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.

A riddle in four syllables.
At least, a riddle to her mind.
To everyone else it is pungent
It reeks of pale vomit and poisonous liquids,
In little vials arranged according to the laws of the anti-chance.

Her chemise tattered, in pieces around her.
Like a flailing Cinderella with tears that burn and choke her.

Humour exists,
In this.

Aunty John, et al.
Women with beards and fingers knitted tight and dry
Spilling over a page.
And her face in blue and red smudges.
Collect, collate, collage.
Write it all down, these lists.

She won’t remember in the morning,
This mourning of mine.

Something broke when she woke.
It wasn't the kettle,
Or her shoelace,
Or even an ant's back under her shoe, as she trod through the grass.
It was more subtle,
Invisible, almost, to the untrained eye.
It lay under her skin, all day
Like a rock formation submerged in the sea
That only just made the waves above it differ from their usual pattern.
A subtle, quiet swirling.
Just enough to disturb a boat.
To make a sailor go "oh!".
To make a bitter taste in the back of her throat.

The smell of new life and Bryce Courtney.
No chalk for the wicked: asthma, asmol;
No 'stomping.'

Molasses and peanut brittle.
To line his throat.
Like treasure in little piles
Next to The Remote.

No reception.
Everyone to their posts.
No disruptions unless it's an emergency...

(She sat on the ground of her bedroom with her lip bleeding:
A teller of lies, a holder of sticky tape,
Exactly what he had warned against.)

Never could tell whether the slow eyelids were deliberate,
Patronizing, her patron.
Pat, pat. Their affection shown
In awkward little movements like dolls.

And the mirror. The looking glass.
The object of ridicule.
"Yes, you still exist."
How could he stand to see such femininity, such frailty, such frivolty!

Soon her hands were tough and lacerated.
Silver hooks and bony mouths, gaping mechanically
As round and perfect as a pencil sharpener.

Let's go visit today.

It is twilight.

Through that window, just there, I stand and press my nose against the glass and create little clouds of fog- not my breath, but, the frost of another world.

It is snowing there, for them! And people are walking around with their fingers as stiff as pencils.

But then, then I inhale. The world, my world, is clear. I see bricks and weed and concrete, crawling up like a tumor to meet the sky- purple evaporating into blue, all governed by the master moon.

Tonight he is fat and stern and not to be eaten.
He is not for the cold people.

Preheat oven. Slice, chop, blink.
She turns and her apron whirls. What beauty lies in this kitchen sink!
Sitting motionless and humming in the shower
Is the product of her twelve hour labour.
Another one is also still, waiting patiently, blindly,
In a dark room.
And then the third; tiny, twirling
Her curls make a picture as she wraps herself arms around a Dadda's legs.
They are not so long.
He is deaf- drowning, frowning
In the pixels that rub and pat his head:
Loud!
So loud no one can hear the other little noises,
The little choices
That she is making in the kitchen.
Like, how much gas?
Or, what colour blankets should she shove under the door?
And, who will make the eggs tomorrow?

Knees and toes, knees and toes.
Ich. Ich. Ich.
My truth, your tooth.
Let's return to the rubric.
Catch up with Kubrick.
Then: Sleep this old sleep without a name.
You make me, make me, make me hungry again.

Deliver us.

We do the sabre dance, the sabre dance
The silver sticks, hot, like fried death
And us- doing the sabre dance with baited breath

Me and mine, amputated
Your face emancipated
All because of the sabre dance

Now everything’s coming apart! Witch! Witch!
We itch and cry-
But it’s so good to kick you, to kick you
Whilst the dance whirls on

Anzac day honour and people made of lists, so sick
Of spinning on tip toes and this- our day old homage
To the sabre

There’s glitter in your eyes but we can’t stop
There’s a fire in your bed but we can’t stop
There’s noise everywhere but we
Can’t stop for a fire, a noise, a glitter-glit glitter

Guilty litter
Surrounds us while we do the sabre dance, the sabre dance, the sabre dance.

Waking up from your sleep.

You have learnt to make no fuss.
You have learnt not to wake us.

Crumpet flesh and itchy tags
The heater filling up the room like sunrise
The sun cries, it hears
The gravity building up in your jaw.

And a kitty scan in the morning
Meow meow meow.

You told me it wont hurt
Your hair spilling around your neck
And down the sides of the machine:
Don’t move, don’t move.

Leftovers
Built up, like a…like a…

Chew, ma.
Tuts and tsks and nods and clicks
She is doing it right!
Jaw moves up and down in proper omnivorical fashion

Although:
No more dope, hard toffee or smokes
No intense laughter, no blow jobs

Say yes to subtlety, ambiguity
Our Mona Lisa smiles.

And soup.

Dreamt: 17.7.07

A series of boisterous events occurred that have presently escaped from my memory like water. I tried to grasp them, but they slipped and slid through my hands, as if they never really existed at all.

I pick everything up and find myself in a large factory, with no visible windows, but rather little pigeon-hole sized mail boxes.

My aunty runs up to me, excited, almost panting, and hands me a tiny dog. It is no larger than my two hands clasped together. It is black and white and lethargic. I am left standing in the factory with the animal and decide to place it in one of the pigeon holes, as the factory is in fact my house- and we are not allowed pets. I look into the hole and view the puppy, curled up in the corner of the dark box and only the white fur truly visible- it is in the shape of a tree, without leaves.

I decide to leave it there and walk away, but with each step I take my shoes make whining dog sounds, like death.

I look down and realise that I am not wearing shoes but two little dogs strapped to each foot.

