burns.

 he doesn't burn slowly, 

usefully,  like a candle,

he burns dangerously

like a cigarette 

about to be dropped 

on crusty bedsheets,

he burns like red embers

spat from the fire

onto ancient rugs.

he is a dervish, whirling,

living for this moment 

and this moment,

and this one.

he is a professor

in the science of 

getting nowhere. 

he devours all the flavours, 

he is the rainbow. 

the flags he flies

are not red, they're flaming,

and i am the moth.

apollo.

apollo walked

by moonlight

contemplating entropy.

although a king

of increasing power

the snowball effect

of the melting ice,

the fires that close

the gap on heaven and hell,

the ruptures that 

the earth endures

make him fear the virus

has finally won.

apollo wept

by candlelight 

contemplating entropy.

stairway to the edge. ripped off stairway to heaven-led zepplin.

it’s gentle at first,

but already it’s haunted.

ghosts float in a medieval parade

and i long to join their dance

but it is too soon, they say

too soon.

following the paths of various pipers

i crave a more diabolical dancer,

one who carries a knife and

flattens his hair. but whiskey don’t

make lucky, and even the madonna

is crying when the rain washes 

down the stained glass windows.

the hills get steeper, and louder,

there’s a real build.

the undergrowth makes cover

for the thief, so not everything

can be revealed,

some things must remain hidden

until the arrival of the may queen,

and the drums.

then a passer by asks me “is this 

the way to heaven baby?”

cue the electric.

 no matter the talisman i carry

it’s less of a caffeine high and 

more of a midsommar mania.

the rocks sprout flowers

and the riverbeds flood, a cleansing.

the wonder of it all fills my eyes, as

words that cannot be spoken

must be wept.

things get a little… nonsensical

as the boats dock at the

quarantine island - 

they're throwing a party for our souls!

it’s all strobe lights and amulets

and dancing like the world’s on fire,

because it is.

on the edge of everything

there is a sharpness, where

things are felt more keenly.

and that’s where we gather, watching

our island inch

to the edge

of the sharp, flat earth,

and finally

we find

our lady.

we needed you to go to rehab amy. ripped off rehab-amy winehouse.

developing a habit

as easy as

falling down.

you flirt with 

danger and chemistry

to make a heady cocktail,

staggering from drink

to drink

to drunk

in an extravagant tango

that you call love.

we needed you to go to rehab amy.

you opened your mouth

and from a place divine

you filled the room

with the furniture of your life,

spinning your heartaches

like fine white linen,

dropping rare gems

like ice into bourbon.

moody blues and bloody ballet shoes

we needed you to go to rehab amy.

 you thought that you were

in love with love,

but what you craved was chaos.

sad that the music wasn’t enough,

sad that you failed more times

than you tried - and you did try.

so i get that you’d rather be

drunk than sad but we needed you,

we needed you to go to rehab amy.

now you inhabit

our thin places,

slipping in and out of

our everyday cravings,

singing self destructive anthems

to the loves and losses and alarm bells

that shape us all.

all soul and no body

we needed you to go to rehab amy.

a small sonnet.

we touch lips

and you are ready

my ego slips

but yours is steady.

fingers transferring

your scent to my skin

muscles clenching

deep and within.

hands are claws

and tongues don't care

map my flaws 

so they turn to air.

we come together, simpatico 

on a rolling stone crescendo. 

days.

insomnia carries

its weight through 

my days

dragging my feet 

slowing my heart

heavy on my eyes 

insomnia carries. 

grief weighs

its way through

my days

pricking my nerves

poking at memories

getting my guts

grief weighs.

happiness floats 

over my head through 

my days

out of reach

visibly pretty

achingly far

happiness floats. 

left.

the grimest

of reapers

doesn't want

you dead,

for him the

satisfaction 

lies in your

suffering. 

a cast

of shadows

greets you 

as you run

but you

can't let the 

rapture

catch ya.

