last of the timber & worms
(i) kitchen
‘I spill tea on a T-shirt
so there is a brown stain on my heart’
- Laurie Duggan, Poem
killing the magic fish / she morning
hung & lanced beside the stove &
denim / golden intimates or her skin / tropical
application of rocks or river / a certain name for
huts & farther snow / tracing elves in dirt of god
he wolf-runs for days in rotten tunic / torn by chief
of the dead & / fire digging chest expansions /
big hair / prevalence of fur & chains / anatomy's
red claw peeled vs. white / back the tangle
of his hair / the inner chamber skin prickled &
thought of sleeping on her leg & topless
connects with ocean dark / & generally slender
eating cake & mangoes in response to black
water / drought / ‘the one reality’ this fourth spring
burning / laid in his swoon too long / & brazen
trumpets / broken unearthly silence, dusky plumes
of mother sheds & ramps / phone calls –
disintegration of childhood’s malign titanic ibis;
seasonal trick of keys hidden in broken pipe &
unpainted detours, house / abnormally pulpy.
(ii) mantilla
ceiling in moth larvae &
mad max set design / empire
or vine leaves with such high zest /
the desperate glory belted sticks out
like perry his veins the black plunged
fist in pop-art jigsaw upstairs sunk &
holes for slings / plunged & guttering
clumsy helmets just in time in red she
necked in last world river & broke
& lived a boat with eyes / native hits
or smoke the edge of town is bagged &
tongued for dirt road farm the boys
& organs / taken regularly / funny little
place to have it / pokey - lists & she
finds j.m. coetzee in lights & in money
the title suggests this / her classical
voice & sleep reaching over / the
pointed ball / & sour adazzle
(iii) the man who danced as a bird
‘Being a stranger in this land,
it seems the day is longer than a year.’
- Tenzin Choegyal, Call of the Land
‘pockets apple pie &
other stories of horror’
last of the timber & worms / colourful flags
all this stone & meat / dancing cleavers
birds (always)
‘big happiness’ (or something)
chopping up cake or altitude
of river arms skulls
god of death & higher
silver /
whacking lakeside bupe or
(iv) the shelter bed
graf a tea-strainer for racquet
a clever anti-snobbish thread &
narrative pick-up on listless joy /
the need to relax & buy this can
or streamer / african black box head
she winks & says she likes it / like
to read that later all folded phoned &
moby noises zip-front hooded in blue
he walks in euro diesel / bridge & heart
aligned its landslide note or flower
pong / the azaleas cut & rooted in
ice cream buckets she hesitates
to hand them over / holding the
side garden silent & rotten to dump
this the grass on the bed under plastic &
fallow & tapping the armchair for years
& now growing a beard he yells or forgets
about venice or stanley street jane & the cut of
his suit & the hands became paper / fish
or his dick & the old style was raised before
blankets on windows or japanese steel &
he trained back to brisbane / & gutted / the
call & her flecks being hazel & painted
or sleeping & watching her sit in the heat
then undressed on a towel & she oceans
or swarms to the edge to the marvel of
shells make it time-lapse / a black sun
she motors & waves
(v) ‘wounded & is eating a rice cake’
‘Heretic is a tile of honour, for truth always
starts by being called heresy.’
- Sebastian Franck
& eats the fruit of weeds / her lip
exquisite accident of
aboriginal design / clutching blonde egg
of hope she red-top cone &
green slip frosted on blue /
‘hail the american empire’
(or else)
robotic assertion / what actually hit the –
(big lie) & starts with the smiths at 5 am
ends in sound effect / chuck norris &
fire doors
(too much chest hair for asians)
white sailor / dancing boy on top-hat or
bamboo trampoline
‘bearded & . . . displayed great strength’
‘a warning against mixed marriages!’
(vi) eden’s staircase
‘You sure you want to be
with me? I’ve nothing to give.’
