Woman Talks in the Royal Arcade

to no one
one on one
carer gone
to the toilet
gentle movements
to the air
the nod of a head
the wave of a hand
flicks of the hair
our window
a rest
hand printing
the glass
mouthing confessions
as onlookers pass

chair

our chair
suspended
on air
where our
ghosts
made their
toasts
to love

collingwood friday morning

sleepy haunty
weirdcold streets
rakish jaunty
completely empty
still, no flaunty
cafes, no shops
no people waiting
at stops
no chatter
no one wondering
what's the matter
but me
stepping solely
through the streets

moth in the bathroom

trembles, remembering

The Moral of the Myths / The Lesson of the Legends

Love the one who loves you
or you'll scorn a wrathful
god

and be changed into a
serpent, or a fountain, something
odd

or awful, mortifying,
horrifying, so much worse a
state

than loving, with a false love,
the one you really
hate

Kim Makes Cupcakes

with a care I'd never fathom
having

strangely moving
the sight of this slender
man

tending a tray with such
patience

faithful
focussed

Kim makes the cakes
rise

two dozen small suns
on a morning

Sun Won

the space behind your ear
is warmer than my worries
matter

all I need to do
is hold my mouth
to your neck and
live in

the place of your skin

Sylvia

When we sit alone
we hold hands
and she speaks
and I listen
and cannot hear the others

River Running Under the Train

If I got into that water I'd get sick

but the drift of the waves would be worth it

The People Born Around Your Birthday

bear a curious resemblance to
your core

perhaps all caps and bells of
you? manifests of
your lore?

shades of self
rages and smiles

the sides met with
approvals/denials

all recognisable
all odd

all fingers pointing to an
inner god

Half Asleep 5am

They shaved her golden helmet
and she,
blank as a baby,
bore free.

After the Grad Show

It seems we're gleaming into a great tragedy!
(Him and her and you and me.)
Bright- yes!
Laughing - yes!
(But always with this fine underlining of a bad end.)
My sad friends smile!
Lots of clueless losers win!
And then the clued-in winners grin in bearing loss!
This is the cost!
(Though I don't know what we're buying.)

Boy on the Train

Wide eyes fall like
shavings of

star

onto the
lap

connected to the
half-formed

folds

of shoulder

by long
listless

arms.

It is the
benign

bewilderment

in that otherwise
blockish
jockish
face

that is so charming

the embers
of a disarming man

burning.

havdrom

- woken - by rain
a strange man
closes the
window

Plucked

I plucked a hair from the
mole near your
mouth

beneath the lounge room lamp

You sat, good, like a
child
as I straddled with tweezers

tugging the wires with relish

You sat, still, like a
hound
snout raised to the domestic moon

my success met with a satisfied yelp

Your pitted mole
holed
as a blueberry.

There's a Strange Colour

there's a strange colour over my
city this evening
the leaves sit like plates
on its grey
breathless and still and yet
audibly heaving
a pause in the shift
from the day

there's an odd bit of God in the
air up here
in line with our
secondmost floor
as though we can know when the
end is near
and never fear death
anymore

The Line of the Man

the line of the man - half-
formed in this light - is
set like the mist around
stars - His
hair is an air of some heavenly
where - His
heart is a dark path to
Mars - His
mouth is the north and the south of
dimension - His
throat is the total of
time - His
shape and his mass are the fact of
maths - but

his
mystery

is
of

the
sublime

Customer

As I put the lay-by through
she tells me
she saw the gown in a drug-induced vision
after an operation
and knew
it had to be
hers.

My Bowl of Roses Speaks to the City

I went into my room and found
my bowl of roses speaking to
the city

craning over the window sill
addressing the buildings
below

And their friends the trees
put fingers to lips
to show

the spires how
to hear

Golden God

my golden god
stretches long

feline lines
that rest upon

a rounded mouth
a raven head

an amber eye
a tousled bed

(and he rises
rolling the morning

on his tongue
like a lion

lifting the sun
to the sky

my golden god
heavy

with the love
in his eye)

Sunburn

How I love a little sunburn!
To roast my ghostly skin!
To remind the soul inside it
of the mortal meat it's in!

