A Moon Song
Sometimes the town needs to be silent
Let its secret crows sing, however
They carry changes
The moon's white eye closes on the horizon
Leaves accompany us along the road
My fingers feel out the cold on the gate
There's more night now and perhaps more time
Published in nthposition and The Australian
from Temperamental Sonnets
Signs & Portents
Finally you’re faced with a sign
that says “free beer”, and some one is yelling
“put th’boot in” – it’s not like your mother
said as she soothed the knots in your head.
One day some books will speak about us
if there are books and another “us”
which didn’t go soft like a pashmina shawl
at the end of the alley, as winter chugs over
the bandstand and we’re kissing on the grass
ignoring time and its mate, the lunar wash.
Someone with cobalt hair attacks the rain
with a kind of “bottoms up” fervour.
But we stay inattentive, our body heat catching
us, and this is still important.
Whale Songs
Insurance lends a hand to the dream
but the dice is pretty much the way it is,
pretty much like the famous dog and its day,
just as driving an old Taurus takes guts,
you’ll need at least fourteen portions
of crystal and bat sheen, gingery flooze.
All those blustering gentleman, shining
balls on their whites, still can’t play
it straight in an uncomfortable clime
at the end of ages, as the whales approach,
now on foot and inconsolable, unable
to digest the folderol of the high seas.
The ice slides into disrepair and the acid city
finally measures the alarm.
Published in Otoliths
Taunting Forms
Why that taunting
of a form that limps
to the top of the hill
feathered and turning
on itself
while surroundings adhere
in spirit? Undulations
break on me
foam, a line of wings
shores still wanting
an edge, breathed
moment
however it is
what corresponds.
Maybe stone
for the darkness
the mass, then flame
a choking star.
Published in foam:e
The Wandering
Sometimes — to stop
and raise air, difficult praises
at the waterfall, foot of a mountain
a path turning in its lines
and exchanges, the sought
seeking itself and another
those things I learned to tell
at edges, contours in
and outside the doubter’s way.
Within clarity’s blue shadow
is a dark pulse, a testimony
what the world offers in its imitatio
and journeys.
Sometimes — to stop
and raise air, on the road
not quite celebration
but in acknowledgement
of wandering, a calling
of ways, name it what you will
or what is offered:
sea, track, last rise
caldera, journeys and gift.
Published in Eureka Street
What’s coming next
We are coughing because the train is late.
Someone still wears a volunteer’s uniform.
The tabloids have all had coupons torn from them.
Maybe it’s easier to focus on cloudy days.
No use worrying, the results are in.
Do dreams stand up in the slashing gravel?
An expensive perfume arises out of damp air.
There’s the smell of a fire sale.
An age is coming of slow intrinsic diseases.
No matter how long he stares at the map, the carriage falters.
What worked then and what’s working now?
Equivalence is in the magic.
In the glass is another world.
You can bare silence and find it neither golden nor clear.
If today is streaky, tomorrow will be unreasonable.
There’s a long street where leaves are tipped red.
The peace gets more anxious.
‘For sale’ signs are out, stapled on plywood.
Pages of legal clauses have upset the momentum of speech.
Functionaries run towards the rain with buckets.
There’s something damp at the foot of the columns.
Effort is required but less smoke, please.
All bets are off.
You have to go through it.
Summer is a long one.
I'm jazzed in loved lawn.
Published in papertiger
Bone
I set up the shot yesterday
but fell into the hole
in my mouth
yes, where the stories leak
to my throat
or fling to air breathy
busking my walk.
This is the wide city
it has accumulated me
along each stage
the clarinet, the needle
and abraded bone.
Published in The Duplications
My Green Name
Instructions are the death
in this age of phony wars.
The measurement of roads is moveable.
There's a humming in the mangroves
while the building is shaking
and rain crashes like a bomb.
If I knew my name, like that song
remember how it went
a red wisp of thought
before you step onto the path.
Once the cordons are down
even with the passports closed
it slips past and flowers wild
in the cracks of an obelisk.
Though sky is soothed by ground
the leaves are not mistaken.
Dry grass and yearning hears me
or I am barefoot among stacks
turning green in the wind.
Published in Agenda
The Tender Stone
The pen so cold
snow edging the city
wind tests the monuments
their verdigris work of the soul.
There’ll always be dancing
at the bar americain
though the tongue freezes
without speech.
All along the boulevard
people press their lives
into the sounds
in their heads.
There's something tender in stone
cold frees it
the living stand with flowers
feel the coming sleet.
Water is more than rain
there's no sleep beyond the night
and now is always interruption
sweeping away leaves.
I cover my head
where the cold falls.
Cimetière Montparnasse
Published in Heat
You can buy copies of my books online
from the
following publishers:
Salt Publishing
Broken/Open
| Screen
Jets Heaven
Picaro
Press
Where the
Sea Burns