The blue afternoon in stereo, more expansive in the chorus, and the wing I imagine, a shadow the passageway catches, voiced from the trees, the gathering. On a map of corners crisscrossed with a falling there's a trace, my doubts about gravity. The light stolen from the pages of prediction, our hopeful meteorology, when you say the sails will dry. And you are right as the west wind peels the hour, the rows, the veil that appeases. The dust is busy at ground level. I am thirsty now as the motorcycle two-times the gutter among the spillage. All I can do then is stand up again. There is no exit and the static is lively. The afternoon, however, concerns nothing but the curve of the hill.
Laminate
First I thought it was my ear-drum then I thought it was the war, excavations, a memory of the quarry on the leeside of the hill. It is a drone that pushes - poum, poum-poum - nothing more definite than that. It is the firepower of night, it is the indefinite articulations of the afternoon when I come in at the gate, or when I shoulder the morning up to the ridge and along the line into the city there's a kind of pushing at the air. It is not an obvious artillery, more a hit or miss, a passing on to silence but, in that passing, the unsteady aim releases this silence with a shudder. And so my question wanders, from the gutter to the factories along the valley floor. But the gutter is a clatter of plastic leaves and the factories are circumspect, too careful and out-of-date, they stand dumb and unfired. There are no mysteries, we cannot afford them here, the clanging of stolen shopping trolleys is the usual explanation, the costs are in the aisles and the prayers in another suburb. So if I let the noise travel with me a while, if it continues to pull at the air, I can attach it to the template moments, not what you would call the bigger picture. It is what I roll with, my director's cut, number nine, strangers at the gate.
Circuit
I.
This strange circuit runs, shade and sun, between the station and - I don't know anymore. We hold our sides, I notice. I see us, pressed and clad black as old women, an endless shadow of mourning what can no longer be taken loosely or for granted. We hold as if the next one coming up behind will take in confidence, as they slip the knife and greasy feelings. Let them smoke it, strong stuff I know for the winter avenues and the early drinkers nursing phones but who would not grant a solace for boredom, sentence among sentences, the craving for tomorrow's brands and tongues licking the shape of slim-slam moments of ecstasy. All the salt has been ruined by marathons, beaches of sugar and collections of dew that begin to smell of game sweat. It is all photography and clips down to the wire and the ragged road carries the memory, flowers in the cracks.
II.
A green scurf on stone and I slip on the tide marks the man that turns the reason is indifferent to the reason I hold in here years of attention to the slip rather than the breach carries the whiff of a sweet mouthing but I got ashes rather than tongues and all that denial as if this was the denouement of lost footings and pushy riflings if I want to give the impulse a hand and love its soft fur and the muscle that plays along the neck, heart and thigh taken from behind and pushed in the slip between tongues licking each syllable in hard travel to return shade and sun shade and till it's done until again - I don't know anymore - but yes again tell me about salt and flowers in the cracks right up the morning.
Among the columns
My body labours to save
scavenge from the high altar
even from its foundation
at the earth
the crushed finials.
I come alone
smoking through the tunnel
invaded caved
human lost in my trapped night
slowly
my sad, my limited answer.
Peering, here
the horrors, the vengeance
of love torso and heel
lechery musk-filled
the firmaments.
Rigour of white columns
white muscles
the parts of the world
ached with energy.
Culpable, persistent, graceful
my sad, my limited answer.
The causes are obscured
sad eternal sequences
tiring movements
the old, same, going
howls of questions undecided
and a voice slow and sad.
Ticking, machine heat
time changes
the thin sky and uncounted
white towers came the distance
to earth
human lost, acted with energies.
Culpable, persistent, graceful
a voice slow and sad.
Tide
body of water
you push
as you like, gap and fill
the hesitant fingers
wind waifs of sound
tasteless gas
weight not bulk
pours
tidal chase
white caps the bay
and a prickly sand
traps meanings
littoral
tracing effortless and easy wash
you push
as you like
the flung fist of the world
streaks the sky
steps of the earth
trampled flighty and winnowed
the never-ending sea
is the distance
between
moon creased oceans
vast dust pulling
as you like
as you push
while tracings chase meanings
prickly sand in easy wash
and receding effort
walking from storm
the hammer the universe
head down
at grit and slip
at the grain
The car yard of Paradise
I.
Sun comes up but can't break the cloud,
the sun struggles but doesn't stop the crowd,
who eat and drink standing up, crawling out
of the underground, or take their seats and watch.
But reports can't settle on the weather channel,
internet industry mood ugly on the monitors,
rolls and streaks, can't get no vertical hold.
II.
We speak seasons north to south, in an arc down the rim,
the spread steel of the shuddering wing slices through
latitudes of the Pacific, the sun comes up somewhere
this fine day but far below, Town Hall platform eight,
the escalator labours with slow souls,
shoulder the load, in backpacks, shoulder-straps
grooving arms, and ears deafen with the traffic,
midweek confluence or weekend in our furthest head.
Markets are open 24 hours, lines on the screen have said:
here is Tokyo, up on last night's trading, so's Singapore,
and China waits, its old dragon spine curls over misty hills.
