#188 - staying together may drive us apart

8.7.20

188

staying together may drive us apart

our hearts go out to Melbourne

but it’s safer to stay at home

according to the sudden mood oscillation index (SMOI)

there are only so many rooms in your head

staying at home

makes everyone aphoristic

who tops it off…

cover your cough

elbow a sneeze

staying apart will lighten the heart

outside they’re dropping like flies

don’t look

make observations of each other

casual carnal asides

don’t you know filo makes you fart?

that’s cant and superstition!

so on and so forth

shut the fuck up

can’t hear with the kettle on

keeping at bay

run out of puff

where’s the all-I-should-have-achieved?

blame is no longer a game here

but who walked the dog to death?

sentenced to same marriages

parenthood, siblingry

in all relationships

need a breather

not a respirator

you could become obesely morbid

just following the advice

or well worn way to the pantry

studying leaf cast shadows

vanishing into the book or the bark

myself becoming the music

is where I’ll have gone

or back to a little thing like sleep

they do it south of the border

and when we come out of it

same again as never before

the pillows are talking now

#187 - two poems - a midnight writ & war and order

7.7.20

187

two poems

a midnight writ

against the ancient capital

it goes on

déjà-voodoo

they’re closing the border

things got away

ask

‘who was that masked wo/man?’

they’re punching a ball over the river

put trains planes

back in the cupboard

I keep a boat in the bath

swimming in doors

it’s all day dreaming

where’s our Henry Parkes?

hang Bolte

at least it’s not America

distances are safe

do the old pyjama shuffle

pour me another Scotch

we’re under our doonas

hearts beat as one

wheesht

nobody’s going to cough

war and order

the minute to midnight again

how many victims will it take

to get the lights out altogether?

progress is we push on the clock

fret the edge of chaos

gets you all fired up

smash the glass

and you have an emergency

don’t let the others in

then why not crush in their eyes

roll them over in it

and run a current through

?

it’s the  only way we’ll ever find out

and now for some

can’t-beat-em-join-ery –

we can make weapons too

bid up bid up

you need this stuff

because the world was done to us

we just sing along

and we were only watching when

here’s our agenda

a little something in an envelope

no one will ever see

#186 - staying apart keeps us together

6.7.20

186

staying apart keeps us together

(Was Bedeutet die Bewegung?)

what do these stirrings mean?

– hearing Schubert from very far

and touch this bright lure

under skeins of moist and shine

swell for me, won’t you?

now stroke

never locked a door in the lockdown

dreamt of your touch and come true

saw you on the screen and golden

days when you stepped out

all through the danger of our disease

and snuggle up close

can almost taste

a whiff of skin

you in my pants and I in yours

or keep them on yet

move for me and show

the dance

all the dreaming night

I am fitful with  

say

is it love?

or is it fear?

did I sleep through

your climb on ride

the wild hurrah

?

of absinthe for the fondue heart

‘staying apart keeps us together’

when I read this newspeak knew

we’d cursed ourselves to here

it’s like winter forever

around the first lit traps of morning

find a little fire and sing

little birds won’t care 

#185 - after the bonfire of the poetries

5.8.20

185

after the bonfire of the poetries

have a bit of a head

             this morning

like I wasn’t poured right

      seared image in

and that’s the colour

   radio would catch

but won’t capitulate

a breeze tells smoke

that’s what it was, comes

round to me

we had to keep moving

our little sun

revolved about

and we were the instruments

as seen on bush TV

a pit with it – jam

flame up to – sparkle

the arrows point me every way

else for stars

a little store

stumble it round

the still smoke

find Sunday in yourself

fresh air – a swim in  

yesterday this time was

wishing a stillness

from first lit rain

a head to shoulder top

a pill for it, will we?

garden under the sea

in perhaps pond

where the dream

comes to light

and goes on

how many salutes to be free? 

#184 - bird it

4.8.20

184

bird it

little windowling

come to me and sing

you’re some sun wonder

leaflight

all attentive

so unstill

will you see yourself seen

in the faster world where we are gone?

I am all inside of day

bird, you are the swivel thing

and wing it, often gone

who’s under glass here?

who hides this?

deep in the tree you travel

and catch day opening

so many leaves in a nest I have gathered

I should look in the book and name you 

but I like your type

feather and moment

absence  

a twitch and see me so

I know because you go 

#183 - an ark of it

3.7.20

183

ark of it

light spun

where we are preserved

each inkling

and its sky glimpse till

come into the dream

must go that way

some stray lines flew

and slum the thing

have we not been all consuming?

someone said the sun

no matter the scribble

these early hours

you won’t be remembered

here’s humble dictator

and is as does

in a certain shirt – immortality’s mode

float dollar

or logs downstream

make legend of the menace

an ark out of the drought

these rooms and the fountain imagined

to the music lost too

time on its bier we bore

each a dreamsworth home 

#182 - a heart to heart

2.7.20

182

a heart to heart

notes towards an ark…

under a blue cloth veil

and skins, bow

am I given to believe?

I must not ask a question

… like writing lines until they’re true

but shall I present you such?

containing commandments, manna

gifted, they say, as if unusually

you can carry this thing around

and with whose words may I else speak?

(lucky door prize for migrants

PASS GO)

dreamt a world given

all my own work

say something like

‘land of the dispossessed’

call bird to the tree

ask who ate whom

heads on a pike

or sometimes plate –

you lose

these were a sometime gift as well

and who gave seasons?

lust, taste, hate?

and victory – why mine?

song is a gift

ask

why were some certain charms withheld?

what god gave this despair?

call Charity to the stand

with faith, with hope

sceptred with raiment

ruffian lords put on

and crush the peasants still

and so you ask

whose world then (?)

who keeps the keys?

king’s counting chocolate bunnies

when waves of the fever pass

consider liberation –

thing cannot be given

big smiles under the dawn unwrapping

seemed to have felled those trees

to either end the world

what will gifts matter

if time ends

/we will pass it fwd/

I too so soon gone

pass this sacred knowledge on

so easily ghosted

given up

consider the fire

all this smoke, a donation

won’t you consider the ant?

birthdays and Christmas

they have been toying with our affections

yet make light of

here’s an ear

and a hand up –

least that I can give

have you seen how bread’s broken here?

my tribe top of the tree

much thanks

breath between us

this hair’s breadth – love

stretch of the imagination

look twice and never the same

world is a wedding

I, like the garden, a gift

and I should play attention too

may I join?

will you join me?

can we call it dance?

make light of all this yet?