The City was the Sea

The City was the Sea
this morning

sharp air sprayed with salt

blasts from elsewhere
everywhere

all hair flung -

And huddled like birds
the herds of commuters
were wordless, just
set

on getting where they needed to get
without getting
wet

While the Child

While the child dances in ecstatic
rapture

moving her fine, feline, sublime human
instrument with

grave strokes

pulsing, pausing

holding her four-year-old
face in an ancient
shape

moving in time with the
history of her
species

we talk about the musty smell in the new bathroom.

The Authority of Night

presses a firm hand
to your head

Quiet, now.

commanding as a queen

bidding you give in
to serene service

follow the orders
of her dark

her total shifts
of shade

gently bow

understanding what she means
when the mistress that is

Night

tells you how
to give in

Bakery Heiress / Bread Orphan

The bakery heiress
slips like a shadow
between the window
panes

head-to-toe
designer dress
a picture of Parisien finesse
but inside - a tale of woe -
the pains

of an orphan whose
very fortunes rose
and fell with the doomed course
of her parents'
plane

and so,
she and her sister, now
multi-millionairesses
are two
mournful, bread
dauphins.

Mad Man

Wednesday, 14th September. 11:44pm

There is a mad man ranting up and down my street, feet
shuffling, muffled curses coming out in shrieks. What
is this ghastly, unspeakable grief? As others pass by, in
surprise, laughter, terrified meekness, what is this freak
of fairness? This anomaly of humanity? What
separates this desperately mad man from me? How
do his terrible, violent cries mean less than a baby's? He
shares a baby's fear, its bewilderment of here. What
makes this man a mockery? What stops us revering the
shock of his state? The dread of his chant? What
matters if this man must live within this rant?

I Draw a Chord

I draw a chord from my
mind -

I form it
into
a lasso -

I wind it high
into the
sky -

and throw it
around you -

around you -

You
who
I need to be
tied
to.

My Nails

my nails move like little
black beetles over the
page

capped, helmutted
creatures with
murderous wills

dark intents

to make a breakfast
of the page's
words

to make the page
make sense

I Wake

I wake semi-naked

slightly sweaty

drink-less dry

wonder where my water
went

wonder why
the window's closed?

I know
I opened it
at dawn
I think

and where is my water?

I need a drink

Nearly-Nervous-Breakdowny Ladies

These
steeled
rich
nearly-nervous-breakdowny
ladies
having
shoes
repaired
doing
errands
soaked
in
perfume
and
anxiety
all
appearance
all
propriety
until
you
say
some
magic
word
and
then
they
fall
apart.

I'm Having a Battle with My Face

I'm having a battle with my face,
because it will not stay in place.

The skin beneath my eyes bags.
The flesh along my jaw sags.

Maybe I should shave my head.
And love my nice smooth scalp instead.

Sober Lunch in the City Before Work

But then today the city seemed obscured by a veneer of meanness.

I couldn't tell if it was my over-
sensitivity, or her over-
cast skies, or an over-
all tiredness on people's faces.

But my place in Melbourne's heart seemed
smaller.

Colder.

Like she was.

Distracted.

By a new love.

Another girl.

Maybe.

Or a hovering sense of
futility.

Like she was giving up on me.

Like she was over what we
have.

Or had.

Like it was different
from before.

Or maybe it was me.

Who didn't.

Love her.

Anymore.

1.30pm

"You look delicate today," she said,
and I thanked her before realising it was
a concern and not a compliment.