Hanging on north Pacific, Shanghai sun is hidden and
the towers of the Pudong are concealed, across the river
arising like alien new-born out of special economic zone
penetrating the century with stock watch savvy,
tourists still changing money bravely in the old marble foyer,
beyond the door Peace Hotel jazz band plays out of tune now
and the bell hops push us through the narrow corridors,
green carpets and dark wooden doors, the shadows
of the triads and revolutions, now opium
dreams through cables and tea is still served carefully.
And in the dusty old house of Sun Yat Sen,
we tread the carpets in plastic booties,
made to listen to the official view, we intrude.
Bedroom where he and Madame slept, bodies ghost
through our poor imagination. I have no idea
what they may have said and how their skin
may have touched the sheets, the air or each other
here behind the walls of the French Quarter.
The house is brown and the air of China,
heavy and wet, old with mud, new with futures.
But we are lovely stock, nations inside nations,
doing the sushi roll, striking in the Philippines,
lining up at the teller on Nathan Road,
a small strike of black coffee for nine o'clock,
the afternoon's astringent of green tea leaves.
Fish churn in the buckets all up Temple Street,
blood and scales stick to shoes,
Mongkok's night markets. The turtle will die,
the cow will give up its thick shakes,
all becomes cream, will coat the tongues
of the righteous, those not afraid to suck the great teat.
But move in, they do good deal. Now, listen, another deal,
the dub track transformers mix, party in Hong Kong,
Auckland, Sydney - changing like the dollar,
some dollar up, some money down, but all must be fed
III.
All this and more, that I've known and forgotten,
sitting as the working day begins, rolling newspaper
through my head, tender with the increase,
years and the lack of sleep. And it is getting late
for my connection, timetable, turn table, oh DJ of my soul,
diary of my income, golden oldies speed up
over the blond wood tables and coffee grounds settle
the lack of fortune at the bottom of these white cups.
I am biding time as though I could waste it.
The fast food operator is filling the fridge,
the salesman is filling his diary.
The sirens jolt and firemen swing the wheel,
smiling at their movement and the need.
Who hasn't bought, who hasn't sold
the barter of love, the kindness of friends,
the fares across the harbour, Star Ferry, Manly Ferry,
churning the oily waters and the channels.
We've fed up on fuel, roads take their toll,
there's even a car yard in Paradise, postcode 5075,
utes rev in paddocks, trail bikes churn the sandhills,
oil tankers loom out of fog in the South China Sea
or catch on the Reef in a distracted moment,
four-wheel drives squeeze down laneways,
bullets race down laneways, the police misfire
and need to blame someone else.
Publicists hand out popcorn and green-iced donuts,
our bags are full of glorious candy, our screens
open wide on the magic of tomorrow,
the magnetic pull of something that knows the code,
and every moment is gone, every moment is replaced
in a shaky kind of action, if you know how to read -
addresses the detective misfires at the keyboard,
digging dirt on your poor credit rating.
The markets are on fire, my cup is empty, the fire engine turns,
the kitchen hand sets yeeros meat on the spike,
a BBQ turn and turn, a hot hand, the boys wash up,
spend time out the back, dealing dope behind
huge skips of excess, police still running
down another laneway, still another lost deal.
IV.
O, who will be emperor, who will be president,
parliamentarians change sex, so women may rule,
laws of the handbag, while secrets of the men's room
remain zipped in, the flies of the big boys, who know
exposed genitals a big flop, like the latest remake,
all a big cheesey grin, a sucky fan letter.
Did god take a hike one day or make a miraculous escape?
Now a reckless cossack slugging cold oily vodka hits.
'Take me to your leader' - no-one believes it anymore,
'sorry, old chap, he's gone' but who now
will die for me - once the missiles have been unleashed?
Was it something I said - does it come down to sexual tension?
words misinterpreted before action becomes repetition
.
But god won't play, on paper or inside a hip flask.
Senses rearrange, become senseless. and my limbs
return to slumber underneath me, the party last night,
the dreamy epic of shouts, rounds, lines and little squares of paper.
But still trains derail, and cargo burns in the tunnel -
the timer has been set and you have 30 seconds,
Who will stop the clock? Not James Bond.
I have given up running - the rust in the chassis,
another sign of spiritual truth, the way things turn over,
die in their sleep - you gotta stop,
drag on the old faded hawaiian shirt,
flip the lid of the esky, break out some beers
as the sun leaves the beach, the flames of the bonfire
cannot warm the sand, the resort is closed,
tanks have been punctured, fuel leaks into the lagoon.
And listen, tiny bells chirrup in the wind
across the reeds, the tide brings in a boat of fugitives
with news of gangsters performing a bloodbath,
the feather tips of grass waving, hands with nothing to do.
If you break the code, they make up another,
it's all down in lines: television, drugs, fluids -
as if it was rational, but if god has wings
they save you just in time, the heavenly chorus moves,
wind-up dolls released onto the dancefloor,
they dance among the white marble columns.
Behind the blood dark curtain children wait,
serve you tiny cups of green tea on a bamboo tray,
accompany you to the harbour, hold up a parasol
to bar the sun from your worn-out face.
V.
And this is where we are going ... we found the keys,
now, you ask, where did we leave the car?
What bay, what number, what level?
November 2000
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