a pessimist ponders the present state of things

Trains crisscross space like rope or sewing needles

silly string of the fabric we know exists but can’t name

or name fractal or quincunx or schizoid hallucination

when space already overdoes it by a long stretch

and the hail a homeless man portended

between his pleas for an answer

to a blunt, simple, insoluble question

what the fuck is going on, doesn’t come –

he asked you but wasn’t making sane eye contact –

and so he goes into Hungry Jack’s, née Burger King. Forever?

Too high as always, the Melbourne clouds, those charlatans.

Once, Burger King begot Hungry Jacks like Gondwanaland

the littler continents, but then Hungry Jacks climbed back

into its mother for a time, before Burger King begot Hungry Jacks again

and the Lucite signs and the old-growth French Fries packets

and the millions of plastic-coated Coca Cola cups

inviting you to Have it Your Way, and the puzzler placemats

and the logos on the bins inured to the idea that recycling is slathered in cum

the idea that recycling as an idea is slathered in not-quite-hard-set cum

and everything else that was yellow, blue, red, white and in a hamburger bun –

where did it all go? Back to the Fatherland? Motherland? Holy Land?

And Woolworths begot Safeway, who’s only just climbed back in recent times

although some of its double helix still hangs around country towns

markets unprepared, you presume, for such a colossal change

the name of the store it buys its food in can’t just go and change!

And yet those same markets would just as soon froth to say Woolies

and for that reason you’d like to write to the market researchers

whose daughters might have given you blowjobs at some point

whose sons you have might double-faulted against on match point

KFC may be Kayferz, but Safeway isn’t Saferz, so what the fuck is going on?

And the Backstreet Boys begot NSYNC begot Five begot Human Nature

trying to be NSYNC and Five begot a loathing of boy bands

begot begot begot begot…

And Itunes 1.0 begot Itunes 1.1 begot Itunes 1.1.1 begot Itunes 1.1.2

begot begot begot begot…

And TV begot Rear Projection, Plasma, LCD, LED, Stable Tables™

fruit desserts that someone, possibly Satan, decided to sell

in those vacuum-sealed dinners that someone, possibly God, let us enjoy.

And fuel efficient engines begot fuel efficient engines begot engines more efficient than ever before

begot the making of the bands on the commercials, and new Shale Oil fields

begot SUV drivers doing their bit for the environment.

And condoms begot Lifestyles begot Flavoured begot Naked

If you’re wearing naked, you think, then you’re on trend –

condoms begot aging, worthless populations

and yet billions of human beings still begot billions of human beings

and parts per million of carbon still begot parts per million of carbon.

And a brand of apricot facial scrub begot triple their quarterly sales

by inking BOLD NEW LOOK! at the top of a bottle that hadn’t changed

and was made from the same petrochemicals as the rest of the NEW LOOK range –

And wolves of the most treacherous steppes begot Pomeranians

begot shit inside ten-thousand dollar Prada handbags.

And hippies begot smoking factories for Birkenstocks and fisherman’s pants.

And writers begot witticisms begot slogans begot small talk begot profits

begot protests begot placards begot plastics and butcher paper begot death –

And kindling begot birds’ nests begot hatchlings begot fledglings begot birds.

And Spice Girls begot All Saints begot...

…Itunes 11.0.3.

…One Direction.

…B*Witched. C’est La Vie, remember?

They threaten and they threaten, the Melbourne clouds, but, you know.

You know and you think that if fatigue were a kind of virus

yours could be said to have made the city sick

because there isn’t a pebble on the road that doesn’t look tired

because you’re walking with your eyes closed when practical

sometimes when not – in a direction that’s virtually circular

but not quite – you can’t feel the ID in your back pocket

but you can feel your features grimacing at random

grunts of effort escaping from your lips at random.

You think that if fatigue were a kind of human

yours could be said to have undergone a process

of lionisation – as the spirit, the inexhaustible spirit

of a people more washed-out and exhausted than ever before

the spirit of a head of magnificent hair that’s receding

tied back so tightly the skin around it looks blanched

bloodless – the bottom point of a desperate baying star

baying to its deaf or just quiescent moon. You know

you don’t know anything and you’ll never know anything –

maybe instead of whining there’s a figurehead to find –

may b sum body noze how 2 use evry I-phone app??

