Geckos' Night Song
fruit bats fly upwards
swooping and squabbling
we answer we answer
we chirp our return
slide through hibiscus
closed buds of hibiscus
slink down verandahs
fluorescent crepuscular
we stick to the walls
we wait on your buzzing
your soft-spoken secrets
food for discussion
frozen in darkness
here we are here with you
wait for us wait for us
this night is forever
this night begins now
Tidal Reach
See the tide come in I see the tide go out
I see the tide go in I see the tide come out
Too big to cry, too big to shout
I got the incoming outgoing what’s the tide doing blues
Seagull asks me what the hell you gonna do?
Seagull cries me what the hell you gonna do?
I toss a black stone, show him where to go
I got the tailpulling seagulling what’s the tide doing blues
Clam gets in my way it cuts me to the bone
Old seashell gets me and cuts me to the bone
Mad dogs chase me every time I go near home
I got those clamhanded dognabbit what’s the world doing blues
See the tide come in I see the tide go out
Chase that damn tide in, drag that damn tide out
Forgot how to cry, no one hears me shout
I got the incoming outgoing
shit rising tide flowing
everlasting estuary blues.
Map Legend
Frigate birds swoop and lift, beating over three thousand miles island by island by island. We stand beneath a scraggly palm tree at the boundary, heads tilted back, searching cirrus and nimbus clouds for the signs we were promised.
When goose quills fly, words tumble out the nib, the magician’s endless scarves stream out of a shiny black box. A flock of geese approaches the barn, desirous of contributing feathers to the next chapter and the next. Honk if you love our words, we cry. They do, and we are deafened by the din.
The air is thin. The wind bears down hard, hard down the track, where red and white snow poles like blind men’s sticks lead us to a new place. We snake along the ridge, tracking through tussock, careless of lava flows below us. The falcons ignore us. We take shallow breaths and leave only echoes.
The Morning After: A corrupt paradelle
Dead men’s voices boom from the reef.
Dead men’s voices boom from the reef.
Swollen grey fingers spread wide in the wind.
Swollen grey fingers spread wide in the wind.
Dead voices spread. Men’s fingers boom
in the wide grey wind from the swollen reef.
Alien armies with vials and test tubes
Alien armies with vials and test tubes
keep clear of the couples who creep in the dark.
keep clear of the couples who creep in the dark.
The dark keep couples with armies of vials.
Who clear-tubes the alien in creep and test?
The tubes wind clear in men’s party of glare.
The fingers creep in from couples, grey of reef.
The vials test done. We’re stuck – dead.
The armies spread in with a horrible boom.
The alien voices keep drinking. Who is over?
The swollen dawn is dark and wide.
The party is over – drinking is done.
The party is over – drinking is done.
We’re stuck in the glare of a horrible dawn.
We’re stuck in the glare of a horrible dawn.
The glare is horrible. The party of drinking
is stuck. We’re in a done-over dawn.
Damage Control
I could give up the garden
when I am told to clear my mind
but the word buddleia stays,
heavy and smooth, sinking down.
Amy Brown, ‘Buddleia’
Typhoon, earthquake, cyclone, hurricane –
any difference? or are they all the same
when your roof is gone and walls, sodden,
give up, collapse and fall outwards
into incoherent muck?
If it’s really armageddon,
I could give up the garden
and take only pictures with me
when I leave this place for good,
leaving nothing else behind.
Daguerreotypes, bleached-out polaroids,
any or all of those will
help me wave a magic wand
when I am told to clear my mind.
Stop collecting things, they say,
that junk will only drag you down
and leave you mired in memories.
No garden, I agree, but surreptitiously
I dry lavender, trawl for seeds,
snip damaged cuttings back to size.
But the word buddleia stays
where I can’t forget it
no matter how I try. I graffiti it on
the last retaining wall before the mud
takes over. Then I wait and stand around
as that wall, too, collapses. Then I watch:
the wall and the buddleia both are gone,
heavy and smooth, sinking down.
