alex

'We're victims of our own raw material' he says.
and talks of political hard-ons that I don't understand because I don't follow politics.

But I laugh because I like his words.

lorna

(A snippet from the poem 'Lorna')

Lorna suffers. She has a ten-thirty appointment for her eye brows and a lip wax. She's sick all the time ...

... she does circles. Big laps like an old Volkswagon. She does laps around the display tables. She moves in a circle like a dog on a leash. She asks questions and fluffs about until I bite my tongue and leave her to smear lipstick on the back of her hand.

day time t.v

I pretend to be Ridge and you pretend to be Taylor. And we kiss on the mattress in the garage behind the car. There is no theme music. Just the oily-marked concrete and the green mattress. Two of us. Bold and beautiful grasping at our first whiff of passion.

train to cottesloe

He is sitting on the train and he wears short football shorts. He enjoys wearing no underpants. His legs are parted for those opposite to view his manly parts, those funny barnacles that gave up holding tight. A slack jaw cushions patchy stubble and he sits with palms face down on his hairy milky man-thighs.

child in a bucket seat

(A snippet from 'Child in a bucket seat')


... The aged fabric.
A child dwarfed by a
bucket seat
sits laughing
poking fingers
into cigarette holes.

in silence

Drum gently on the desk
in moments where you find
those fragments murmur
to make you shout

it's a simple torrid affair
to let crumple in the sheets
the urge

to scream muted

you drum gently on the desk

in comprehension
you're noted for
your guesswork
and for all those moments
of violent stillness.

in truth

Everpresent
in my soiled mouth
you sit
waiting your turn

not to impress
upon
not to urge
to convince

in my disparate
reaching
of half-words
and disconnection
you curdle
and coax
a new button

nothing much

She's sewing the
mooching,
twisting each knot
with knuckles
about to burst

Luke warm
tea
to mull
A dry mouth to paste it back together

and the radio
crackles deep into
the fragments
numbly twisted together.

we know

Treakle dipped fingers
I've wrapped my
tongue among them
and I'm laughing hard
because I'm now
forbidden to speak
with your fingers
so immersed in
my mouth
You understand (?)

ground meat

It's curious
the way we meet
that we're playing
hide and seek
and tag
a lot

to manage to find passion
in indifference
and we sink our
teeth in
and grind it all away
once more
until we meet
tomorrow