Where the estuary opened her arms wide
enticing embrace from the vaulted sky
in the shade of tangled mangrove boughs
we lightly explored the depths of love
with salt and vinegar for reckless beginners
a taste of elation with a lemon slice
seagulls descended to eat our lunch
and it never mattered in the slightest
that the evening tides were against us
sands receding with the sun’s retreating
we fumbled, unsure and stubbornly insecure
our hands weaving an impossible knot
our hearts were bound and beat as one.

I am the painter
pigments primed
suffused and saturated
splitting white light
my cup may run over
but a true creator
is never satiated.

I have constructed
a vast and arid canvas
I have conceived
a horizon without blemish
I have contrived
this choking ochre dust
this unnatural orange rust
this thickening
this quickening
this poison in your blood
I have composed
a future for a faceless multitude
I have cursed
you, your children
and your children’s own.

I was birthed in obscurity
smothered in secrecy
and now
I am murder in perpetuity.

I am the rainbow
refracted and remorselessly perfected
no frail human hand
may grasp my venomous essence
as I pour from the thunderous heavens.

 

Note – today I did some reading about the Vietnam War, and learnt that Orange wasn’t the only colour we painted the landscape. We also used Agents Blue, White, Green, Pink and Purple. No care for the people we dropped it on, whether they were on the other ‘side’ or ours, nor the generations who came after. Who knew that war-crime was so bloody colourful?

Awake too late
in reverie inanimate
yet conscious and constrained
besieged with vagary
bound within myself
turning over
and over again
wrapping my perceptions
a dull reverberation
dawn breaks
as I fall out of bed.

Mowing the lawn?
You’re doing it
wrong
but I care just enough
to provide for you son
my life’s
only lesson.

Don’t break your back
staggering around your stack
with a thrashing howling living machine
rock shard and cut grass spraying
sweat cooking on your back…
No! you take that mower
and you rip it apart
scatter its guts all over the yard
let the blades rust in the Summer sun
then you go buy another one
and repeat this every weekend
until every inch of earth on your land
is home to some ruined piece of machinery
and the lawn will be
the least of your worries.

Take it from me, I’m a puzzling man
that is,
I’ve framed all the jigsaws I’ve ever done
and when I’m gone that’s all I’ll leave behind
puzzles and garbage
pornography and dreams
and my shack with views of the ocean deep.

 

Author’s note – Long story short, I went a bit crazy the last few weeks and nearly bought an alleged ‘house’ (in reality a run down rubbish-strewn shack in the middle of nowhere about four hours away from where I, or anyone else lives). In between dealing with all the loan sharks and real estate double agents, I spent a long time inspecting the place with the caretaker. It was a deceased estate, and the family hadn’t made even the barest effort to clean. And as I stood there in among the busted asbestos panels, tangled fishing rods, faded filth magazines, and all the accumulated detritus of another human’s life, I had a bit of a moment…

All lined up in my sights
my little duckies in a row
a dozen windows open all at once
and then at last I’m home
fading red wine melancholy
paired with your sacred text
my evening hums with electricity
as I bathe in your eccentricities
discovering and recovering
aspects long lost, now resurfacing
or carefully concealed, re-emerging
fragments I once discarded
re-birthed in wanton laughter
your songs are a lullaby to my soul.

Greedy as a starving dog
I consume your musical words
graceless in my unrestrained gluttony
your glorious expression surpassing me
your clever deceptions delighting me
you lead me along the garden path
you get me higher than heaven itself
and for all the hours I should have slept
I would make your poetry my gentle bed
comforting myself within your essence
your thoughts become my convalescence
and with your loving holy hands
and your blessed, messy, crazy heads
you wrote me out of hell.

Most people wouldn’t sleep
with a weapon in their bed
but you never met
my axe girlfriend.

Fumbling picking with prickly fingers
chords that jangle when they should chime
callous growth and my forlorn hopes
I’ll make these cliches dance in time
a worn-out phrase born from naivete
climbing chaos like a jungle-gym
can’t persuade myself to save myself
wandering hands play a lonely hymn
reveal yourself to me
with your melodic screed
crows strung along a telephone wire
reaching heights I couldn’t aspire
summoning crumbs
twiddling thumbs
someone’s gotta feed these chickens.

Out of the frying pan
and into the bottle
staying cooked
is a constant battle
bless my stars bless my claws
overlook all my obvious flaws
this boiled meat
tastes so sweet
be safe, my dearest of friends
and have a crabby Halloween!

