The Biscuit Man

Formed in a dark kitchen
by an angry chef -
beware of the biscuit man
with his pudgy corners
and ginger smile.

His yellow eyes are milky
like a clouded night sky.
He's killed a three-and-a-half
year old with a kick to the head,
and he'll kill you too
with his wish to be dead.

Take care of the child
with the cuckoo mother
who throws her own baby
out of the nest-
biscuit man's prey
is every child.

If you let him in bed
there'll be crumbs ... crumbs,
please,
slam him back in the oven
and let him burn.

Honeyboned

The animal urge is strong,
see how it stretches
its jaw with longing,

girds its loins with oil
and rouses hunger's glistening
pulse and throb. Even the weeds
are sprightly, green with vigour.

Among the vibrant grass is a cat.
Long soft smokey fur
and khol-rimmed, golden eyes.

She crouches over her prey,
lets the wing fan open,
allows a small fluster,
then catches the ruffed throat
to her again.

She scents the bones already -
toasted honey.

Through the Eye of the Needle

How the days strobe past, 

unremarkable in a light-trashed sky. 

In the house on the hill 

the lady has forsaken doctors 

and returned to belief 

in candles and beads. 

Drips of candlewax collect like sweat 

on the top lip of hosannas and hail Mary, 

sky full of grace. 

How the lady burns as she turns 

on rich sheets. All the coins 

weigh so heavy on her eyes- 

pressing her into her grave.

Salt

There's a scatter of salt
over the polished wood table.

We plant our elbows in it,
swish curves and rims with cuffs,

make galaxies and nebulas,
whisk it from fingers and palms.

Like gods we sprinkle
planets carelessly.

The waitress clears our plates
and wipes away all trace.

So easily, our small
saltine universe erased.

away

it's a blue day

day moon

white balloon

in the sky

flies me away

The Fatherland

is a place where fathers
have hammerhands.

They build play houses
and break the glass on doors

when small daughters accidentally
lock themselves in.

They wash hair without ever
letting soap sting eyes,

smooth tangles
from bird's nest hair

and tuck tuckered out
baby girls in bed.

Then, sometime after
the first wife's funeral

and the second wife's
inaugural ball

they drop discarded daughter
on her head.

Fishmonger

You have your fish eye
and your fish mouth,
your spew and swallow of fish -

speak in fish tongue
the gollum, wordless,
with only sounds of water
gulped and spat,

and scales you strip
from my hide and weigh -
you weigh me
till I'm weightless.

A ton of shining silver
arced over bubbling steps
of surf.

Slyboots

Isn't it cunning, 

with its demure outline 

and bewildering array of doors. 

 You'd never guess 

the scarlet lingerie 

trimmed with glossy bows 

 beneath the pleased to meet and greet 

with renaissance skirt and jersey. 

 Its inane twitterings 

disarm my battlements.

National Poetry Day

the rounds of glass
reflect the light
and the care with which
they were polished
on the matt black cube table
between the matt black
cubed couches
from which poets release
winged words to fly about the room
eyes tearbright and lost in myth
breath fluttering in bird breast

the tulips in the gloss vase
with their orange cloth flame
slowly catch fire

Photographic Sex

See how their bodies
bleed and boil
into each other
in seamless curls
of steam and skin.

The black and white
stretches and speeds curves
into fast corners,
indistinguishable poses-

no unseemly hair,
just a head of tousled straw
and a starving hunger.

What it is

This morning I found a place,
in the center of my back,
directly behind my navel,
that I never knew was there.

Straight and strong, no
roundness of extra flesh
when I pressed my hand against it.

The discovery made me realise
that all the times in my life
I've felt unloved or unlovable,
I always held this kernel around which
energy flowed and formed.

As a baby, still awash
in the language of stars,
I began to collect knowledge,
to gather experiences of my new world:

my father's hand,
warm, enfolding mine;
my mother's voice;
the seersucker brunchcoats,
my sister's and mine the same,
but in different colours;
the bars of my cot, a first house -

occasional dots of colour. History
building into a life, the same way
any other's does, but unique to me.

I realised, with this new part of myself
found today, that my days
are an accumulation of dots,
and all I can hope to truly know
is myself.

Gabriel's Passage

It was there the fiend slid his dagger - 

into the narrow apex between the angel's wings. 

 As the pearl feathers dip 

a garnet runnel licks, 

flickers groundward - 

 fire is the nature of angel blood. 

 The moon makes a half rice wafer 

between night clouds that conceal the stars 

and streak the sky like tracks of tears. 

 As he lands on green earth, stench 

of black oil from the serpent rises 

and fills his nostrils for the first time. 

 It is winter - grim - kissed with ice. 

Gabriel's sword craves, and his bright heart rises 

like a silver fish from the morass.

winter

She dreams of winter sleep -
long hibernation where there's no irritation
from the neighbour's morning ruckus.

No more scrabble to get the rubbish sorted
and out on time, no endless search
for a more dollars per hour place to work.

The feast on awakening obsesses her already:
cheesecake with thick crust, and a whopper burger
with fries, creamy bowls of porridge, and chocolate.

The raven has wrapped in his woolies
to snuggle in for the duration. Together
they'll rest in the arms of the great snow bear.

Emmy Pater

My mother-in-law passed away this morning.

Bring to me your sorrow,
I will lay you on a bed of lillies,
forgive all that has passed between us,
and remember all the good you were.

Dawn spreads her wings in lemon feathers
as night passes over into day,
as you pass from us I hope you find
a softer place to stay

The Blessing of Dust

Amid evening scents of old roses and fresh cut grass
she lays her mask on the bedside table
and rests her bones on alabaster satin.

In dreams the ocean washes her in teal
and gulls wheel above her. The bed becomes
a cushion of broken shells in which she is locked
as the key flies off through oily waters.

Nothing about hearts, nothing about flowers,
her face laid bare, she must slumber on
till dust or moss might bestow a sheen -
benediction of concealment.

Pan

Her face has seen too much of the day.
Sun has radiated its likeness
out from the corners of her eyes.

She worries about the rays
lapping with parched tongues,
sucking green to brown.

She fears the upswell of oceans
melting polar ice caps
where snow bear carcasses
cling to ice rafts that disintegrate
and drift down warming currents.

Soon desert will curl
over the edges of continents.
Fish will flounder in sand,
rivers and lakes will become legend
muttered by old folk round midnight fires.

Once she wore a sunflower dress,
with silver buds painted around her fingers
and purple vines traced up her arms.

She'd ascend the steps of great Pan's palace
and twirl to his pipe songs beneath leafy canopies.
Seeds would stream from the hem of her skirt
to seed every land mass.

Now great Pan is silent, pipes lost
in the sand that slides on the floor.
His palace ascends, stone upon stone,
wall against wall - ever inwards and upwards
to a great gap in the ozone where deities once dwelt.

The paper lanterns are all crimson
under the blue plum of night,
where colour spectrums spatter stars -
chunks of painted eyes
that gaud the sky vault.

Only a slight blemish of dark
filters between light and shadow
beneath verandahs and tight shutters.

His mission is indefinite -
to whispers of telemetry
he leans - arched toward the echo.
Will the lights spark to flame?

Scarlet pools steeped into the street
shriek and stir to ripples, walls giggle
and grind their edges.

He's hoping for news of change,
for promise in the winged shapes of dawn.