Riding the Updraft

I'm looking out the window as the blade
of a hawk's wing slices the blue,

wondering if I will learn
the secret of gliding on updrafts

before I dissolve into streams of cells,
dispersing pink haze as they rise.

Anthony Burgess

With eebroos and hortsnoggle
he has released wild language in me.
Brewed from source it gurgles up through fissures,
elemental but cobbled, like wooden teeth
in a bracket of mouth.

Though we have no ears, still
it must spew forth, just for the out of it.
The in too explosive to hold
behind cranium and glassies.
What spontaneous rupture
Oxford and Webster create
in the hegemonies
of a mouthy locutus.

Playing Dirty

Yo there slut fairy,
spitting up your morning juice -
have your retarded highchair-fest
with your bottle-fed hand-reared friends.
Gurgle last night's dredge
into the burps and farts
from frosty lime succulents.

One wink out of line and you're mine.
I'll take you out like a zipper line,
like a freak to a ball, like a tiny bikini
when the weather is fine.

Hold your head and moan cos you're sore,
best watch your back on your way
out the door.

Moon's challenge

was to write a poem using this line:
'the transient waters of internet'

Chris Never wrote this beautiful poem:

The challenge of the Moon


Lapping
the wavelets
ripple across us

You sing to me
on the incoming tide
a voice carried
in the wing of an osprey
carving the sky alone

I have felt your face
within my hands
sifted through the
curve of shell
to pour onto my palm
and shimmer into the
glare of morning
infinite crystals
spreading on my skin
to cling
then wash away with
the sunset tides.

Across
the transient waters of internet
we slowly stoke
each cupping of the hand
embracing the sky
the sea
the way we should have been.



and this is mine:


Timefish


My life is being swallowed
in gargantuan gulps.
No matter how I try
to evade its leviathan mouth
the clock keeps swimming toward me
arms spinning, water churning
cross-currents behind it.

Before one groove is worn
smooth from one rock,
I will disappear into the maw.
More transient than
the waters of internet
upon which my ash is sprinkled.

Word Up

You skanky assmo',
what's your problem?
Wear your cock like a banner
and think you're a trojan.
I may not look 'clever,'
I may not be 'fun,'
to you and your homies I'm like,
'just a mum.'
But I know where you're goin'
an I seen where you're at.
On the 'cool' boat to no place
bein' stupid aint phat.
You got all the gear,
the right phone, the right friends,
but they'll run out like water
when you're not the trend.
They won't want to know
that old bum on the street
with no car and no home
who sleeps on a seat.
They'll get jobs, they'll get girls,
they'll move up in the world,
and you'll be left here
with your chick magnet drool,
your p and your party pills
day after chills.
One day you'll be fifty with no place to go.
Eskimo boy, on the street sellin snow.
The Salvation Army'll be your address,
a charity victim and sorry-ass mess.
So flip me the bird,
I'm just some old broad
too straight to be cool
who gave you the hard word.
Rock off down the street
ear plugs back in place,
that vacant drug-laden
bliss out on your face.


Heh heh, here's a wee treat, lol


powered by ODEO

In your hands I am made
and unmade. A tiny doll
spun in the circle of your eye.
Tucked in your dimple
the sparkle from my smile.
You feel like home to me.
Like the shore upon which
the sea arrives
at journey's end.

The Crossing

i
The soldier's boots tap off minutes
along the stone parapet.
The moon sheds silent radiance
to define his shadow,
the shadow of a sword
that writes in stone
the song of the warrior -
the words of the true heart.
A song of binding and making
to forge from scaffolds of fire
the iron jungles of the world.
He is the guardian of the crossing.

ii
I release you into better hands -
into the arms of the universe.
Rise with the vapour from the grass
and walk into the untamed fire,
the boiling star of dawn.

Such blessed goodbye is this
small last source of comfort,
sweet flesh drawn to empty
beneath the hands of friends.