aim for the

thin places

the spaces

where the 

air is pregnant

& you are 

born again. 

depleted 

but you 

can't fight

the devil

with willpower 

so acceptance 

is all

that's left.

cheyenne.

sitting in the shadow of the rockies

it's a long way there. 

fog covered mountain, secrets

i'd like to leave behind 

here in the shadows.

hands feel like ice

and ice feels like fire

and it won't feel so cold

if you just keep walking. 

stopping 

lets the chill air catch you

here in the shadows.

keep breathing deeply

the air is much

much thinner here

so catching breath is 

mindfulness, 

not mechanical.

think of the pioneers 

and slip on some sheepskin 

listen to the whispers.

because the mountain

knows them by their names

& by their dreams.

dream of steam trains 

and ski shoes, try to

pioneer your way out

of the past

of my head

it's not quite white yet

not quite hermit time.

storm.

it's deliciously messy 

when cuts cause blood

but not always.

i'll ask you to

send envoys 

from another 

threshold, because 

however harrowing 

the daytime 

there is still 

enormous scope 

for the night.

apparently & differently 

the scariest step

is out.

when the blues

keep banging

in your head 

every step

is pointless, 

like a circle.

this time

the storm

stays silent.

don't

write an anthem

write a prayer

write for the man

who is not there. 

write real fast

but reluctantly 

embrace the rhythm 

that you feel don't see.

don't see colour 

don't see race

don't see the nose

that's on my face

don't see the facts

that surround you now

i dream of better

but i don't know how. 

coffee

i choose coffee

over love.

why not?

my heart already 

ripped dripping

from my chest

that night,

that night of 

a thousand knives.

i choose coffee 

& make it strong. 

make it a liquid

to drip pitch

down my throat. 

make it in shots 

& give me

the bullets 

to load.

i choose coffee, 

because if it's 

hard to sleep

it's hard to dream. 

i choose coffee.

over water, over tea

over land, over sea

over anything else

you want to serve. 

places.

i wake early to watch

the clouds

as if they were 

television.

joined by birds

incredulous 

we sing

& we sing

in a voice not quite

melancholy. 

i like to find

the thin places,

the spaces between

here

& not here.

someday the rapture

will take me

but for now

i settle for

some other damn

paradise.

strips.

it only took

a look

to turn me

into a

somebody 

done

somebody 

wrong song,

leaving me

bleeding roadside

in a sentimental 

way.

we sit

through the

guilty hours

ripping strips  

off a reality

rendered over

and nothing

that you say

can make 

this bitter 

distance

better.

didn't.

i didn't see it coming

when he took my hand

on the corner of

underdog & vine,

heartskip romeo

to sweep me

off the street.

so i didn't see it coming,

drunkdriver fast 

a car

to sweep me 

off the street 

& closer to heaven

than a body should climb. 

i didn't see it coming,

the gravity slap

that the 

the comedown implied. 

i was the prima ballerina 

in the frantic dance

around the inevitable. 

covered.

i'm not in

the habit of

misguided 

infatuation, so

what i like most

is your haunting 

storm damage

and the easy way 

you cover it over 

with sarcasm 

& substance abuse.

but whiskey 

don't make lucky

so i become 

familiar with the 

quick exit of the 

one night stand,

& the cold of the

middle of the

night.

needs.

"i'll be there soon"

he said

a long time ago.

i stayed long enough 

for a spider to spin

a web on me

so that she could

whisper in my ear

"if you need me i'll 

be dancing".

thoughts.

 i'm not in the business 

of giving things away 

but this frown is free,

i made it myself 

from found objects

so you see

it has your name on it.

once,

and later on

the needle scratches 

words of

ambiguous meaning,

another tattoo 

torment.

thoughts, they 

waterfall, & the 

only time

peace finds a

home here

is when elvis

sings the 

blues.

eight

if ever i dreamed
of a bleak city
this is it.

nameless buildings
and strip malls
with too many signs.

the trees are
closing shop for winter
shadows of their
former selves.