Semi-Drunken Walk Home from the Tote

- God! - on that holy
night I had the cold
ecstatic soul of an
old tree - the whole
brilliant dirty city
breathed through me
like a pipe - like a
lung - like the sweeping
swoop of scent reaming
from the sea when its
horizon has been
strung with boats
- God! - the air
was rapture rolling
through my throat - I
thought - Alive! Oh God!
I am alive! - and with
no pen I wrote the lines
in eyeliner on my beating
hand - waving it out
to dry as I walked
the holy land -

The Story

Tonight I will wrap the story
around me

a bandage
of wise ones'
words.

Stir-Fries

I make shit stir-fries
no matter how hard I try

Who do I think I'm kidding
when I chop things in the kitchen?

I am not
a real adult
at all.

(I stop the conversation mid-sentence to taste the stir-fry.
"Oh shit," I want to cry. "I've put too much sauce."
"I could have told you that from the first drizzle," he says gently.)

Shadow Sister

I had a shadow sister
stitched to my
side

We were eachother - we
were husband, bride, brother, mother
and any, every
other

(sounding-board, mirror, cushion
for a fall)

Then she pulled the stitches out
and replaced them with a
wall

Home, Drunk

Fall
by the bathroom

hear
an angel
call

and
love-washed
wishing

takes my
veins

Letter from Korea

My boy my boy
I await your coming like a
snowfall
a purifying shower
to cover the tracks
we've made
And all the while
you've stayed with
me
All the while of your absence
you've stayed

Where Did We Sit?

Where did we sit? You
and I, on the edge of it
all? Did we stay? Or stop? Or did we
fall off and into a void? A plot? Or the
sweet, stinging cot of another life? Were you my
husband? Was I your wife? Or your lover, at least? Did your
sun set west while mine rose east? Were we
chosen for here? Or rather, for there? Did we
ever sit together? And if so, where?

Dark Mother Virginia

Dark mother
called the others
for a little while

A few decades to
raise her voice

was all she needed
to be well heeded

before succumbing
to the humming
of her choice.

Wax-Off (I Gots the Post-Wax Blues)

On being born, I was awarded
a bed of fresh flesh, designed
to be worn from my head to
the meshy webbing of my toes, designed
to be naked sometimes (the shape
providing an allowance for clothes, but ultimately designed
to be hairy so there would be no real need for those).

Adorned, so, I grew, proceeding
to grow from squishy babe to semi-calloused youth to
crepey crow, and in the interim, I weeded
every second helpful hair from where it was needed (here,
there and underwear) so others would be misleaded into thinking
my most sacred temple (hirsute, lined
and dimpled), my most precious place (legs, arms,
inner thighs, chest, face) my most holy house
was no different to the vessel of a baby
mouse.

It's Almost Night

and yet the buildings are still turning their faces
towards some light
Necks stretched
On tiptoes
Arching over each others' heads
to catch some final blaze

And so the buildings stare, their
eyes glazed
Reverie rippling through their
flickering spines
Door-mouths agape in structural sighs
('What is this mist of energy?')

The Electric
confounded
by the
Heavenly

Prabhujee

this morning I watch the moon in
reverse

I watch the moon in
rewind

a star cast over our heads and houses

all calls for heat and
light

(and voices draw the sun)
(and voices draw the sun)
(and voices draw the sun)

(prabhujee)

The 'Catherine'

is despair; the drop of a sullen
mouth, the ill-fitting suit you have to
wear

"I took one for the team," you laugh, but there's
a hard, barbed truth in
there because

The 'Catherine'
is unfair; the requisite of a shunned
girl, the ill-sitting proof of her
fear.

At the 21st

a photo pops up of
Grandpa
and it is obscene with his
madness

I want to howl
'TAKE IT OFF'
'TURN IT OFF'
'THIS IS TOO MUCH'

but I don't
and it's gone

When She was a Man

she ran on other fuels.

Scanned horizons with another set of
eyes, prized another set of tools;

the boot, the sword.

Her action was as good as her word and
when she was a man she sang a darker
song, a long one, mournful and strong and
she stretched her nerves to the length of her stride.