Ah. So.
Did you think it was an invitation to a primary school reunion?
A notification for a 6 year missing library book?
A letter of blackmail from an unsettled feud with a teacher?
No.
Just an exercise of my fascination with the postal system.
And really, I don’t have anything brilliant or exciting to tell you, except,
Welcome to my blog,
And well, I…um,
I love you.

Dreamt: 16.7.07

I was lying on the floor of my old bedroom, it was night. Glow in the dark stickers of planets and stars were illuminating the room like aurora borealis, I was feeling quiet and sinking.

Then i was under my bed.

The sheets puffed up, and suddenly I was terrified because it was actually World War II. I was not alone in the bedroom, many many people were also lying on the floor, although I couldnt make out their faces. The stickers that were so bright were not stickers but bombs exploding in some sort of battle, but it was dead silent in my room except for the sound of footsteps.

The door opened and let more light in, and I realised that I was the only alive person, all the others were dead. Then I became aware that the Fuhrer himself had entered my room, surveying the dead, his footsteps loud and unsettling. He walked over to the bed, where I was lying beneath and sat down, sighed, spoke German.

Then he opened the window and leapt out. I stood up, quietly, slowly and looked outside to where he had gone and was aware of some sort of carnival being held at the netball courts, many children were present. I couldnt see where Hitler had gone but felt like I should warn the people.

I climbed out the window but fell, because a great pit had been dug out just outside my house. I fell down about 2 metres, into the dirt cave and saw that a band was playing, teenage boys, a drummer, guitarists, singer.

I asked them if they had seen Hitler but they said "no."

She sat on the floor of the little shop, hands gnarled and twisted and aching, surrounded by smiling bouquets. Her eyes nodded and let the flowers stand to attention, seeping their perfume into her skin and clothes.

A curious rose broke out of an arrangment and curled over to where she lay sleeping. Winding it's stem around her arm, it began to stroke her neck with it's velvet head.

"Are you happy?" it whispered into her ear. It could see the little parts of her that she put into every bouquet she made, an eyelash, a fingerprint, a tone of voice. The rose could also see that no one had ever brought her flowers and laughed pretentiously, albeit nervously, at this irony.

It wound itself around her neck and chest now, angrily, bitter, passionately (roses cannot do anything without passion, you see) until it had entwined itself into her skin like a trashy tattoo.

There were too many people sitting on the bench.
But it was also a nice number.
All old, squashed, turning to each other and smiling, plastic shopping bags brushing against their paper-skinned legs.
Their voices rose and fell uneven like water, waiting...just waiting.

Waiting until they could be squashed somewhere else, in line with the tree roots.

Dreamt: 15.7.07

So. I was going to work, quite ordinarily. But instead of my usual daily requirements of stirring pots of risotto and shining glass, I was expected to walk neck-deep into these newly installed suspended mud pits.

Once I was inside the pit I realised I was not alone- several full grown pigs were in there too, obscured by the mud, but warm and wriggling and brushing against my flesh as gently as excited children might. My duty, I soon realised, was to supervise the pigs while they ate the salads from my work.

The whole time I was thinking that I liked doing this better than counting change out to pretentious bastards with dyed moustaches or making sandwiches for perfume-sopping women who only eat turkey, mayonaise and salt.

After the pigs had finished eating, I was lowered, and allowed to go home. I drove home, but seated myself in the passenger seat, for reasons quite unbeknownst to me. I got to my house and had a shower but it felt like it went on for about an hour, or more.

When I was finished I emerged and was standing in front of a giant mirror, taking up a whole wall, and I noticed an unusual water bubble had grown on my head.

I asked my mother, and she told me it was a 'brain bubble'.

Envying the turtle and the red beanie: recurring thoughts during a day of nothing.
Cyclical, cynical.
Even the food came back.

We were all just trying to feel something that day, I think.
My family has never been fond of Christmas cake.
Most of the bonbons failed to explode when we pulled them; perhaps it was for the best- Nanna believed it frightened her dogs.
Here sits Poppy- head of the table.
Although the beer isn't his.
He has enough poison inside without alcohol.
His lungs weep black and are so tight that not even god could squeak through.

We went to wooli and the water tasted like blood.



Everyone agreed that the amusement gained from viewing the face of this trailer for four hours was most likely the highlight of the whole holiday.

My mum doesn't like it when I hang the clothes out because I take too long.
I don't use enough pegs and it ends up all messy like flags in a circus.
When i was little I would wrap the wet sheets around my body and be a bird.

Today when I took this photo, the sky was endless, and a ghost in the breeze played with our purple sheets.

Narcisstic moth on bathroom mirror.

Because, if I were a moth I would stare at myself all day too.

Dreamt: 14.7.07

The child walked steadily, unamused. His hand in mine, he could have been a grown man. But then, we spied a river and trees that looked like pictures.

“Look!” he cried, and his hand slipped from mine. Tottering forward, I could merely watch as he drew closer to the swampy bank of the river, it’s foul smell rising like steam- I could almost see it.

The boy looked back at me over his shoulder, squishing up his cheeks like playdough.

I blinked, and he was gone.

The obsessive woman beside me stopped breathing and chanted “He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”

But then he emerged, from the watery muck, pushing himself upwards like a ruddy little soldier. I went to him. He sat, distanced, unperturbed, on the edge of the river, his eyes as unstaring as a fishes’ and his skin waxy and grey.

Quite suddenly, and with unexexpected vigour, he leant over and stroked my hair, and said “I have no need of anyone anymore.” When he leant back I put my hand to my head and was not very surprised to find that I no longer had hair, but scales, lined up like little smooth jewels across my scalp.