Miss Dior (was what I wore)

This sting
is the bittersweet ring of orange,
cinnamon, myrrh, all
things that purr with the pain of love in
loss, all syrups that gloss the matt fact of
lack, all strains of sublime in the
grind.
And while I wind
between its fingers, sing
with the hymn of its
whim, the bittersweet scent is all that
lingers, in bittersweet memory of
him.

Untitled #4

Last night I lay on my bedroom floor
dead. Dead, my head half in the tomb's core
ready for prayers and embalming and all of the awful,
necessary, awful mourning,
when a shard of musical light shone in between the slits in my wall
and hit my ears and tore
my chest and wore
me like a glove and ordered
my blood to beat! Slowly, but still! I had been so sure
I would be no more
but the blues restored
me to life and swore
I'd continue in spite of it all.

The Bare Bones of the Rabbit

inhabit my room, low
and behold their chalklike whiteness placed in the mighty reverence of a Tschaikowsky-guarded tomb, though
there’s no
jaw
or
really any other morsel of the body, no
torso, no
legs, no
paws, and it’s
also missing part of its
head, but what’s left is
cherished, saved from
perishing by a nature-loving
man, a gentle mischief-maker, skull-taker and
relisher of life, who bestowed
this deathly gift upon the
White Wave of Strife.

(My Marvellous) Miraculous Medal (Montage)

Every anniversary
they pinned the coin of Christ on me
and prayed
I'd stay
the course.

Marble Jesuses

scrape together like a
set of marble Jesuses
crucified by
love

steakheart

static carves the
steak of my heart

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Genevieve's Shoes

these shoes are Genevieve’s shoes these
shoes Genevieve chose to use she
goes wherever she chooses she’s chosen
leather these shoes are Genevieve’s shoes

HUGE HANDS

His hands are INSANELY
huge, there is NO
pretending otherwise! I TRY
to avoid looking at them in particular but he is a WILD
gesticulator and those hands are THRUSTING
like two very well-equipped hips. I SWEAR
he is more hand than man! Look at THEM!
Look at him touch one to his lips! I SWEAR
he just ran one through his hair to track my eye-line and see if I was STARING!

Or maybe I’ve just been alone for too long.

Tone-Deaf Crow

tone-deaf crow
at my window
bleating like a battered
sheep
calling like a
crowd

deep and low
how you harrow
beating on my shattered
sleep
falling like the
proud

The West

Hums
low, electronic

shipping container drums and dust and waste and rust and
industry removed

dense and sprawling

the core cut out, the core-hole yawning like a homeless
cat, my homely heart holding up its mangy body
dangling a morsel to tempt it to lead me
stroking its belly, feeling its neediness, willing to make it wait until it concedes that we’re

just the same

we’re hungry, and coreless
the Knight of the North East and the Cat of the North West.

Untitled #2

The
glunk
thunk
thud
of
blood
in
my
body
when
ghosts
clunk
their
bodies
beside
me.

The Floating World

The
floating
world
is
life
living
for
love
of
death.

Saturday Morning (Stone Mouth)

I move into the stone mouth and
wait
while little wiry Wing Chung boys fill the lift

fold myself inside

glide up the building’s body like a
flow of fluid through a vein, a shiver up a spine, a thought to a brain

level 3 is mine and so I exit the
frame,

little wiry Wing Chung chittering sealed behind rising
doors.

Bless their fragile fighting
bodies. Bless their breathing
pores.

And now I’m alone and the stone mouth is waiting for me to clean its
floors.

I’m alone and the stone mouth is silently waiting for me to clean its
floors.

The stone mouth is silently, steadily waiting for me to clean its
floors.

John Maus

I’m electric, I’m listening to shiny
shiny stars in a golden gaping
vacuum, every deep dark black little
pocket of the pauses between the
beats seeps through my ears and throbbing
body with the rhythm of a solar system, such
heavenly bodily mapping-out and
precision, glorious straits of glowing
ocean, such perfect grouping, neat
division, holy trios of incision, this
way, this way, that way, slicing, coral
reefs of chocolate icing, metal moving in one
motion, John Maus, you have my devotion.

Illegal Deep-Sea Diver (Preserved)

I view
through a bullet
proof layer of
Perspex
Tombed-in
by bullshit,
proof of a
complex bureaucratic hypocrisy
and wait
for some paint
to redeem me.

Untitled #1

I could swallow my tongue with the fear of
here, swear
by the son
of the father, close
up my horror-stung
soul like a bowl
with a fish
who has wished
to be
buried.

Grandma Gasping

I try to tell you of my
good grandmother gasping like a
fish
terrified of death, wishing she was
dead, dead without the
lead-up, dead without the
dread.
Clare, there,
gasping like a
whale, wailing
like a whimpering baby, failed
by life, by chance, by
justice, failed
by her body, left
up to us, betrayed and jailed
by her body, left
for dead by health and hope and
just there, my
Clare, gasping
gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp, gasping for

air.

And I try to tell you and I upset you and you tell me to

STOP

and I’m shocked and embarrassed and sorry and angry and I don’t know who is in the wrong.

Aegeus

A 37 year old Colac man died yesterday when he rushed into his burning house to save his three children, unaware they had already been rescued.
The Age – 21/2/10

One Foot in the Cathedral

Fuck it! I said to
myself. He was mine
once, I have every
right to go to his
house! Even if he’s moved
on! Even if his new wife and children are
there! Even if they’re having lunch at the
table! Even if they’re talking about
me! We certainly never had lunch
together! Certainly not at the table,
anyway! We just kind of did our own thing for
lunch! I need to see this new-family-lunch-spectacle for
myself! Just so I know I made the right decision to move
out! Even though I know I made the right decision to move
out! Without a
doubt! I just want to see what all this new-family-lunch-shit is all
about!

So I bee-lined for the front
door, I’d catch him out with his new
whore! His four-score and twenty mongrel
children! I swore I’d tell them all what I
thought! I’d put an end to the
evil!

And setting one foot inside the Cathedral

getting ready to
roar

I heard the hush of solemn
prayer, I felt the calm and
saw the amber of his angel
chorus, the aura of all who were
there.

(And so I tip-toed out the
door and hurried down the
stair.)

Dayle's Skin in My Carpet

I live in the dead boy’s
room

he had his bed by my
wall

He broke his leg, I can tell by
the letters, demanding he pay
for the loan of the
crutches, demanding he pay
for the
fall

I walk barefoot on his
floor

I sit and I type where he
stood

I lie on the carpet that
holds

his hair and his skin in its
folds.

her -

oh!

Species

I am the
species


shaped
just like the
type

curled
holed
filled
sealed

readied
setted
goed