Extract from my Untitled verse novel, ch.5

A dark realisation –

the moment may have passed.

she had a small window

to squeeze out of

now the window may have closed,

‘til the next turn

he leaves her.

The misery is stable

disabling,

maybe weeks from now.

she’ll have to stay here

stay

for weeks, perhaps.

She called Gray,

mid-way through the pack of thirty

feeling dirty and like

a punch in the back of the throat,

damn mosquito buzzing by

not once or twice

but constantly from midnight

til 4 in the morning.

Soaring past her left ear

then her right, not fearing

its plight if she caught it

and crushed it, wings and head

in her sleepless trance.

Lights on, then off again.

And Jim in the lounge,

set up to sleep,

getting up every half hour

pacing around the creaking

floorboards preparing her…

CRASH

another of her ornaments or vases

smashed against a wall,

muttered swearing

brewing her fear of calling out.

Fear.

The name of the night.

Or was it Agitation?

Alone beneath the covers,

livid lover in the other room

breaking things and threatening

to leave her soon,

sleeplessness,

and worst of all

an unrelenting mosquito calling her

to end the madness.

I pushed you

I pushed you through the open door

it shut, the road stretched

a yellow haze, fast between us

in a sudden gust of freezing cold,

I went to fill my cupboards

with everything I’d love to feed you.

Having left my balance on a cafe table

beneath the golden stories you spun,

the unstable walk home through old backstreets

looked brand new, and I

pushed myself through the open door

it shut and I undressed,

shifted the bedhead back in place,

let the pillows break my fall.

Grow up

Just imagine crawling into one of those

sturdy black strollers – the things on wheels

not the vagabond you already are -

and becoming the silent infant

enveloped by darkness pushed along

the sidewalks, only spatters of green and blue above,

and the mother’s sneakered feet

and the crunch of dead leaves and gravel

and a constant stream of fearless

consciousness, sleep, nourishment, relief

and unaffected tears.

The old man

The old man gives me nightmares,

he sets the veranda alight, screaming

that it’s his veranda, he’ll do with it what he wants,

he keeps docile tigers in the side room

partitioned off with feathery curtains,

his face stitched up in angry brows

perpetually threatening to let the tigers loose,

or pick up the lucifer, burst into furious tears

fold his shaking hands into fighting fists

the dormant drool turns to spit

and all the flaming words fall out.

The old man gives me nightmares.

Southbank and loneliness

The busker battles cafe electronica

acoustic warrior in a digital damnation

among the fields of barley, bang bang,

over the river cruising for some rain

the 10.05 city loop train swans into the station

gushing and squealing, the people on their phones

engrossed or reticent at their listeners’

hotting-up ears, moon-shadow moon-shadow

clopping heels, kissing greetings

espresso machine gurgle and tinkling teaspoons

the eternal hundred decibels that will outlive you

will out live me, will outlive this migraine

like an abiding sulphur medicine,

remedy from the alarming ring of silence at home.

My billy-goat

You don’t say much, but what you say

right on point, my silver metal billy-goat,

arms long enough to wrap ’round twice

voice made out of bass-guitar strings,

closet alcoholic intellectual, more knowing

than the knowingest New York poets could,

your brother knows, and I told you too,

there’s something special about you,

all teeth and hands like great paws

eating meat off your own kind, dark, brooding,

sipping Pinot Noir, the stuff my blood

is made from, my billy-goat silver and metal,

cursed with a manliness that’ll never see you

victorious with the right one, with this one,

not really mine at all, I left you on a stage

shirtless, stateless, the hundredth time

you said “I love you”, I finally replied in kind

and left you to the cold cold mountain,

and for that, I am truly sorry.

Dreams of forever

Your earliest memory, from the cot dreams

toys hoofing in a ring of light, to the tune

it’s a small world, after all that is poetry in itself

apropos of such unfolding, in nonage, in infancy

marriage at twenty-five, offspring by thirty

was never yours, nor office administration

not even the longest term mortgage, to settle you

into the long haul, the long yards,

the back yards, and cats and dogs

none of them yours. It was written in a villanelle

it was ordained by Auden, it killed your chances

you slid by the cornfields, under Van Gough’s sill

you fell into a lustful fate, a pond of muddy water

you swam with the eels, your electric adult

on the blink, powering down and dreamless.

 

Not Quite a Cat

He’s not in the background of my dreams

he’s right here, upon my lap

awkward pawing, purring on

autopilot, strangest creature

you’ve ever seen

he’s madder than me.

 

Out there the last ship docks

in the night, madam waits

at the swinging gates in the snow

more sailors to love.

