This smell is like no other
It is entirely inescapable
Rising like hot air in this little room
Makes me scream, it makes me cry
Any logical person would shake their head and laugh
At my theories
Of corpses, of angry ghosts, of people with limbs flexed in the wrong direction
This room is not welcoming
It is pushing me out with its solidness, its solidarity, its smell
The walls are nodding and sneering at me
They look to one another and conceive plans
To push me away
Or, to crush me in my sleep, mangling my bones and flesh into mattress
With pajamas unrecognizable from skin
With hair wrapped around my throat
And both my arms asleep
Until I have become absorbed, like them
I shall haunt, haunt:
Burn my own flesh, sing songs in minor keys and breed horrible smells
In preparation
For the next one.

This hand I place across that mouth,
It is not unkind.
But rather, it possesses a pink jealousy
And is quite egotistical.
For example, it would sacrifice a plate of vegetables,
A glass of milk,
A flaking piece of baklava,
For you.
The hand is not un-patient, nor is it angry.
But rather, it moves with a grace and ease
That deludes its target
Like a possum on a pole about to be trapped
By two gentleman.
If everything is poison
It has no right to exhale, that mouth,
It has no right to inhale.
And thus the hand, soft and unassuming,
Knows what is Right
And what is Wrong
(Natural law, mon ami.)
I shall not dwell on such things, however,
Instead I shall allow my eyes to be preoccupied
By the shiny things
By the intricacies, the idiosyncrasies, the idiocies
That come to me, like babies
Swathed in old white coats,
Slipping down my throat-
They are so sweet and digestible!
Turning brick into mattress
Knife into loving, stroking, hand.
I close my eyes and all the world drops dead,
I’m out of my head, out of my head.
And this hand, it is now full of rust
Driving it into my mouth, my eyes, my nostrils
Little specks of orange mix with all of my blood
Vitamins now.
It is not unkind, this hand,
And yet it smothers.

I stand in the corner of the picture
The one of you, of you
My hair was not as shiny, as bright, as brilliant, as blue
The edge of my face touches everything, now
A table, a plate of beans, a towel
But you knew I was there, didn’t you?
It was something that you could feel
On the back of your neck
In the little hairs in your nostrils
Carried upon the violin that was arresting us all, that night
(And that, that is why you have kept this picture)
It’s overexposed; no one is even looking at the camera
Except for my half-face
A lonely moon, lucid and all but burning
From anger at you
Filling yourself, being spoon fed attention
You are fatting yourself for maggots
(I simper and boil in the corner)
Haven’t I learnt anything?
I should never have left me alone.

Bright purple lights at two oh one pee em.
They are invading the little den
Expensive and pungent; this is no miracle
It is the fabulous show, it is the circus
She had dressed already, before she went to bed
Organza skirt and heels of burnt red
Slept well, teeth scrubbed raw
All for this one moment.
She jumped out of bed, but was alarmed
To see her body without arm
It lay pathetic and stiff, unmoving and sweet
On the mattress.
She picked it up and set off, it was now 2.05.
The tent swallowed.
She was enchanted at once- the glitter, the glamour
What a thrill, what a thrill
She lay down, next to a cage of lygers
And continued her dream, of life:
Of dirty dishes
Of eight hour days
Of instant coffee
And wished she was someone, anyone,
Else.

This is cold, this is love
These bright eyes burn parallel:
Parcels, pastels
It’s what you said it would be, it’s what you left for me
Tiny boxes of kittens sitting on the highway
The highlight of his entire day
Lies within the hand that shoots up and across and in, too.
Chalk arrows
They lead us nowhere, they get up our noses
And float into our throat.
Itchy, itch, ich
It’s what you said it would be, it’s what you left for me
A flat battery and my scarf in my mouth.

A Riddle.

It is in the bacon fat that is scraped off the trays every evening at 6.30 pm
It is in the chink chink of your grandmother's wine glass
It is in the sting of raw skin in the shower
It is in the awkward thick air between the ugly and the beautiful
It is in the silent g, the silent k, the silent you
It is in the colour of the bathtub
It is in the crackle of panadol
It is in the smell of an empty house
It is in the song of slaughtered dugong sprayed over the dinner table
It is in the hate, the hat, the hair, the hurt.

?

The coffee smelt like puppy as she raised the ceramic to her lips.
Her aim is true, her message is clear.
She raised the little flap of skin that rested over her mouth, like an eyelid
She took three large sips of coffee, of puppy
That burnt her tongue and swelled it fat and lazy
Lady you do offend the gentlemen
They stand around you eager and pleased to be in your presence
You show them a diamond, a baby, a sock
They swell with pride and glee
But now your tongue has dismantled them.
It has grown enormous, is falling out of your mouth,
Has forced the eyelid flap back into your cheeks, your gums
They bleed and smile at your own grotesquery.
Carnivale, it winks and stinks
Whilst the men, they truly are grounded- into the dirt
They can hardly stand to watch
Your fat tongue
Caressing their heads with saliva setting sail.

And nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.

Wrapped up by these words.
Strung up by these wrists.
We want the sweet meat.
We want the young blood.

(I just want you to know-
Your tofu tasted like steak.)

sky getting smaller.
sisters getting taller.
days getting longer.
robots getting stronger.
the universe:
collapsing
colliding
consolidating
you- me- dispensibility.
so dramatic? i think not.
not now, now that i have
sold my soul for twenty-six pages.
my pen underwent a transformation
it's head chewed and attacked
poor little urchin.
the tiny ones crouched down and poked their digits at you
one. two. five spikes plucked
as simple and noiseless
as the universe:
synthesising
simplifying
stupifying
stupid.

So he asked her if she still liked rainbows,
And how high she could count
With his lazy eye and lazy tongue flickering.
His lips spelt: Women. Women. Women. Women.

His hands clasped stiff like pincers
Perfect, for the unattainable
For the Untouched

His beacon: The dog
Where his owner liked to look at buttocks,
He liked bacon.

You might say there was a distinctive atmosphere:
Like the paper weights, like the posters-
It was almost a collection
(Lure.) Obscure!

"Oh, I hope I left you enough room."
Squeezing himself out, sucking in years of meaty sorrow,
In one inhale.
He brushed her car with his stomach.
He brushed her stomach with his car.

Stupid patronising perverted fuck.

If I were to spray my face
With Windex, to taste the tingle
To burn my throat and
Seize every pore open with his blue fury,
Would I cry?

The answer is similar but not the same as to this query:
Why do I smile at people
I’d much rather kick in the eye?

The fabric around the ankles- soggy…
Sorry.

The tragic flaw, the tragic floor
We fell straight through!
And now lie writhing, twitching, blind
Like sad old dogs
In the muck and the mire.

I don’t have time for this
You don’t have time for this

We should be swallowing those big words
As quickly and painlessly as Panadol

Become the Anti-heroes of the Anti-chance
Or, even better-
Anorexics, Anagramrexics.

Et al.

(Thumper. Thmpr. Thmpr.)
You said it was a clunker.
You did my hair and said a prayer
And got into the clunker.

We sang until it hurt.
We sang until it hurt.
We wet our lips and took small sips
And made a little bunker.

Banging. Bngng. Bngng.
We thought the world was ending.
I bruised my eye and watched you cry
While the world was ending.

We had got into the clunker.
We had made a little bunker.
They shot us down, but we made no sound
(Thumper. Thmpr. Thmpr)

It was two-thirty.
Tooth-hurty.
There were three little siblings on the street,
But not happy enough, not quite smiling enough, yet.
They drew in chalk and tried to peel back the tar.
It was warm; another glorious day in suburbia.
Each child thought precisely one thing,
The thought being: "I can hear- I thought I heard- music."
And indeed, for being carried upon the back of a breeze
Was a melody, quite sweet and fair-
And, with a giggle and a shout, they tripped gaily inside
To where their smiling father was stretched out on the lounge
He thrust some coins at them and resumed his dead-eyed vigil.
And then, when the little sweet melody grew loud, then louder, then loudest:
Oh! Please stop, mister!
We would like to purchase some of your fine sweets.
The candy-striped man tapped the brakes with his shiny toe
Took their money, in exchange for the little vials of opal liquid.
The biggest one sighed and swallowed it in one gulp,
The middle child stuck a straw in hers
And the littlest one took tiny sips.
Then, like a real family, they held hands
And lay down upon the soggy tar
Until their dead, unstaring eyes had made little casts set deep within the road.
Nothing hurt.
Except their three jaws,
That were hardened into three perfect smiles.

Bad Dream

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead

(I think I made you up inside my head)

My teeth grinding through those dark hours

As I see dogs in hats beneath lime-tree bowers

I open my eyes and all is born again

Except, my love:

There is a you-shaped hole in the universe.

Sinking inside her yellow shirt
Her hair was knotted, her knees were hurt
She filled up that straw,
With little green beads of bravery,
Little green beads leftover from last night’s roast:
One third cow
One third mash
One third peas.
Her cat-breath soft, warm.
Fogging up a little round nose-shaped circle
On the window of that bus.
And the wheels went round and round,
And the baby went wah wah wah.
And the peas went “SWOOSH!”
Flying through the air like stars.
These were not to be wished upon.
The festivities! The fiasco!
Never had the driver, in all his years
Of flattening the creases of his pants
Darning his socks
Puffing on his cigarettes
Seen such a wild, wild mess of children and peas and voices,
Rising like frantic balloons
Would they never stop?
And then: there.
There she was. The little rascal.
Eyes moist and squinted in concentration,
Taking aim.
The final handful of peas, the final inhale
The exhale to end all exhales
Her exodus.
Banished! That one word ‘banished’,
Enough to shoot ten thousand bus drivers in the dead-centre
Of their shiny bald heads.
No
More
Roasts.