It can’t be there but it is againno matter how slowly I pull the blindthe magic orange all aloneon top of the ragged post untouched secret admirer dark emanatetoo heavy surely for yourscrambling ardour or doting clawplaced dead centre four metres high unpeeled and moonlessing dawnlips await the warming sacrificeyour song cleaves air in fragrant … Continue reading Native Thrush

My friend Burt told meof the secret door at Melbourne Airport.It looks the same as any doorbut you have to have a special pass. Like that restaurant in Sydneyyou can only enter if you are a member,but no one knows how you get to be a memberexcept the owner who won’t say. You have to … Continue reading Open Says a Me

Mary says she doesn’t knowand in a way I don’t carethere are lions and crosses an old man wipes foreheadsby apoplexy he claims a visionwandering with the other two so baked in deliriumthe donkey shivers for warmthamong contractions in a village excised out of three candle tierssplinters wrought by rough handsnothing had felt so good … Continue reading Working Family Christmas

Once I lived in an old houseat the bottom of Rucker’s Hillwith a renovated lean to kitchenthat hung over the steep backlike a galleon moored in air a Liquid Amber grew massive therethrushes cleaned their beaksthrashing the mace and chain podsthat made bare feet bleedlike the lain dead of Agincourt out of the crenellated bi … Continue reading Below Northcote Rise, Yuletide

Event. The wind has itsvoice. Trees are in the freeway.Roller derby shove, then skyAraucana. Shifting technologiesrun for explanations. Rain saysI hold you all, I hold nothing. They’re singing Joni Mitchell.Five women. The Concert Halla Ferris wheel. Holding onO Canada. Grip for the roada river to skate away on.And we’re falling, into words. There’s a moment … Continue reading A once in a hundred years

Then I touched the wetted skinfletching thoughtsthe pod’s skittish deferencea line of sight If I’d said I loved youthere where ancient sandskissed at my toeskeys through ribbon to paper Or the taste of shortbreada slow melt of lemon myrtleold mills in renovationa scalloped turn of edges We pushed the clumsy calfshoving with our backsuntil the … Continue reading Do whales think in blue

It was the silverfishin the endthat finishedthe highwayman’s treasure a malfeased pieceof Victoria’s wedding cakea sliver of majestykept wrapped in muslin purloinscissored from a pillow’s hoodtransported to Hobart by ‘49absconding the famine of Dublin nights and four monthsat captive seahanded down with the storya simmering rebellion taken out of the mouthsof noble gantriesalong with seven … Continue reading Royal Icing, a Christmas Ditty

This is how love ends:I couldn’t get anything rightSo I gave up trying at all.Stuck like a dinghy out pastThe breakers waiting to come in.Watching you shoeless on the beach,Annoyed at the sand I’ve becomeBetween your toes irritatingWhen it used to be a tickling joy.My voice a curlew nowUnmoving in the fog,Persistent though like Archimedes’ … Continue reading not Another small Fucking love Poem

at the table in our favourite placethe waiter I asked not to give me another drinkno matter what I say or dolaughs, and I wonder if you feel it in your bonesway beyond the final shiverwhen all the moments mass to diveinto this abiding everlasting electricityhow the something we feel passbristles, holding on long enoughto … Continue reading Wake

Easing on to my back footSaturday early early Summer, elevenisha sound of cork like poppingthe axe fall of linseeded willowthroughout the mowing suburbs My spine straight as a lithe picketPlane trees shady stalled on shuttera mottled reminisce of Cazneauxour border/kelpie Sophietrotting back the drooly ball Her jet coat a reelin stoppled light from Van Gogh’s … Continue reading I play the perfect cover drive