or to pull up and hesitate,

amber lights

filling my eyes

till my head’s a

haunted house,

till the wheel like water

escapes through my fingers...

And I continue, wavering

till the dawn beyond the final night,

traffic piled up in the rearview

mirror like a whitewash of words,

none of which can tell me the right way.

(published in Everyday Static, 2010)

Emotion Sickness

All wobbly all over —

it’s not so much vertigo

as an aversion to inversion. Carry on

kidding yourself it’s giddiness,

the bluff of your blood-

flow; some old neophobia.

The carrion you

forget to keep in mind, i.e.

the equation to your qualm, may be

in remembering the moment

of your memory,

however fractured that keepsake

has become — the closer

to broken the better though,

and confronting it by

donning a monocle helps

to make the ground

seem farther afield.

No need to be stable to drink

at this oblique

table. In oblivion

it’s easier being queasy any-

way, and damn near

impossible to assure

that certain bleak hauntings won't

see you stepping ashore, upside-

down the morning after,

a black-and-blue sea

hung over

the world.

(published in Snorkel, 2011)

Coverage

Water channels part:

your sweaty thumb slips

from the number 8, stunned.

Carpet stains where the remote drops

are a permanent reminder

of your love for live TV:

the asteroid fiascos,

wearing ecliptic sunglasses

for moments when the earth stops.

The second we realise the atmos-

phere’s mass ascendancy,

dark matter dominates

our deficient space:

imploding into silence

with the pin-drop of a lens.

It’s so titanic there’s nothing

you can do about it!

And the coverage:

time divided by velocity,

quicker than light

in its hyperbolic spell to reassure you

that all this wasted oxygen is

worth your wasted time.

These kaleidoscopic tides

(image upon image)

from the ground gaping up:

a shock of orange in a clear blue sky.

Again, from the smoke-

screen of the street:

a shock of orange in a clear blue sky.

And again, just to rub it in,

in case you’re entrenched

in a glossy magazine:

a shock of orange in a clear blue sky.

One more time

from the channel-changing

couch (terrorized):

a shock of orange in a grey-blue sky.

(published in SWAMP, 2011)

Parallels

The intervals between trains are shrinking,

streetlights shaking —

one or two blink out

with every repercussion.

Planes fly lower and lower,

guard dogs whimper, and

every so often

a seismograph flutters

as if to warn us

that the orbits are out of whack,

that waves rake the ocean floors

and the hairs on the backs of cats

stand on end

because something unparalleled

is about to happen.

Light a candle, stock the cupboard —

alarms and sirens

have cancelled the silence.

Pay no attention to screams or the jitters —

when someone bolts, everyone bolts.

Whatever you say, say nothing —

as a bystander

amongst the panic and the vomit,

do nothing and nothing will bend.

(published in Southerly, 2011)

Mannequins

If we don’t move, no one will

see us. The air-con will help us

to lean forward, help us to make

headway. Regular news updates

from dozens of flat screens

could save us from our musing as

blow-dryer music in the hi-fi section

warms the backs of our necks.

If we stand anaesthetised by the

cleaning lady’s spray gun,

dressed in the latest, we might blend in,

and late at night, when we’re blind,

security guards will make love to us,

though only with their torches.

In the corners of the ceiling, next

to the cameras, gleaming silver vents

will inhale our carbon dioxide, while

the vents along the skirting boards

exhale, to keep it circulating, this

air we breathe on condition.

(published in FourW, 2011)

Aubade

In sticky haze under dappling trees

shadows and limelight

coagulate

after coalescing

through the night.

Emerging to a lurid sun

that slides up into the deep,

lifting its crusty eyelid,

I walk

down a pointless street

of morning people,

dumb pets

and coffee.

The stale alcohol

and cigarette breath,

the scintillating light

and compression of garbage

have a Doppler effect

on my stagger

so I skip,

but no matter how fast I skip

away from sidelong glances,

round corners,

under shopfronts,

impersonating shadows

to outfox the light,

I can’t escape the smell

catching up with me

of someone else

on my skin.

(published in Meanjin, 2011)

Library Animals

(after Shakespeare)

She follows me up

to the eighth floor of the library

where eerie dust,

shushed by a coy

draught, kindles

amongst the shelves.

We snake in and out

of the aisles, looking for a corner

or a space as dark

as a room in bedlam for us

to become the rude myth

of our birthright.

But with no Venus glove

for entering the nest

of the phoenix

we’re both fair game.

And the idea of it, of flesh,

almost becomes an impediment:

the spiced rivers of her hair

in our lips as we kiss;

the knuckles of her spine

like the rivets in her dress —

obstructions, abstractions, words

in the way — that is

until our burning will touches

the metallic shelves

like lava meeting glacier,

bumping the goose

in both of us,

steaming up the windows

that turn a blinkered eye

to the odds of being caught

red-handed.

“Put some more English on it,”

she whispers, with

my finger on her forepart,

as unbridled, I risk the faux

pun: “Are you a woman

given to lie...?”

But that’s not

how she does it now, alive

in the dusky back

passages of the library,

where the dimmed fluoro

and deep shadow

bisect our civil demeanours,

where we succumb at last

to our lower halves,

making love like centaurs,

a discreet but riveting

performance

to a hushed and studied audience

of thousands laid

before us in many positions,

though mainly standing up

and jacketless, front

to back.

(published on the Red Room, 2011 and

partly in The Sydney Morning Herald)