sticks and stoned don't
break my bones but
the cold takes
my breath away.

seven

they have closed the coffee shop
whe you committed suicide,
drinking cup after cup after cup
of coffee too strong for
your heart to handle.

i walk past, trying to remember
the good times, the sane times.
i flick my eyes to the skies
because i don't know where else
to look for you.

time does help but cannot hold
my heart the way that you did,
like a badge on your chest.
i still take my coffee strong
as a lesson from the dead.

six

we stay until
our shadows grow
so long
they are almost
out of reach.

you linger,
touch my hand
and say
"there is just
one thing more..."

sound turns hollow
and crickets weep,
but our glory
will live in
the small arrangements.

five

i take my safety for granted,
like i'm a man
or something
tall.
i rationalise it as
calculated risk,
but really
i'm just playing craps
with the fates

janine balding
sally roethe
le ngoc le

walking with a
confidence that
i only have
sometimes
their stories roll
through my head

mary freeman
teah rose
simone fraser

i brace,
form a fist
with my keys

caroline willis
gail winner
ros thompson

because society
ain't gunna
fix this

maria korp
katrina and cynthia miles
jill meagher

but i still hold
my head high

caroline matthews
margaret tobin
rebecca wilde

and keep walking.

four

looking to the hills
we discuss the value
of nature, then
decide to go there.
breathing deeply,
hoping this
moment
is strong enough
to hold us
we fold into
the undergrowth.
with blindfolds on
we can quench
our other senses,
while in between
thunderclaps
my heart has time
to skip a beat.
there is no fruit
left uneaten
until the
pixies sing a
love song that
goes too long
and we know
it is time to get out.

three

dark alley daytime
where deep humans
take refuge from a
world too shallow
to comprehend.
the light doesn't
shine here.
nothing shows
or grows or is
nurtured in
this underbelly,
but comfort can
still be found.

two

we find our happy place
park benching with coffee,
and although i don't expect it
we both start crying.
it's not so much the
words we say
as the deep sense of
hopeful ennui
we both share. 
we feel intrepid,
and although the heart
that you give me is
cracked and bloody
it is whole.

one

like something
left out of
a documentary
i hit the road.
shale shines like
second hand silver
beneath my feet
& with the wind
at my back
there's nothing
but black tar madness
showing me the way.

it's a dusty shuffle,
sometimes clinging
to the earth
for fear that gravity
and memory
will fling me to realms
too sacred for
a waif like me.
birds that are
nameless
call my name,
call me home.

diabolical logic.

it's now, or not now
but not never.
you promised me forever
but then you forgot.
i understand but
i have to think about the burning.
did you ever wake up
in the middle of a nightmare
that started as a love story?
too many bandages
for one person to carry.

the skulls are always smiling,
the boughs of the trees hang low
over the grave that i am
still compelled to visit,
enforced meditation,
not very zen.
driven to sit on the mound
and the cross
think of nothing
think of nothing and bones
think of nothing and his bones.

when we first buried him
my musings were grotesque,
walking corpses in
coffee shops and
everywhere the stench of lillies.
shudders would
rip and claw at my body
and only the sleep of
the dead would
quiet those nightmares.

i lit candles
and said affirmations,
turned to traditional ways.
i let him go, but
not really.
my visits shorten
or lengthen
depending on need.

i come here for the diabolical logic
and when i am done with the
pretty colours i'll move on.

developing.

developing a habit
as easy as
falling down.
so i make my bed and
gnaw the inside of my mouth,
lying you myself
that this will ever end.

between.

between the scrub
and the sea
you'll find me.
i come here for the calm,
the medicinal waves
changing the way that i think
from chaos to
a new kind of archetype.
i come here for the salt,
for when my lungs scream
their questions that only
the sky can answer
the salt air soothes and mends.
i come here to be
aware but not hypervigilant,
sedate but not sedated,
contained but not boxed in.
between the scrub
and the sea
you'll find me.

gone.