In Western Sydney the girls are pretty
and the boys are prettier still
working past dark in Hurlstone Park
“Gotta pay those fucking bills.”

Hit the frog and toad with long-neck to go
all slings and round-a-bouts
sun’s out guns out for the ‘roid rage knaves
“I reckon it’s about your shout”

Blacktown, Shalvey, Bankstown and Canterbury
tribal divides run deep
lock your windows or they’ll steal your dreams
and pull burnouts on heat-sink streets.

Others long gone like a forgotten song
snake skeletons beside a creek
now the low overhead wires crackle with ire
and all bastards become police.

Mcmansions rise over the old sand mines
tasteless solid investments
while red brick boxes built on buried toxins
pull curtains on congealing terrors.

Newtown’s terraces with the screaming jets
sipping on neck-beard tea
a backyard fracas breaks an afternoon balm
“Just pay your fucking tick!”

In the Picton tunnels the underground runners
tag walls with obscure glyphs
when the last train has gone have one more bong
“You smoke green or do you spin?”

Palms and cactus sprouting phallic masses
wine box dining or uber eats
the kebab shop’s hot with a variety box
no greens but plenty of meat.

Dulwich Hill how I remember you still
packed with hungry artists
but do me a favour and what’s your flavour
why water a concrete garden?

The Silk Road flows through Marrickville’s rows
scene kids never beheld the sea
strung out and strung up but heaven will come
with adrenaline and methylated spirits.

I climbed Mount Druitt! (someone’s gotta do it)
I swam in Liverpool’s depths
I digested myself and I divested myself
my steps bounced like bad cheques.

My lads and lasses in those discrete madrasahs
from Burwood to the Iron Cove Bridge
I’ll pretend that I know all your hidden codes
your mangled secretive language.

Tin shed alleys behind crumbling garrets
music thumping all night
but for the Wicked Witch of the Inner West
the mosquitoes refuse to bite.

I know it’s a shit-hole but save your vitriol
for cleaning the mouldy tiles
just forget your castle and white picket fence
and embrace our bogan vibe.

 

Author’s note – I know this one won’t make a lot of sense to some of my international friends, so if you want translations or explanations of any of the Aussie bullshit let me know in the comments.

Tension and torsion
in awkward contortion
shouldering your boulders
with feedback distortion
tepid trickling
insipid liquidity
crackling knuckles
concealed and dormant
with a phrase of praise for heroes fallen
letters on graves of door-knock salesmen
wound up round up
kick them all over
revel in your relevance
and fade in frustration
summon your sprites in a fit of pique
assembled solicitors paid for in spite
spectral spectators
in abandoned forums
cheering like starlings
chattering and swarming
snapping out lashing out
lacking decorum
anger feeds hatred
while hate eats itself
and don’t ever say
that I didn’t warn you.

Smoke and mirrors
a frozen dinner
ensnared reflection within the window
I am a golem
tasting the truth
or maybe just possums living in my roof.

Movement so furtive
no leaf disturbed
sky illuminated by simmering burn
dens in the heath
concealed in ferns
back striped with shadowy fur.

Their faces obscured by history
and their bones dispersed by flood
they stalk my sleep
depriving my dreams
howling in the hills a forgotten reprieve
where ghosts traverse unknown roads
painted tiger-dogs shyly roam
with babies locked in airtight jars
but for the necromancy of our art
those sad decrepit relicts
they sung to the last.

Plans had changed
we arrived late
those grand schemes
oh my splitting seams
“We lay the floor today
and raise the roof tonight!”

So with the confidence of our inexperience
we attacked the timber with blunt implements
like a parliament of plastered bastards
we argued with ourselves and cursed
the fools who built these uneven walls
until the afternoon had washed away
and saddle worn from straddling the sawhorse
with hands raw from scraping the lathe
these city boys in this carpenter’s war
we declared a truce and I succumbed
to heady dehydration and intoxication.

Half drunk in a hydroponic haze
surrounded by a cloud of digital mist
my boots clattered on wooden stairs
and instinct guided my stumbling gait
toward the stone cut seawall
to stand against the Easterly flurry
and precariously ponder
and consider the options
to accept my execrable prognosis
or embrace my belated apotheosis
to suffer rebirth through trial and test
with a can of worms for the birthday girl
and another bottle of your best.