Split the width of her fear with pride
and plain pursuit,

her sword, her boot

set firmly, yet fleetingly,

at the foot of a hill,
at the side of a sea,
at the edge of a cliff,
at the root of a tree.

Cool, Glassy, Dolly-girl

who smells like lollies and
looks like lies

black hair coiled about a China
face, dazed disdain ingrained
in her brow

flushes of brushed-on rose at
each cheek, lips of split
plumb part reluctantly to tell you

the tedious details

($58 left on your layby)

Atlantic

He is the Sea.
No questions between.
No fury mistaken.
No contamination of state. Of intention.
All pure contemplation.
All father.
All invention.

He is the Sea.
No fear of rejection.
No knowledge withheld.
All death, resurrection, is welcomed. Is done.

He is the Sea.
Is father.
Is son.

~

the land is a tongue

Some Question

Small Woman
puts her shallow footprints
in the shale-coloured sand - wind
winds her long long strands
in its fingers - dark sky
blue beyond grey
as it hinges on twilight - the
lingering sunlight as cold
as a clay tomb.

The Minute
has such room for
change - transformation - sirens
signalling each station of its
cross into night - its
shift - the cold salty lifting of
stars - of the moon

all
held
in the
hands
of some
question.

The Boy

The boy masked his face.

Pasted it black with a stroke, stroke,
the tack of the polish,
the smack of the paintbrush,
all joy, all grim, all primal and strange.

The boy wound a wire.

Wound it around and around his neck,
found the feel pleasing,
unexpectedly thrilling,
his reflection a thing to unnerve and admire.

The boy took the stair.

Trembled to think of the party ahead,
his heart in his throat and
his throat in his head,
a dreadful step taken - all - up - in the - air -

After

Drunk beyond
speech
we rolled into
sleep
folded like jumpers
all arms and
torsos
tangled the
sheets
with the blind, mashing
force of our
wash, our
dry, the
dark drunken sleep
of my darling
and I.

Mooncroon

cloudcloudcloudthefaceofgodthefaceofgodthefaceOFgodthefaCEOFGOdtheFACEOFGODTHEFACEOFGODtheFACEOFGODthefaCEOFGOdthefaceOFgodthefaceofgodcloudcloudcloud

In the Afternoon

I drift in the warm waft of the gardens, between
the sweet sting of things that have been. Tempted
by theft to thieve the things left but I leave
them. They belong here. And I've already stayed too
long here.

He was Sleepwalking

he was sleepwalking

called to a
red moon

thrown from the throne
of thought

all impulse
all want

The first thing I did when I got home from work was

get into the shower. It was all I could think about while I was in the shop. Shower. I needed to be clean. I needed to wash the fear and rage and hate away. I pulled my hair out of its tight, oily ponytail, felt my follicles swoon at the release. Ran the water, and as it warmed, stripped off my clothes like they were a part of the conflict, like the were vestments of that disgusting ceremony. Clean! I wanted to be clean. I wanted that woman's words to be washed out of my mind, I wanted the water to exorcise them from me like tiny demons and baptise my new, fresh, unblemished soul with a willingness to love humanity again! How I hated humanity that morning. How I hated its every low, selfish, mean, uncompromising manifestation. How I hated myself. Water. I needed water.

The Camping-Store Shaman

came and
cleared the air of
Her

at first
we'd laughed him
off

but soon
we asked him up the
stairs

and soon
as he went up he
stood

exactly where
Her bed had
been

I don't
believe in all that
stuff

but that's
the weirdest thing I've
seen

In the Garden

What was
that? Moving
in the
garden? As you
spoke so
earnestly? Between the
slow blinks born of
a few drinks with our
fellow, here, and
me?
I'm sure
I saw
the




Truth?




Although, no.
No.
I know
it couldn't be.