it could have been another woman
but it was the wine.
the effect was the same,
he was absent, vacant,
lost to her.
everything they built
deconstructed slowly,
crumbling with every
dreadful headline
until he was
washed away.

pantoum.

you show me how strong you are
and i show you i can take it.
there are flaws in our brushstrokes
but still the magic happens.

and i show you i can take it
beading sweat and clenched teeth
but still the magic happens.
there is power in our fragility.

we don't look too closely because
there are flaws in our brushstrokes.
i show you what soft feels like
you show me how strong you are.

while the moon watches.

the moon looks loosely
through the window
while i flirt with danger,
and the drop.
noise turns hollow
and crickets weep
from the pain
of dawn breaking.
i let the last of the darkness
swallow me
as i contemplate
the necessary evil
of revelling in un-wellness.
i find it serves a higher purpose,
a game to scare the shit
out of myself
and roll over into normal.

my superhero.

i wanna channel jane eyre
with the voice of kathryn hepburn.
i'd ride an invisible steed and
together we would map
the bleak landscape.
so wherever there was
a poor orphan child
or some damn selfish bastard
to rescue
we'd be there.

i wanna pull myself up
by my bootstraps
just like jane eyre.
i would still have my moments,
but once the cape goes on
i am a superhero
like jane eyre.

i wanna rise from the ashes
because of jane eyre.
i don't seek redemption
just a choice.
what would jane eyre do?
stay on the bus sista,
ride your own journey.

every step.

when she's paying attention
she steps on no cracks
and every tread has purpose.
when she is unwell
her footsteps tell
a different story.
they take tangents
and cross wires
because every tread is
black hole madness.
stasis
is useful
only some of the time.
and choice
is a luxury
reserved for others.

heart of the matter.

i have something
caught in my throat.
so i drop into a dreamstate
(because this poem is not about me).
and with my right hand
            reach
                     past
                             my teeth
and over my tongue,
             slip
                   through
                                my gullet
and touch my fingers on
the heart of the matter,
which is that i am lacking.

days.

each day bleeds onto itself
like the day daddy
sent mummy a love letter
in the shape of a crowbar.

every day hurts
like the way the calipers
clamp to my thighs to support
my broken spine legs.

some day this will end.
like an angel calling from
a very dark place i will be gifted
merciful oblivion.

corny point.

the aesthetics of fire,
sharp, and to the point.
the symbiosis of touch,
too much.
the chemistry of music
when it hits my brain.
the omnipotence of nature,
naturally, it soothes me.
the openness of the tribe,
in numbers we are strong.

five points fall into one and if i have to choose
i'd choose forward,
away,
to you.

fragile

they met in a land of missed connections

in the year of bad timing.

he came from the clouds or

the mountains, high on expectations

but jangling with tambourine dreams

and too much energy.

she revealed herself one sentence at a time.

he was never still but very deep,

so deep she stuck to the shallows

for fear of drowning. “i’m not used

to travelling such long distances”

she said, making him ache in places

he had been ignoring for a long time too.

the laws of nature are elusive, so

when they danced, they danced to music

with a strong melody line and an

irregular beat. and when he fell apart

she patched him up, but the pieces were

deeply broken, some left behind with

old friends, in pawn shops and in

cemeteries, so she never really found him.

and when it wasn’t easy she grew hard,

falling again into a well of bad habits. while

he searched in vain for a lifeline all he

found were more needles.

there was some suspicion of a demons plot,

but forgetting the rhetoric she tucked him

under a cautious blanket, on the longest night

and pretending the ease of an opera diva
watched the closing credits roll.

this is a story about a balloon.

