She said his eulogy -
Said it, like an elegy
For a dying swan
Her face wan
As she grew louder,
Grew larger
Her voice rising to scream out
Her sad goodbyes.
The pigeons in the rafters
Fluttered their downy wings
And slept.
The church quiet, damp
Small flames twinkling, lighting the way
Light the last candle and leave -
Leave him to sleep.
Fare thee well, and sleep.
Of Stolid Unease (24/9/99)
Beneath a corner of everchanging sky
Where the walls are lined
With gold and leaves
Cast strange shapes with hanging fronds
Cool in the shade of a summer's ease
Or in winter's wane.
Of goldfishless goldfish ponds
And buildings of grey cement untouched
Under imposing monoliths
Bricks of terracotta newness
Contrast green glass and skyline views.
Sway in the midday sun
Shadeless palms for a misplaced island
This place is alive
This place is a-hum
With the noise of a thousand people.
When the fading light
Creeps past the closing threshold
Breaches into hiding corners
Swallowed by the growing dark
Outside, displaced souls
Wait for time to be returned
Wait to shake off the dreamlike fugue -
This present wakefulness
Let me walk in the -
As shadows fall
Across the park.
Life As An Abalone (6/2/02)
I'm not really oval, I'm not really round
My belly it's always close to the ground
I'm nothing to look at, squishy and hairy
You'd think of me most would be wary.
You're most likely to see me in a tank
That you're not me your lucky stars to thank
For though I'm primitive, my body under a shell
I'm living in a permanent hell -
I wish I had a taste that people would hate
For somehow I'm destined to be on a plate.
I'm tough and chewy, and not at all cheap
But still you come to eat me, and now I weep -
Humans! How can you leave me to such plight?
You say in return, "Hmm...flavour improves with each bite!"
Hooks (25/5/02)
Boys, who play
with young girls' hearts,
are scum.
I wish
we had more brains, as a sex.
Love-addled,
giggling
talking loudly about guys,
when we don't know a thing.
And they reel us in
on sharp hooks
and watch us flounder on the end.
You Decide (19/9/02)
Is this one poetry?
You decide.
Is this one where I try to be really smart,
work in a pun or two?
Heck, you might as well say
You're just writing nonsense
with line breaks.
Or you could call it literature
and say I'm great,
or say I'm confusing
And I won't believe any of you anyway.
This is one where the 'I' refers to 'me'
except where it doesn't,
OK?
Yeah, I didn't get that either. But you
don't know that
for sure. Are you afraid
that I'm laughing at you?
Trust me; my poetry
is not me, and I'd trust you were all smart enough
to know that a page of words for others to see
would never reveal that much of me. I mean,
how much do I tell you face to face? Subtract
that by nine, add two incomprehensible syllables
four lines of physicalities and SEX and Oh no!
I have a test. This is such a waste of time.
I bet you're all mad at me now.
Smile.
Domesticity (3/11/02)
And they lived happily ever after -
They had made a vow to,
in front of many friends and family
some long gone now.
But it had been said
"Through riches and poverty,
in sickness, and in health."
She had kept it. Was keeping it,
as they stumbled towards the end.
Three children and a house in the suburbs,
his nine-to-five job and she playing housewife,
except it was hard work
with unforgiving hours at that.
But he would come home, and their faces
lit up to see each other;
he would tell her that she brightened up his days,
that he hoped it was the same with her.
Now
he doesn't remember much of what he used to say,
of the promises he once made.
Sometimes, he stares
as if he's never met her before,
as if he's never been close enough
to marry this creatrue before him.
When they venture out together,
she puts on her favourite dress
with its matching hat,
even though it's old, forty years -
she wore it first when he was courting her.
Teenagers sneer
at the pink veil, the pink flowers;
but she can feel memories on her skin,
her husband's hand tight in hers.
On one trip, he held up a train for ten minutes.