Grandstanding

AND THEN my father said well no I'm not going to pay that much for so little HE ALWAYS said exactly what he thought I'VE DEFINITELY inherited that from him NOTHING STOPS me from going out if I want to YOU KNOW the Balwyn shops are absolute rubbish these days WHEN I was growing up in Kew I used to ride my bike to Balwyn and I knew all the good shops for real good quality clothing you know GOOD QUALITY and I was quite good at styling myself you know I'VE ALWAYS had a good eye for these things it sort of runs in my family MY DAUGHTER is the same and my granddaughter too I GAVE my granddaughter $100 for her birthday and for me $100 wouldn't go very far but she was clever SHE KNEW how to stretch that $100 and get some really nice little inexpensive accessories and

he is joining the army

she tells me with the deepest
brown eyes

and something stiffens inside
my chest

something jars and will not
move




and I see him somewhere

dark eyes set on the dawn

my books on my bookshelf

stand as silent soldiers
in the army of hope

waiting for
my orders

The Skivvies

Every year I had to

acclimatise

and every year I had to get used to

being slightly

strangled.

The first days of winter

even cold autumn days

induced a gentle

retching

as I swallowed inside my fetching

skivvies.

Soon

though

I was used to them so

I wore them

the season

through.

Charmi

pushes her bin
between
two prams

See My Hands

See my hands age, see them
pucker, pinch, decay

shedding endless cells with every
dying day, heading to the
heart of death like
April marching to May

See my hands thin, see their
skin wrap a little looser round the
bone, they're being worn in

you see, my hands
are not my own

In this life

you must strike a balance between being cold
and wanting the windows
open

Holiday

4:29am
my dad stops a Parisian garbage man
and tries to ask him
how much money he
makes

I catch

the eyes lighting up like little
windows winking to the
night, spanning the natural
divide, sharing some electric secret
with the wind


(luminous laughter shuffles the stars

presses the printer
buttons)

the woman

wounds

like one who was

wounded

dream #23

I find a fine boned China

boy beside a limestone lined convoy

of metal men with metal

hearts and metal cars with metal parts

Elise

what fine whispers

whip right through you

when you wait

for night

View from the Train (of a Cold Night)

boo blue houses
hoot like little owls as we
swoop through their
streets

breathing little foggy breaths and
bleating little lamb bleats while the
cold heaps up around
them

I would wave
if I was little

I would wave
and smile

but now
the black-clad passengers on my carriage
would flap their papers
and frown

Donnie #2

We brought him pencils and paper and books

placed them with reverence inside his old briefcase

(the one mum said smelt like the city)

delivered them to him in the hope of prompting

watched those bony, once-dexterous fingers

feel through the contents like a learning child

take a texta

and draw a terrifying picture

of the Queen Mother

with a moustache

Donnie

We referred to our memory of you like an abstract
dictionary
a vapourous tome floating in the backs of our
brains

text mixed with pictures

we flicked through the fixtures of your former
voice
your former
face
your former
thoughts
and ways of expressing
them

this was our way of guessing what you
wanted

this was our way of preparing for your
death

Reception

you

made

a

myth

out

of

me

I move through

cloaked in the long blue cloak my
mumma gave me last
November
and now those Summer embers have come to choke on
Autumn
I am automatically open to being
closed.

My Niece Sleeps

my niece sleeps
tangled in hair and
dreams
imp spirit bottled in a
cream baby
cheeks flushed with
heat
sweet sweat-matted head paused mid-
motion
she seems moored mid some strange
ocean
she seems suspended in some kind of there-less
air
some kind of somewhere
nowhere

Gareth

Pulled into the dark smoke of his voice, his
stories, the pinched flicker of his beautiful
battered cheek, sometimes the voice drags,
sometimes it clanks, sometimes it's hard to hear
it speak, sometimes it swims so smoothly to the
surface of the room, gliding, angelic, through
the ears and the heads up to the roof where it
swoops, circles, hovers like breath, then descends
so slowly, softly, deathly still, a smokey trill
in a burning bush, then the air clears, the wood
creaks, and you are felled with one big push.