 

Instrumental christmas carols

the band play in the corner,

my lap-mate sings  in my ear

rude alternative lyrics

in a scouring southern accent,

and I bet this one has stories to tell.

A Better Dream

I dreamed the teachers

launched a missile at the students

backstreets urban battlefield,

we’d taken a joyride

just around the block, no further,

in the school bus.

.

I dreamed I woke alone in the suburbs

burning eyes and churning stomach

no wars for oceans, and no teachers talk

about it or even really care –

its not here, it’s there

spare the students any confusion.

.

I dreamed vividly of suburban decay

syringes on footpaths melting in 40 degrees

when the kids go barefoot to the park

flattened house-pets on the road

walking through a winter heat-wave

to the university – I arrive sobering,

.

it was no dream, this is my classroom.

The student reads Keats aloud

stumbling over words like “fever” and “steed”

he improvises and nobody notices

a phone buzzes at a pulse

two laptops tap softly away,

someone has to leave early for work.

.

I dream of a new generation of students

too young to recall television visions of

planes crashing into buildings

crude wars waged and fear of reading

or engaging in talks outside of

an internet chat engine.

At Age Eighteen

At age eighteen you were afraid

you’d inherit your father’s complacency

his brother’s alcoholic gene

his father’s paralyzing depression.

You were into computer games

Final Fantasy, Prince of Persia,

Mariocart. You were into Anime,

eating whole blocks of cheddar

bands like Tool and The Tea Party,

you read Dune that year for the

second time, you started university

you read the newspapers, broadsheet

politics and finance pages front to back.

You left home, we lived in a share-house

damp degenerate rattle-cage art-deco

near town, they planned to demolish

in three to six months – in those three

to six months you never paid your rent

on time, I got a bad credit rating,

I never told you that. You became

vegetarian, you still ate at your parents’

you kept your clothes in the boot

of your 70s Ford V8, you stepped out

half naked in the frost of morning

got dressed in the front yard

you slept on a yoga matt with a blanket

and a tatter-cornered poster of ZZ Top.

Before age eighteen you abhorred

drinking, smoking weed,

neither of us liked the idea of drugs like

ecstasy and speed, but put us in a pub

Guinness on tap, or another stout

like Tooheys Old, and we’d both fold

gladly. Except you liked rum and coke

appetizer for the meal of drunken conversation

to come. Someone once told me

they saw you out in town

chucking milk crates at a bar window

from outside. I told them that sounded

about right. That year and for a few years

You knew just what you wanted:

marriage and children, love and comfort.

So, you went from one blonde to the next

always ending catastrophically –

you couldn’t sleep, you couldn’t eat

you blamed yourself, you couldn’t decide

if you loved them or despised them,

we’d drive out to the country

we’d blow off steam, driving in your

70s Ford V8 and moo at the cows

in the paddocks, see which cows looked up

you called the game Moo Baa.

We’d make plans to move out to the country

which would never eventuate,

you didn’t know it then, you’d just started

university, but you would take seven years

to finish a three year degree, and at the end

you’d end things with another blonde

and devastatedly tend a bar two nights a week

for a thieving boss, get fired for barely

keeping it together for those twenty-odd hours

get yourself down to the dole office

sign up, and stay on indefinitely.

You’ll turn up to the races

with a fiver or just some change you hope

to spend on gas later, and let your friends

pay your way unashamedly having

quite a nice time even though

you turned up four hours late – which

isn’t great but, it’s better than staying in bed

all night too, after sleeping away the afternoon.

You’ll call me daily, sometimes twice

for advice or just an ear, as I’d go about my day

I’d hear about every spiteful thing

your former dear did to you, and you don’t

start conversations with niceties anymore

no hellos or how are yous, you’re straight

to the point of what she did next

how she vexes you and how you hate her,

you prefer not to get off topic for an hour or two,

I’d feel bad for you, tell you you should be glad

it’s over, and by the way, why have you already

shacked up with a new/old lover

before you’re finished with the last one?

I know your past with anxiety and a bad case

of the sads, in fact, I relate and I know it gets bad,

you’ll tell me you’ll go on the medication this time,

at age eighteen you were afraid to

you were worried you wouldn’t be yourself –

you’re not worried about that anymore

you’re not a big fan of yourself anymore.

It’s ten years now,

since you were eighteen and you

don’t want marriage or children anymore,

and you’re not into: making money,

working or looking for a job you like,

looking your best, people who wear scarves

or cologne, people with an ego, people with success

being alone, sharing your food

people who are good at what they do,

artists and musician wankers,

turning up on time or turning up at all,

paying back debts, paying for rent, and

talking about where it started to go wrong.

You are into: computer games, anime and football,

not caring, being a nice person and getting drunk,

even if your friends won’t come with you anymore.