poetry collection

Low Tide

Sea, sagging like so much tired skin

with its many yawning mouths

muttering the same low tide one liners

to the comatose, surrendered shore

long given in

to that heavy, deadened wine soaked sleep.

x

No words

I love you. The words scratch like dry leaves scuttling across your drive way concrete.

I miss you. Sighs collect under your living room sofa.

I need you. Feelings stacked neatly in your over filled bookshelf.

You are dying. Scrawled across your face. Held in your hands.

Lodged between my teeth.

You are in pain. Hung on your protruding bones. Pinned to your sagging collar.

Cut into my trembling heart.

I am afraid. Billows like smoke in cold air. Crowds our conversations. Glass half empty.

I am… Sorry. Lost. In pieces. Upside down. Inside Out.

You are dying. We are all dying.

You are dying now.

You struggle. You fight. You cry. You curse. You laugh about it.

You sleep and dream and wake up.

You dream of sleeping and not waking up. You sigh.

My eyes are burning. For you, for me.

I hold your hand inside my hand.

Your fingers, rather slender, hands a little cold.

Piano players hands. You could have been – (no more no more no I can’t go on)

I love you. Tears escape the netting of your kitchen curtains.

I miss you. Frowns heaped on the chaos of your kitchen bench.

I need you. Packed into your drawers.

I love you. Folded away with your clothes.

You tell me about the treatment.

The drugs. The chemotherapy. The doctors, the nurses.

The poking the prodding the morphine dreams

the cutting the screaming the bleeding

the praying the pain the dying

the dying the dying, oh god, you’re dying.

You tell me about your garden. Your Aloes. Your African Violets.

You cut back the Grevillea, you watered the pots, you put that out for some sun

You think they will start to flower in a few weeks

You crushed rosemary in your hands for me to smell.

I wonder what will happen to all this when I am gone.

A sharp stone shaped from pain presses down on my tongue

and cuts my mouth to ribbons.

You tell me about your old job. You worked six nights a week, always overtime. Lighting guy in a gay club. Couldn’t have been more perfect.

Everybody’s darling. Six nights a week.

You worked in spite of the chemo, in spite of the headaches, the pain and the nausea. You didn’t tell anyone when your legs nearly gave way when you were half way up a ladder.

You made them look beautiful, made the light shine on them.

Those were the best days. (said as your mind flicks through all the pretty party pictures)

We go to the park. Cupcakes, tarts and cake from the bakery. Lime sodas.

(later I will feel sick from all the artificial colouring).

We brought so much sweet food even though you have no appetite for anything these days.

You show me your favourite trees, the roses, the bandstand, the birds, the view of the river.

You come here most days. Walking slowly, you are out of breath.

Sitting on the bench, you adjust position frequently as pain courses through your back.

Isn’t the view beautiful?

I want my ashes scattered here, at my favourite part of the park.

My eyes trace the fragile curves of your face as I try to block out the image of you crumbling to dust.

If I could only hold fast to you, trap you here in this moment, lock you into my heart, but the ground is giving way, the tide is rising and the current is too fast.

You are already receding, one step closer to the edge of the horizon.

Maybe the world isn’t round after all.

How much longer?

I don’t know. Depends on how much more I can take. Some days are better than, others.

Some days I just want *

I’ve thought about it. If my toes have to be amputated, I draw the line at that.

No way. Or if I get pneumonia. I’m not going through that.

Some days I think I will *

I’m not sure. I talked to my doctor.

The cancer has spread right through me, lungs, intestines, everywhere.

Then there are the lesions. On my face, my body, even inside me.

It’s not HIV anymore, its AIDS.

It’s the final stage, the last leg of the race, the closing act in the show now darling.

My doctor has been good.

He said that *

I know that I could *

But

Mum can’t stand the thought of it. It would be too much for her.

Too much for her to bear

But

I don’t want to turn into a *

Not be able to take care of *

Go through more *

But

Someone has already said that they would be with me, that they’d be there, when the time came

When the time came

*insert sound of screaming

He laughed and said that there was no dignity in death.

I want to be there when the time comes.

So you do not have to be alone.

So you know I love you.

So I don’t have to be alone.

We’re sitting next to each other, but we’re both alone with this moment.

You’ve already got one foot over the line.