“Come in, come back in
and bring the ocean with you!”

I shed my face and turned my head
as balance dragged me over the edge
flailing, infinite
and entirely indifferent
for a second or maybe two
until the mud rose up to meet me
crowning me in bedraggled seaweed
slashing me with gnashing oyster teeth
and as I lay in on that damp sandy stretch
my waterlogged monologue concluded:

“Life’s a beach.”

Under false auspice and ulterior motive
laden and leaden with manifest destiny
rolling around in rum soaked insurrection
bottom of the barrel, back of the shelf
last calls and final rounds
float to the top, sink to the sky
dance your way into hell.

Liquored up and burdened with prophecy
gin-joint Jesus with electric hair
spilled the beans across the street
and what lurks within a man
bile, curses and spitting shame
please don’t recall my name
when the cloud clears and the waters recede
I find myself and lose the way.

“Who wants another Fireball?”

“What are you, a fucking level ten wizard?”

“Alright Scrunch, I think you’ve had enough.”

Wrought in the intricacies of iron
obscure pattern frozen in growth
broad-leaf flares on the twisting vine
woven together with oiled wire
metal twisted into organic life
rusting under the open sky
a lattice of gratitude
a ladder of trust
bound with forge feathered wings
brass-plumed in the setting sun.

I thought I had raised Babylon
over one terrible night
the scars on my palms
hammer and tongs
my mouth full of mortar
brick-dust breath
I fumble in a whiskey-dark fog
fugue clogged synapses
awakening and becoming aware
that I couldn’t build a garden shed.

I thought I had composed a symphony
a cascade of chords and inner harmonies
woven into movements of transcendence
aural incandescence
sonic revelations
three minutes of four beats and a voice
starting with a note… What note?
I’ve lost the key, the time, the words
my guitar seems built of lead
my hands stiff and mute
I have a string of nothing and a stolen riff
delete it I guess
my sorry fucking head.

I thought I had created something
made something worthy
yet I behold a palace of nonsense
and lame poetry.

Home decorated like a ship wreck
burrowed into a compost heap of paper
digits tapping out the sacred triangle
traced with muscle memory electricity
patterns carved in neural pathways
messages written with molasses ink
sticky fingers
sweet nothing.

Time transforms sentiment into sediment
grinding teeth like millstones on cement
frozen and fossilizing where I stand
bones of crystal glass in metal hands
quaking and tectonic chrome plating
horror in the depths of the kitchen sink.

(Don’t impede this millipede
he has so many steps to take
and although your race is run
he has a million more today.)

“I sleep better in a storm,”
she said, nearby yet distant
“It should pour every night
until five in the morning
every day.”

Sorrow makes the car start falter
my week of Mondays (with overtime)
rolling the dice until lightening strikes
ducks in a row with tequila and lime
give me a break
or finish breaking me.

Billionaire bastards
crouched in your castles
eating glass and misery
won’t you make it rain?

Sunlight warming white-gold sand
bold sky enticing me into the blue
I tottered on an uneven keel
and plunged into a hidden pool
and through the rippling window
glare refracted and scattered
while I settled peacefully
lolling limp
and carefree as kelp
until a hand
as big as the world
broke through, grasped me
and pulled me back into the world.

Baptized when their backs were turned
playing host to terrors nightly
I inherited the family legacy
a fish out of slaughter
the blackened sheep
generations of futility
our tree of lost sanity
a lone thread in the tapestry of misery
we are woven together so hatefully
(smile for the picture).

“Sour little grape, moody bear
fell in the ocean and shed a river
you’ll never remember this day
and soon you’ll forget the next
I am the beginning, I am the bitter end
I am your mother, I am not your friend
no shark would dare to eat you
no depths could conceal you
no distance could hold you
no heart can hide you from mine
I am the beginning, I am the bitter end
I am your mother, I am not your friend.”

Nineteen-ninety-one
up later than I should have, again
captivated by green fairy lanterns
tracers cutting through low cloud
as pale tanks churned through sands
illuminated by towering flames
two tone night vision guided precision
celebrating glorious murders
whether eviscerated from the sky
or entombed in trenches alive
weird dreams those nights.

Nineteen eighty-nine
an old man cries
on a flickering box screen TV
streaming tears from his eyes
nose and cheek, obscuring
prepared paper remarks
struggling with words like
“piled” and “pulped”
made no sense then.