Untitled #20

he plays me

ukelele

after the sun

has passed

I Can Smell That Dawn

I can smell that dawn

hear it yawning through the trees as though the
morning broke it from a deep deep sleep, woke it
from a sweet sweet fleeting memory, a far retreat
into some fantasy, a place that won't come back

I can feel that lack
I can feel that mourn

just as clearly as I hear that wake and smell that dawn

Sam

Sam Shepard was so

beautiful!

we sigh

That photo of him biting

her arm!

His beautiful face!

The tragic glow of his wise young-man's

eyes!

The cut of his jaw!

His golden hair! (at least it

looks like it might be golden in these black and

whites)

Oh Sam!

we sigh



He's so sharp and steely now

though

she says

The last photo I saw of him

He looked like a dark

farmer

Staring into a distant

oblivion

the first thought this morning

my

self

is

memory

When We Reconnected

when we reconnected the earth was growing
cold, the

chill was settling in your
hair, there

were regular
rainstorms, everywhere

was
wet, the

streetlights that had streamed with hot regret were fogged into a
freeze, the

breezes were slap-sharp harpies with stinging hands and
yet, the

mornings we woke
together, the

mornings we opened our eyes to the light
together, the

weather was warm

and bright

Joan

The smoke takes her like a man never
could, circles
round her body, fills
her lungs, sucks,
her ears, plugs
her nose, burning
wood in every
entrance, every
hole, every
pore, burning
wood to take her where she's never
been before.

**

how the little moth circles

so slow

so soft and low

deep sea diver

of my air

Mortal Jewels

I wore the wounds like mortal

jewels, they hung in solemn

weights, clung like grave

suspicions, wrung my body

dry, sung my final

dirge with sorry

whispers of

goodbye

Warm Women's Perfumes

warm women's perfumes carry
coolly on the cold air, the
smell of their clothes, the
smell of their hair, barely
fixed to their bodies, barely
fixed anywhere, oh the
warm women's perfumes carry
coolly on the air

/

tonight I cleaved myself in

two

***

M's sister had been buried beneath a great rock near the cemetery, a tiny baby girl in a gem-encrusted box made by their father. And now M's ninety-year-old body, burned, turned to ashes and poured into an urn fashioned by his grandson, was set to be lain by that box. A procession of long-limbed boys and thick-fingered men moved through the gardens, made its way bewitchingly through the headstones, each figure bound to the other by a white rope. The leader of this procession, M's nephew and the eldest of the family, held M's clay vessel majestically aloft in his be-ringed artisan's hands, a wild spark in his green eyes, emeralds set in a silver mask.

Aftermath

Naked

drunk

and home.

Do I

smell like all

the girls

I danced with?

Have the boys

left all their

smiles

on me?

I danced tonight.

I did.

And now I'm

naked

drunk

and home.

For God's Sake

hold her by the ghost of her waist

dance once more before dawn

see love fill the frame of her face

cry goodbye at the horn

We Are Going Out Today

We are aimed at the city.

We are freshly washed and woken.

We are combed and clipped.

We are shirted, skirted, suited.

We are waxed and slicked.

We are riding machines today.

We are sealed in travelling containers.

We are pleasant, patient, polite.

We are watching the world through windows.

We are keeping our knees to ourselves.

We are keeping an eye on the stops.

We are smiling at jumpered children.

We are passing the movement of morning.

We are going out today.

We are aimed at the city.

Williamstown Beach Without My Bathers

converts me into a billowing
wader

clothes
hoiked

shorts knotted into culottes

shirt rolled above the
shoulders

water
warm and clear.

I never quite planned on coming here

but here I am
a lonely daughter

caught out
(towell-less)

sand removal not totally thought out
(tote bag a mess)

but who gives a shit.

I am here
in the water

and that is it.