I love you. The words swirl out on the water.

I miss you. Words turn yellow as the seasons change.

I need you. Words carried away with the breeze.

I love you. The sky darkens.

I miss you. We both turn to look at where you want your ashes scattered.

I miss you already.

It’s time to go now.

The park lights have spasmed on and the air has a chill.

We pack up the uneaten cakes.

You tell me how here in Brisbane the sun sets quickly, it just drops from the sky

and then it all becomes dark so suddenly.

I say yes, so it has.

(I’m so sorry. I’m sorry mother, I didn’t mean for it to be this way.)

We walk back to your house.

You are a little dizzy, a little weak. The stairs are an issue.

Little things become big things.

Speech is laboured. Holding on tighter to the hand rail.

We’ll wait for the lights at the crossing.

You’re feeling the cold more these days.

(It hurts, no more it hurts, it hurts)

We open up the door to your house and you lower yourself down onto the couch

I put the kettle on for tea, turn on the tap to do the dishes next to the sink.

You go to protest, but I cut you off with a half joke.

We both know.

x

Restoration

And I’m standing next to you
in the bombed out, burned down museum of our lives together
in the scorched remains from the war between us
and I’m looking at you
and your gentle smile
and your hand round mine

and its a different kind

of beautiful.

x

Shelter

The unspoken little pearls of words
the courage cut in fifths and thirds
the lace of lines that gild your face
the rage and ravage years add gentle grace
the half defeated
still repeated

tiny, humble prayers

the faded flags and tarnished bells, the lake so deep, so still, and quiet.

x

Ten oh three

A soot black squall of flint eyed crows
erupts out from the underpass
in unapologetic coughs and splutters
and punctuates the leaden, deadened sky.

The hardly faithful ten oh three
whines and grinds
along the aching vertebrae of rusted metal tracks
and slumps into the station, like a bourbon mothered punch

disgorges out its malcontented
much resented, life-beaten meal of
waitresses and countergirls and sour, surly sons of

somewhat greyer waitresses
and countergirls.

x

The Virus

The virus sits between us, uninvited

Interrupts our conversations

Finishes our sentences

Squashes in next to us on the couch

Crams fingers in our mouths

Searches through our pockets

Has read through our diaries

Has the largest serve

Makes the most noise

Steals our thoughts, our jokes, the last lines

Makes the clock ticking sound louder

Makes the room colder

Makes you ache all over

Makes me ache for you

x

Intersections

In the carrion soup bowl of the city
drowning in the hell of other people’s poetry
amidst the sickly starburst shine of roadside diamonds
lies the sad littleness of long missed opportunities
the broom swept piles of shards of dreams
houses built without foundations
relentless engines fueled with blood and tears
the folded, folded, folded paper hearts
corroding bodies and shackled hands
the dried and withered cast off skins
the rasping tongues and bitter taste
defeated minds and crumpled faces
the gasping, wheezing, wasted stagger
in worn out shoes with bleeding feet
the fall from grace
the race
that

never ever
seems to end

x

Mr Vulture

slow dancing, and romancin’
Mr Vulture and me
on the shore
in the rain
on the black-glass rocks
to the beating of the ravenous sea

I’ve got small hands
of chipped porcelain
and his are all clawed and mean
and when he gazes at my face
in this cut throat light
his eyes have a sickly sheen

and so we dance all night
in a jagged two step
and we dance right into the sea
and slide down in the water
this cold black water
to the bottom, Mr Vulture and me

x

An uneasy alliance rusty with regrettable collusion

When the haze renders your silhouette

into a rough suggestion

Obliterating your centuries

with a dismissive, ivory sigh

The road long given in

to some forgotten argument

shrugs its way over your intents and purposes

muttering and grumbling

in its sour-whisky stubborness.

x

Last Dance

and the stinging rains will come

and slide through slits and jagged cracks

and turn the withered ash from white to grit and grey

and put out the black smoke fires, one by one.

and the rats will skitter and screech and scream

and their teeth will snap and crush and grind

and you will say that it cannot be undone

and turn your face from the sullen rubble that remains.

and now your mouth is a slash

and your eyes are stained

and you have the hands of a sinner

and this is the last dance, the end, my love, good night, goodbye, forever.

x