one day

happy accident

(im)permanent

permanent

she seemed to just
fall
into music,

notes touching
her fingers like

after

thoughts.

i opened
the tiny cabinet
of her chest

and found a
joseph cornell
arrangement
of peculiar objects

sitting
beneath
the skin.

instruments
for recording
the sound a

memory makes

when it
fades away.

gadgets
for amplifying
the hum of

brain waves

whenever they think about

sex,
or death,
or the impossible.

first place on earth

last place on earth

we set about writing
an experimental history
for the town in which we were born.

we collected imaginary archives
and transparent maps,

re-zoning memories
as if they were

checkpoints.

we placed Geiger meters
at the four corners of the city
and listened for the sound of

occupations,
desertions
and revolutions

but heard nothing.

we painstakingly transcribed
the testimonials of lunatics,
and used these stories as
the crux of our fluid chronology

a timeline
forming somewhere
at the back of our minds,

a Rosetta stone
remininding us:

the map will have to be
re-written

and we will be the ones
to write it.

the weather report

a snow storm
on stanley street

the two things
in my mind are:

emphysema and economic rationalism

when i see you

photographing the sky

with a giant lens,

a small man
frozen
beneath
his camera.

heart disease

silent night

shadowy figures
with exaggerated limps

food poisoning

prostitutes on elizabeth street

shift workers

on midnight breaks with

no one to talk to on
a sunday night.

another day

a series of tiny canvases,
each painted
with a single word,
arrive on the doorstep
this morning.

i place one artwork
on each fingertip,
there are seven in
total.

[another
day
bleeds
inertia
between
the
sheets]

my quickly clenched fist
destroys the
prophecy

words lay scattered
before the house
like newspapers.

war of words

poetry wars
were raging
all across
the country
when i awoke
this morning.

who else would think
to use the gentle weapons
of eloquence,
assonance
and irony

than men
on the brink
of romance?

upon hearing
the news
i ran out
into the street

and began breaking
car windows
with my bare fists.

i wanted to start
a magnificent revolution
of decadence,
indulgence
and pretension

i wanted to prove
the ancient adage

that the pen
is mightier
than the sword

by stabbing out strangers'
eye balls
with my blue bic biro.

task at hand

it was in the fifteen
brief minutes
just before dawn
that we made our first mistake.

you braced yourself
against the wind
in my thick grey coat

and watched the frozen smile
melting
down my face.

we had instructions
written in the only language
we could understand,
but we weren't counting
on being beaten
to the mark.

you'd bought just enough
bruce springsteen bootlegs
to get us through the night

and maybe that delirium
of testosterone
had left us
weak and spent

or perhaps
we were never
cut out
in the first place
for
the task at hand.

a new heart

dancing cheek to cheek
in an empty warehouse

the floor is the consistency
of a tidal wave.

i marvel
at the way my body
assimilates

everything you leave inside of me

like an organ transplant
like growing a new heart

made from my tissue

and yours.

Christine

If it bleeds,
it bleeds.

you thought as you
picked up the kitchen knife.

All morning long
that block of ice
could not numb the life
that throbbed so reluctantly
in your member.

Lino,
the patio,
the soft afternoon light
of Sydney in winter.
The sound of the
television
on in the other room.

You pulled the dial
around to zero
Threes times
you repeated that action
your hand a shadow
hovering over the telephone.

Ambulance, please.

37 Williams St
Kingscross.

The moment you put down
the receiver,
you brought the knife
down on yourself
as well.

The first sex change operation
ever performed in Australia.

Yes, it is urgent.

There is a woman here bleeding to death.

insideout

a flourish of tongues
scraps of dark hair
and unfamiliar train stations

six hours
separates
all of your life
before this moment
with everything about to
happen next.

a raised platform,
a succession of thuds,
that may have come from
within
your ribcage
or without.

a tourist in your own city

less than one week
in the city of light
and we have already chosen
brand new names
for all our old diseases.

announcements
boom out across
the streets,
nonsensical combinations
of dada poetry
that turn passer-bys
back and forth
on the footpaths,
navigating the invisible maze
of sound in their minds.

***

we’d made paintings
that breathed in our pockets,
living capsules of pigment
to carry about
like mobile phones:
stroking, clutching
whispering to.

we’d penned multiple
sonatas for posterity,
pieced together from notes
found lying on the footpaths

our final rauschenberg homage
sculptures of invisible skin
built on the frames of our bodies.

we’d birthed
panic
the colour of kerouac,
the colour of metal

deposits
built up in our blood like silt
a reminder of
substances
we had ingested or inhaled
sometime in our childhood
and would remain with us
indefinitely.