A Pointed Steaking of a Girl

with waves of hair and blaring

eyes tries on

an embroidered blouse,

her boyfriend permitted to

peak through the curtain,

give an honest but gentle opinion,

the girl guides his answers with forceful questions,

his answers give way to her

prompts.

~

sweet-coconutty-teenage-girl-stink

Arcade

I wanted the old men who ran the arcade to be heartwarming gentlemen. I wanted them to be ambassadors of another, better time. I waited for them to greet me gracefully in the morning, to tip their hats and nod their heads to me in the evening, to follow these actions with an elegantly deferential word, a salute to the old-world duty of gallant man to eminent woman. In three years of coexisting in that arcade, three years of hopefully entering and exiting that building, expectant smile on, head ready to nod warmly in response to a sweet phrase, a charming word, a kind smile, I never received so much as a glance from the old men who ran the arcade.

Extract

How quickly our everyday realms sink into the mythic quicksand of memory. We are here. We were there. How quickly the forms of our ordinary mornings shift into twilight apparitions, pointing to the dark pool of night, signalling the gentle onset of death. Slowly, wittingly or not, we are undergoing a subtle drowning, a silent sinking into oblivion.

I would like to write a story for you.

We have shared so many stories, but like our time together, they have passed into the dream realm. I recall parts of them, though all recollections are dusted with a golden, obscuring vapour. I remember when you told me about your mother and your sisters. As you spoke, the tragedy seemed to unfold from the sky. The shop became a holy bowl of light, overwhelming as music, fragile as a soap bubble. You grew. Your brown eyes glowed like back-lit amber, your hair streamed in godlike coils of ancient rope. You spoke death with the assuring breath of an archangel, sword flaming against the dark. I truly loved you that day. You reminded me that only people matter. You reminded me to live with love.

Something to Aim For

I drink black coffee and I've
shaved my head.

I don't have sugar and I
talk about the dead just as plainly as I talk about
the living.

I'm done with giving everything
a coat of veneer.

I am now plain.
I am now clear.

Peter

Beard and bone

cut like a knife

sculpted in stone

carrying life like a baby bird.

The face of good

shaped by pain

draws his ink

from the human stain.

Karina

The woman, wan
and waxy as a white
candle

bears her morning body
through the wooden
rooms

Binding the blinds
with rope

Winding the windows
open

Catherine

The old woman was round.
"You could have drawn her with a compass," a neighbour had once remarked.
Her body was round. Her face was round. Her hands and mouth and eyes were round, though a compass could never have captured the sharp glint that lit them.
"I remember her scent more than anything," another had said. "Eau de Cologne. It reamed off of her. The entire house fumed with it, the kitchen, the curtains, the couches. She must have gone through gallons of the stuff before she died."
She had died naturally, if you can call the slow shutting down of the liver over a lifetime of heavy drinking a natural death.
"She was a strong old thing for someone with so many weaknesses," her half-nephew mused, "the grog mastered her for some fifty years. That's a long time to be mastered by anything."

It's Not George Clooney

leaning on the pole outside
the train windows

It's just a poster of him
telling us to drink
Nespressos

But what no one knows
is that I know his choice of coffee is
VERY UNETHICAL.

Dead Animals Curl

their heads by their broken
bodies
blood-sodden oddities
corrected by death

beyond calls
beyond bounding
beyond flight
beyond breath

dogs in boxes
rats in barrels
mice in buckets
birds on steps

Cleaning Bourke and Wills

water drips
down the giant temples
of the men who died
from thirst

Drunk Near St. Pat's, 1am

God should not be forbidding
God should gleam with all the dreamlike
welcome one can muster
God should not be grim and grey
with skewers piercing through the day
and carving up the night
God should be all light and lustre
warmth and softness and give
God should not be made to live with roses
fenced with knifelike spikes
God should be a wild, growing garden
calling you to smell and touch and lie.

Who set God in this cement?
Who killed him in his sleep?
I’ll reach through the tomb walls
and pick a rose to keep
in memory of
him.