- Tricky, Overcome
assorted fig tree darkness / rain in brackets &
will plus ‘light of knowledge’ / wet hole in space she
collision of glass & salt /
passed island rock here (malta) –
assembly of tridents & pots & floats on skull-headed
winged cardinal, radiating yellow spears of colour /
kissing black stone / apocalyptic birds & fires this river
choked / all those dead indians / pale & bloated in
absence of parasols / burning dung & bones –
spiked & nodding on a mattress in the desert / poetic
span of legs & wooden teeth / all sorts of beads & animals
/ cross-hatched love handles of god in blue.
(vii) ‘then in that great sky’
allergic to swimming or thought of
submerged movement / he paints december
from spotted iron, abandons name & eyes
like bungaree (observed by europeans / throwing a cocked hat during a trial by ordeal) & later
soiled / smell of wet carpet after the rain or fall /
unable to ‘do anything right’ / backing prince
off the edge / new vertical short-cut
shell pattern or fish design / the elaborate
schema of painted panels / life in jars &
kept for decades / drums & fractured wood
the steering wheel from ‘blue’
small round pools of sky.
mealed-with-yellow
makes her latest slang & hair
& wet in june a holy river boxed
or taped in micro / traced the stove
in polish dance with cut-out feet she
sticks to ribs & shirt unbuttoned &
pink with cone for head the baby
ticks somatic distress & grows to
read banana's kitchen / the place of
expert help & rapid smoking pin-ups
& although she loves the gang her
wacky accent / cadence & the gulf
of hashish makes & mars / ground
floor wedding & face of the poet his
freckled sun & mo / they speak in
ants a blend of secret tongue & age
& light removes her eyes & beak &
lives in dirt or rounded photos / swing
the mice she draws in sand the ruined
cities / a tidal gig from japan or hastings
perfume wonders grips the salt & banks
the flesh-worm / rain or thong a soft mud
dated hope by some star brimmed / ‘look up!’
Our Mendicant Love
1.
No eyes stare, or roll
our simple plate
this morning
serves Chinese river
skein of fog, provincial
phlegm & hands
behind his back,
hens circle their tipi
emerge as sound effect
or white sun radio.
2.
The Dadaists believed
madness was liberation
orbiting some stone clutch
of chance
the still picnic of coin,
potato & thread,
gesture.
3.
Imagine, skin & bone
no longer simple:
this strange necessity,
this you-shaped Paradise
walking, the starved
schematic gleam of city
ill-fitting, submerged
the yellow-blue wash
of our mendicant love.
Indian Love Poem
(for Marissa)
bored with napoleon think of flower
& stone entangled / the sweet red
knot makes tongue & she / her way of
murdered alphabets / walking through
sinkiang. at the very top of the body
replace classical head with sky-chariot /
name in gold & set with memory’s
precious stars / bride like stricken fawn
in creeper curls she sleeps viridian
tendrils dreams the pink mango
nightingale / lusty branches salute
venice (celestial fridge) / a shallow water
utopia for a bearded head or tower
she waits taking in the details:
over clear ponds parrots mistake her
lips for fruit scratched with claws &
beaks look splendid / liquid peacock
eyes & glancing like a lower lip or german
curses walking folds of cloud or butter /
the winged victory borne in a fast knot /
comet or sari / the loose end civet-smell
duck-headed stick-man & only then
toe-nails aurora or cranium merges
the visible stretches of her versus blue
& the sheets or collyrium stain on yr cheek
where this morning her pointed breasts & my lips bruise
party for young artists
end up staring at the moon for
a week & pop! half a kilo of LBJ
pills later / even stronger / night
in a pit waiting for help to arrive
& eats only pine buds & Siberian
jay that he catches & eats raw like
fish on the lunch table / sit down
for blood soup & no sign of white
man / practicing free kicks -
defenders exploit this in northern
summer fashion / dropped at the
top gate the walk past gallichans
or broken redskin patch of noon /
x-ray wire in film he dabs a chest
in tissue or name-tag / a bathroom
cabinet smell of brown kiwi / the
brush in his hands & like leather he
smiles for a moment is drained /
the post-war night train / a billabong
near kalka in shorts then a cap
from hawaii & boots / the street &
he skylabbed / the orbit / a dull light or
last bus where everything's makeshift
& old or in jars full of metho / some cats
in the laundry act bolted / act looped