A stranger frantically hailing the guard,
keeping him from closing the doors.
Inside, he stood stubborn and clinging,
refusing to recognise their stop.
In the end, she put out her hand
- age speckled paper wrinkles -
closed around his thin wrist and tugged;
tugged with hope and bands across her heart.
She pulled him forward,
and saw it clear;
guiding him on,
gently holding on to what was left,
of the man she had married
- once upon a time.
Song (26/11/02)
metal on metal on rock
slow rumble under feet
swirled and trapped between noisy dragons,
whirling dust past.
heavy jerk machine slide
hiss as door roll closed
rat-a-tat over thin walls,
pulls against concrete berth.
static behind voice as voice a mumble
flick of paper rustle on rustle
girlish chatter murmurs content
groans as people alight footfalls on steps.
heads droop on chest and bob
rhythm is yours in time
- faster and fasterandfaster -
rocked and lulled in afternoon heat.
shrieks of almost smooth glide
whistled as you go
a carrying sound, a-carrying
all the way safely home.
Abstract (13/1/03)
I have always loved
my friends who wrote poetry
more than those who did not -
swirling their words through my mouth,
in my mind,
as if I could devour
the part of them that gave them voice,
their creative mind to shine
moth to a flame,
burning bright.
To those I could not befriend
I gave up envy:
sorting through piles of prose and poem with
my half-formed mind,
my insecurities showing; but I didn't know.
Once written seems set,
kept as testament to what I thought then,
kept as proof of my shrinking heart to a broadening horizon
- and all that I want to say
hidden malice, heavy guilt
the driving urge to confess dark deeds -
once written once shown
not mine any longer to own
and too raw it's out there
have to be careful what slips
when writing tired and frustrated,
dangerous yet so tempting.
But streams and burbles,
words and phrases and ideas and song;
conversations overheard, or heard in my head
sing to me a story dying to be read
written now in snatches of near-sleep,
gone by morn.
Soup of song,
mixed pot of sounds and rhyme
made up make believe a maybe reality,
mind overtime on a dreamer's dreams
too soft or loud for human scribble
on cheap store bought lined paper -
but I'll try all the same,
try and try again;
Tiny wings sizzling to ash,
beating futile,
a talentless hack.
urn (it saves space) (5/5/03)
I would cry
if I knew how to,
where to.
I don't remember what it's like.
There isn't enough grief in a world like mine
to try again.
We have buried my grandmother in a small urn
under a porcelain horse, under dirt;
somwhere in our quiet hearts.
I dig up her memory whenever I mourn -
no longer for her after this time,
but she is there when I mourn all the same.
There isn't anyone else, as alive
in death
as she; and we never say her name,
though we talk of things past.
Converse (26/6/03)
There was this boy
We were just friends,
really good friends,
one year.
He would ring me from work
when it was his lunch hour
and say, You wouldn't believe
the idiots I've talked to today!
(because he was help desk, see.)
He'd do funny voices to match
and we'd laugh and giggle through
fifteen minutes to an hour,
until my mum would pass by with a puzzled,
frazzled, look and wave at the clock.
Then I'd say, hey I gotta go -
ring me tomorrow, k?
And he'd answer me with his teenage apathy tone,
but we did the same thing the next day,
and the day after, and after that,
for two weeks straight.
There was a night
after a party. He drove.
It was late, minutes left 'til twelve
but neither of us wanted to go home.
I couldn't ask him in, of course -
we weren't dating or anything like that.
He said, Do you want
to just sit here and talk?
I said, Mm, yeah. So tell me -
We sat in his car with the lights hout,
by the side of the road three streets from my house,
talking of the nothing that was everyday life
until after one, until my parents rang
frantic to know where I was.
I sidestepped their questions,
said I was on my way, five minutes only.
And I was.
He was hot for one of my friends.
I knew this because he confided so,
right after we started hanging out.
I asked him once, What do you
like about her?