Mouse Party (from the McCahon drawing below)

Mouse Party
(McCahon series)


The family mouse tree
is laced like embroidery.

A mouse for you and one for me,
a small rodent bag to dip in your tea.

What a strange flavour that would be!
The mousies breed prolifically,

three of them blind
and one lost at sea.

One up the clock and another set free,
but this one without his tail.

My father used to recite a piece:

‘There’s a little mouse nibbling at the pantry door.
He’s been there nearly a month or more.
When he gets in, he’s sure gonna be sore.
There’s not a durn thing in there.’

The point of this being, not the verse,
But the five-year-old glee of my father’s rehearse.

small thought about paint

A sliver of white
intrudes the black -
or does it light?

Glass Tumbler

Some time during the night
a glass rolled off the sideboard.
Its smooth cone spun circles
reflecting the dark.

Soundless it continues to fall
as I scramble for a place
I cannot see the shatter,
shield my eyes
from splintered fragments,
cover my ears
as the hammer swings up.

This is the way
I wake from the dream.

The Descent

And so it begins,
the spiral descent.

Lip between lips,
tongue tip tasting ...

Bring me down
my bogus priest;
take me to my knees.

Only you worship the blood
canted in my veins -
forbidden flavour.

Pale amber dawn
polishes the sky to stone.

Leap
razed by lightning,

finger crazed,
dazed by the sudden prayer of sex,

the sullen opening of ruby.
How the blood tips extend their absolutions,

lest we forget
we have been melded in this pot before,

lest we remember
that slow, feathered, starless fall.

Sweet Goddess of Surrender

website has been deleted, sorry

Twenty-first Century Prophecy

And I saw and look,
at the nearing of the end of days
a vast crowd poured forth
into the streets, from schools, houses, and factories;
as if the gates of the sea had opened
and spewed them out.

Four blackened concubines lead them -
fell creatures from the ninth circle of hell
writhing free from pits of demons.

Their names were Chaos and Anarchy,
Riot and Dread,
and they went among the people causing
confusion and doubt,
spreading seeds of dissent and suspicion;
each one mistrusting the other.

Words came from my mouth steeped in meaning,
wreathed in truth, as small globes of light
spinning from me in flashes of prophecy.
I sent them after the crowd and where they fell
some would awaken, as if from a dream.
In this way a small remnant were saved,
but the vast multitude rushed on.

Time was taken from them.
Night became as day, and day night, and they were lost
in immeasurable wilderness.

The wave swelled and churned forward,
leaving swathes of debris in its wake.
And the name of the wave was Devastation,
ravening over all the earth like a pestilence.
It swallowed up the children who were to have lead
through future generations,
in whose lifeblood flowed promise
of new perceptions,
so that there was no guidance for the crowd
as they rushed blindly on, babbling
and leading one another astray.

A wasteland sprang up behind the hoard,
and there spread behind them a scorched, empty plain.
And I saw a great chasm, open up in their path.
So great was the momentum that they swept forward
pressing after each other until all were plunged in
and none survived.

Then a great angel came down and sealed up the place
where they had gone, and they were no more.
The books of legend were sealed
and with them the doom of man,

and the Lord dusted off his hands
and his gown and said,
bloody good riddance,
and he disappeared.

Only we few were left.
We looked at each other
and we were afraid

Dateless Song

Saturday night with a phone to cuddle
a huddle of 'girlfriend with date' on the couch
you crouch and try not to envy or stare
from your chair where it's cold
you hold the remote and channel surf,
unearth some old B Grade horror with vampires.
An entire carton of ice cream is gone
the weight you put on will not help the phone ring.
If only an old flame, or someone would sing out
your pout would be gone. You'd put on your glad rags
snatch up your handbag, in twenty five minutes or less
you'd be downtown, dancing in clubs with a white
sparkling wine, glossy red nails and a dangerous smile.

Ooo baybee ... sing that rhyme
waiting at the club standing in line
for pina colada, a slice of lime
drink them two at a time