(ziggy stardust, david bowie album tribute gig 6/8/17)

i see you with elvis at the 7/11
hear your voice as i walk the aisles.
ziggy lives! i tell myself
as i drop out to music 
i was sure had been written for me.

i camp out in car parks, in weather, in band shirts, in tight jeans, in sleeping bags and in fan packs, flicking off spiders and jonesing for a glimpse of you.

i lie awake dreaming that perhaps maybe someday we will actually, realistically meet. i mean literally, in the flesh. and if that did happen finally, hopefully. maybe i'd say something funny, something funny enough to flick the switch on the beer light and your sweet, sweet hands will get to know me down to the bones.

i hang out with girlfriends, your songs on repeat, riffs rewinding endlessly, endlessly. (can you hear me major tom)? we we do each other's make up to look just like you then we make up scenarios about you and me and you and her and you and me and her.

we draw pictures in our school books then on rainy nights and full moons carve your name in my arm with a compass so you will never leave me. we'd mix our blood with poster paint to plaster on tshirts and in our bedrooms we'd dance and dance and dance, your image on my walls watching over us like a saint. we'd use you for kissing practice as ziggy jammed with the jean genie and our mothers didn't understand any of it.

we were mesmerized, screwed,
we were licked, we were hanging.

there is only one light.

and when i am actually, physically with you, when i'm there in the stadium, when i am one with the masses i push you and i push you and i scream out your name in you thin white face and i'm insane at how insane your music makes me it's like your guitar is jacking my brain.

we never saw it coming.

red mist and red wrists
you took me to mars,
covered in a stardust blanket
i would follow you anywhere.

i see you with elvis at the 7/11
hear your voice from beyond as i walk the aisles.
ziggy lives! i tell myself
as i drop out to music
i was sure had been written
just for me.

only the good.

it was a very poetic moment
as she raised the frying pan
above her head, 
bared her teeth
and swung balletic with 
such momentum
he could swear this time
she would actually, finally
take flight.

it was a familiar dance, 
where he would read
a thousand nightmares
in her eyes while
she spewed profanities
and lashed out at the world, 
a screaming banchee.
in a theatre of war 
she would have been a major general.

the battle, he knew
was inside her head,
private, not for him to fight. 

so he retrieves her
tiny frame from the floor,
plants kisses on her forehead 
and tells her the only war cry he knows.
"only the good die young baby".
and hopes like hell
that it isn't true.

ripped off #10 (crazy - willy nelson)

crazy.

i'm crazy for trying,
trying to negotiate an 
adult relationship
in the face of such
childish behaviour. 
i can take the wandering songs,
but not the molasses.

i'm crazy for trying to
make a connection
that can wrap us in answers
to all the hard questions, 
so that it lasts more than
one month
one week
one night.

i'm crazy for trying to
show you my ever lovin' heart,
to be your rock
when all you wanted
was to roll on down the road
to places and people unknown.

i'm crazy,
crazy for thinking
these blues are gunna lift
when you walk into view,
because the bass beat you carry
has a black dog numbness
about it,
about you,
crazy.

yeah we all felt good.

we all felt good.

following the circus of dirty romance
young, raw and free
we would shoot through highway veins
and live the black tar lifestyle
where far away is never far enough. 

hell bent and holding distance in our hands 
we owned nothing but my harpoon 
and bobby's song.
with nothing left to lose we were doing something,  
we were moving. 
we both played hard till
bobby got the blues so bad
the only way out was to sing it.

we sought the road like drugs,
like bad advice. 
holding hands and killing time
it wasn't til we found a ride
that bobby really shone.
yeah we all felt good when 
bobby sang the blues.

celebrating our victories
at truck stop diners
from st louis to cedar city 
we'd strip our skins in parking lots
beside the road that keeps on glinting. 
then as the skies opened up
we were pushing anything
to bring comfort to the pain.

but i kept getting nasty
as we headed down the line, 
chasing a hit that wasn't there.
we thought we were free, but
we were slaves to each other, 
and love, and the byways. 
then when bobby couldn't take it
the road took bobby away
leaving me chasing the horizon
in a pursuit that never ends. 

still, on cold, wet nights i pull out my bandana,
kiss my harp and call out bobby's name.

yeah, we all felt good when bobby sang the blues.