Revolting Fleas

Step

Reading about the 'elimination step'
I understand it's philosophical
Or natural
As far as these things go

After the Lady of Shalott
In a spare room
Any isolation begins
With mirrors and longing

And just as she wove
New temperatures
To fill her time
I sit here now
At the top of a long stair
Believing my Lancelot is a dupe
That his step
Were its force known
Would proceed lifetimes
Out of view

Genetic Paint III

Control

A woman on a motorcycle is waving to a boy standing several hundred meters from her on the roadside. She is travelling at high speed, roaring towards him. The boy is springing up and down on his tippy toes returning her wave with both arms, an action which sends his whole body into delighted gyrations. Her waving is enthusiastic too, yet jerky because of the wind whooshing over her.

She passes the boy and suddenly catches something. The road.

Her waving stops as she snaps her head forward and tightens her grip on the handlebars. The boy doesn't notice anything unusual in her behaviour, however, and keeps waving.

A little way down the road, the motorcycle begins to judder and skip from side to side on the bitumen, kicking sharply at its surface.

The woman is losing control.

I Held You in the Square (Ben Okri, 1986)

I held you in the square
And felt the evening
Re-order itself around
Your smile.

The dreams I could never touch
Felt like your body.
Your gentleness made the
Night soft.

And even if we didn't know
Where we were going,
Nor what street to take
Or what bench to sit on
What chambers awaited
That would deliver us our
Naked joy,
I could feel in your spirit
The restlessness for a journey
Whose beauty lies
In the arriving moment
Of each desire.

Holding you in the evening square,
I sealed a dream
With your smile as the secret pact.

Genetic Paint II

Genetic Paint I

Seeded Wall

A pre-Rudd profile

Lost a limb in Kabul. Blamed it on bad dress sense. Some prank! Currently in rehab near Cuba. Jumping to get my hands on a weapon again, or the bible. Jack tells me the wife's gone missing; reckons she got sweet on her parole officer and's trying to hide the pregnancy. Four kids, three fostered out in Perpetuity (WA). Swelling in the temples is better - less time on the polygraph. Things were looking up after the bushfire trials. Organised a visa through Tony's mob then settled in Afghanistan with Dave. He jokes about it, but I only drove the van. Inherited big time from Thai uncle. A family of orang utans now pissing on mum's sofa and intimidating her cats. Pity I can't enjoy it. I've finally lost all control of my life. Missing all of you. Give my love to John Howard. Tell him not to arse out of his campaign to bring back truth in government. Or his vision for a suburban utopia. I've got so much to learn about what's important. And old father time eh. Wish you could help with this but I'm wearing orange overalls. The only news I get now is through my lawyers and they were educated in the public system!

Sharp Heads

Quieting

They are big
These doubts of mine
Let's not quibble
About proportions
Or inheritance

I mean, ask mum
She needed more evidence
Than the midwife's sick
When I slipped out of her

We're talking the whole
Big-Bang-Look-At-My-Gummy-Eyes
Palaver
I don't exaggerate when I say
They'd flat out fill a church hall -
These doubts of mine

A stranger asked me recently
Are you normal?
I didn't blink; I said I doubt it
He said I've been talking
And I think you're not
I said I doubt that too

Then he tried to force me into his car

I needed some convincing,
Let me tell you,
That that person was me

And now there's this whole death problemo
A funeral director
Just (a few years ago)
Showed me the way to the door
(I was sampling a coffin)
He was mighty cross
He said get out you don't deserve it
I said what, the mahogany?

It took 24 policemen,
One for each rib,
And a litre of vegetable spray
To convince me that that
Cadaver wouldn't dance

But here's a question:
Wouldn't we all
Flirt with the dead
If we knew our exhumations
Or serendipitous encounters
Would be Adequately Capitalised Upon?

The Officer in Charge doubted it
So did the judge, his angels,
The small men with shovels and cigarettes
And of course
Sodom's crazy lot

After five years I suppose,
Yes,
I did too:
Big time

Long Legs

All Ways

The last town

How far is it now
Back to the last town?
Back via smouldering horizons
And black-ash roads?

How far is it now
Before the sun falls?
Before our footprints narrow
On formless desolations,
The lines no longer lines
The ground no longer ground
Laid out for them?

When will we turn
Our tired bodies
From all this damage?
Lapsing finally into an
Endless blissful walking sleep
Back to the welcome siege
Back to our first memories
Of the last town?