Currawong

Wintering in the elms, the currawong
yodel grace-notes

over and over the same melody
crying territory.

One comes close hopping along
the chilly balustrade

getting a grip, curious, courageous
or hungry, maybe.

Head tipped back a top note pitched
clears the cold sky.

Again that pitch, again that
clarity.

 I catch her eye, she flies
 off in grey plumes

 butcher beak hunting
 fresh meat.

Half past three

Sun and shadow chase each other over the grassy oval.
The bell rings.  School children mob the gates.

The afternoon is filled with corner-shop traditions --
ice-cream signage, flavoured milk and squishy lollies.

A century lapses along Inkerman Street
between fence palings and laundry-laden Hills Hoists.

The children mass home to their front doors,
like their parents and grandparents decades ago.

I dream their dreams, remembering
silly commercials interrupting sillier cartoons.

A glaze of latest, must-have toys infiltrates their sleep.
Post-millennial jingles sting immemorial schoolyard rhymes.

The boulevard is flooded

Flood waters pour
down the grand boulevard.
At night the rain keeps
falling and falling.
I exit the neo-classical portico,
stopping on the stoop
over the brimming street,
unwilling to wade
through night water.
I rest my case
on the marble newel,
awaiting a witness.
The trees' leaves eat
the plaintive moonlight
and I am a shadow
stone-still on the stair
awaiting a witness.
The dark rain falls.
My shoes are dry,
my case packed tight,
marooned at the portico
hour after hour.
A witness is coming
down the grand boulevard
on flood waters pouring
into the clearing.
And we will be washed
with a flurry of leavings
over slick bitumen
and the drenched beds of rivers
down to the waiting sea.

Unready for night

Dusk is coming early.
I'm unready.
Suddenly birds whistle
and the sky fades.

I'm staying in,
unready for night
walking out on the town.
Around me the walls close in
on indistinguishable fears.

My guitar is fading
into the shadowy corner.
I falter as I play it,
unable to see the strings.

I'm unready for the nights
getting longer and deeper.
In the dim morning I emerge
skimpily dressed
for the shallows of autumn,
intricate dreams
wrapped round my eyes.

Unseen, unmoored
my heart strings fly
unready for the long deep night,
seeking not finding,
homing to their hollow bed
unreconciled.

Nocturne

Now my tight longing loosens.
Slack-wire I walk in my blue dress
through the teetering evening.

The singer lit in amber
sings gales regaling memory.

There we go hand in hand
over the cobble-stones.
Horses cantering in harness bells
jingle in the blue air.

That tune has lived
for a thousand years
in a rusted phonograph
in a mottled attic.

I'm wearing blue
flowers blooming in the dark.
I'm walking my wire to the very end
over the moon-drenched grass,
counting the countless
promises of night.

Galas let loose
in silken shadows.
The sheen of dreams.
The stars unveiled.

Surabaya Johnny's presents St Kilda Literary Salon

Feverstone presents electroplasm

I am appearing with friends this Saturday night under Princes Bridge.

Stardust to stardust

Bodiless,
you fly in space
away, away,
sounding the deep stars.

Breathless,
your voice leaves
the daylight rippling along longitudes
acre by acre
from city to storm.

Your mysterious eyes
are ashes scattered in mourning
and the sea breathes.

Night
is an infinitesimal point
within a secret grain.
It swells to aeons
where you fly outside of time.

Far from air
you call on stars unborn
from black abstract
to brilliant flame.

Far from earth
your spirit flies
whirling the worlds
to life.

That girl

She is full of laughter and a terrible grief
for the gag ripped
from the world's mouth,
for the flesh stripped
from the world's bones.

She keeps missing
the chance to be understood.
Alone she goes
seeking in mirrors
the colours of love.

I saw her wandering
in tawny dusk
with golden skin
and honey-dew eyes
grinning at the butterfly
that blew between
the billboard and the flowering weed.

I swear I saw that girl before
clutching a towel
in a freezing hall,
her hair trussed up
in tattered bands

with naked feet
and a tear-stained dress
scrambling along
the slender ridge,
straining to reach
a plastic spoon.

I swear I saw that girl again
lying in clover
by the olive grove.

I knew her by her whispered song
mimicking the bird call
tone for tone.

Metamorphosis

My feet grow tendrils feeling for the earth.
The chlorophyll seeps into my heel.

My hair flies seeking the wind that fills
the dim interstices of galaxies.

The light in my eyes is infinitely bright
and infinitely cool.

My spine is a ladder of parables,
my skin a single switch.

I stand rapt in the sun's glaze.
Ashes stream from my palms.

My heart is a riddle of frost and flame
the shattered bloom construed.