He gave me a sliding glance, and muttered
something I couldn't catch.
I teased him another time,
Hey man, why don't you
talk to her for once, huh?
He snorted, and, looking vexed he said,
But I don't have anything
in common with her -
I can't talk to her at all.
Then he changed the topic,
and we chattted on.
We didn't bring her up again.
Except once more, the last time. Late that year,
she turned him down, laughed him down;
and he came to me to rage,
as he had for nine months previously -
telling me his hopes, his personality,
with worries and snide comments and sweet jokes.
He was in a snit over her,
he asked me, Don't you think
she dresses like a slut?
And I could only stare at him,
then look over his shoulder to my friend,
her slim body in a singlet top as ever.
I said, I can't say
I do.
He glared at me with those dark eyes
I secretly thought were lovely,
and pressed his lips thin.
We didn't talk anymore after that,
for a year -
not really, not in the way
back when I knew his week in perfect detail,
and he could recite my timetable.
Now we just waved at each other's smiling face,
and faked punches in a crowd for laughs -
now it was all for show.
Months went by without much word.
One day we found ourselves
laughing freely at each other's jokes
over a lunch with mutual friends.
In the sunshine after
I called out impulsively to his retreating back,
Hey! Give me your number,
it's been a while, let's catch up.
He turned around gracefully,
lean shoulders shrugging.
He said, What do we
have left to say?
There was this boy
We were really good friends.
Future Tense (28/2/04)
Sometimes, I am afraid
I will be consumed
by my bitterness -
Which has
the same face, same name;
sharp teeth to eat me whole,
and a sharper tongue -
Unbidden, she calls people names
Unchecked, she deflects attention
with sarcasm, a cynic's heart -
And people, hurt, think
they are looking at me
and slowly,
they will be.
Why Do I, Why Do We (6/4/04)
The absurdity is that there is
anything worth doing
not already done
or found unworthy of doing in the meanwhile.
This song, already sung;
This song, now a soulless cover;
This song, a thrice-written lyric -
from the novelisation of the film
of the life.
The audience does not
hold its breath for the next incarnation;
but it'll pay, for the
technicolour, plasma screen,
surround sound, extended verion
director's cut, special edition
coming-soon-near-you! version,
anyway.
In the meantime,
homeless freeze
children starve;
everyone dies.
Parramatta Rd, 8am (15/8/04)
There were many prayers, and as many
jokes about dances; brown-scorched maps
of where once was grass. Today,
the sun did not burst forth above heads
in its celebrated glory. We shivered instead,
and stood in lines or huddles as rain
washed glass shelters, seeped through
solid soles and dipping hemlines, and
soaked us: the unprepared, unbelievers.
By the dusky grey-purple were drowned glimpses
of a forgotten world, headlights
swimming on a slick happy road.
Rain (13/11/04)
Raindrops keep falling on
my glasses.
I used to write about
things other than writing.
Poetry is observation in metered lines
I can no longer see past
the awkward rhyme of my nose,
the unscannable curve of the mind.
Self absorption is creation too -
modelling what has already been made,
building artifice with each piece
of the old unexamined self:
mere words for inner thoughts,
clever phrasing in the stead of emotion.
Outside, the sky is blue, the sky
is sometimes grey. Raindrops keep falling,
immortalised in yet another teenage poem,
embarassed by its power as muse.
Metropolis(5/2/05)
City people in proper suits gleam
On escalators at the station they teem
Like salmon up a dirty grey stream -
Each appears the same from behind
An Escher print of shirts and glassy minds
Struggling in vain for the daily grind.
Incendiary (19/3/05)
On New Year's Eve you say to me
"I'm - "; but your name is lost
in the shower of falling sparks above our heads,
the undignified joy of the crowd.
And now whenever we meet I see
a reflection of the fireworks in your eyes.
I can't even call you by name, but every smile
fans hopeless flames of my hopeful heart.