Complications see you home far later than expected

you go to bed without showering, without scruples

but of course the laws of being don’t allow you sleep –

your feet are squished against the foot of the bed

so hard you can trace the lathwork with your toes

soon your fingers trace it and the blankets are off and it’s cold

then your tongue traces it, then you take the wood between your teeth

chew it as you did your bunk bed rails when you were a little boy.

rose cleaning

filthy bike chains have been strung around

rosebushes in the garden of the old Frenchman next door

who hangs his clothes to dry on the low front fence

thumbs gently at the air as though it were a woman’s face

as though it were a bead of longing on a woman’s face –

leaves the grass unmown around a fresco table

strewn with books, some warped, some funked by the marshalling clouds –

with desperate care you tend to every flower

degrease using the cuff of the old jacket you have on

the smell a compound of WD40 and animals

petals the colour of your eyelids when you shut them to trespass

the colour of the scarf your mother wore but never left the house in

green twigs underfoot leaking white liquid –

then you realise the pressure of oafish fingers over hours

will only wreck the roses, who can't object or even cower –

and in a cataract-like puddle, you string the chain around

your right hand, quivering for no good reason

present the accursed offering to the dreadlocked men in the shed

of the local bike share – its uselessness belied

by the bead of the end of the good in the world on your face

that's thumbed off by their gentle thanks and the Biblical shower.

the other holograph

through the violet smoke the fireworks leave behind

after they have capered and made shapes beneath the clouds

there appears the haunting holograph of a man

and silence and uproar partitions another crowd –

why the gas meters in every Melbourne garden

intone the urgent whining of a stove jacked up too high

why the feral possums in every Melbourne tree

seem to be holding a conclave on the powerlines

why someone has painted the post box green as a forest

widened the slot for bulky items to a yawning gape

why the indigenous name of the parkland the people skirt

feels physical now, made of rubber or powdered latex

leaps free of the sign like the man from midnight’s ether –

moustache white as icing and low glasses small and round

moustache growing wilder as the smoke diffuses

all true – the hundred aliases with which he’s endowed –  

and cavorts in the loaded air, there is no because - 

no more than a mist fanned out across the leaden black rise

first footfall soft on the wet grass, scarcely heard

firework shells left scattered, the other holograph subsides.

on morning hugs

Steam from the pears tossed newly in to poach

woke you by degrees, your mouth before your eyes

you were pale and hadn’t shaved in a long time

the hair on your head was falling out too slowly

something, perhaps a breeze, had unseated your courage

you hadn’t cut your toenails in a long time.

That was when he sauntered up and hugged you

from behind, although his hands didn’t seem in it

almost tetchy on your figure in fine cotton

pyjamas, finger placement oddly imprecise –

not a tactile impulsion, not really much of anything

but sometimes love was a duty and that was alright –

Leaves had scuttled in through the open side door

the one inlaid with leadlight kookaburras –

dead, they broke underfoot as though deep-fried –

the radio news broadcast streaming on your Macbook

warned of Melbourne’s subway caving in – last night’s

pumpkin peelings mingled like ice with the leaves –

As a modern building sways with a storm, you swayed

with that colour of a single embrace that never ended –

the everyday show of friendly affection that featured you

now in the kitchen, now in the bedroom, now outside –

your head might have fallen in to the poaching liquid

when you realised the sense of duty wasn’t his at all

But that for you to receive the love of someone you loved, even

petty love, was like crawling through a crucible filled with lions

standing upright, lions with red lips and human spines

tails like braided rope to climb upwards on –  suddenly

your whole being seemed riven by a strange hatred

and his hands and his morning breath seemed almost holy.

lost and pinned

so many pavers aren’t broken

but missing along the wayward path

from the disused stables to the house

flanked by weeds that look edible

aloe leaves all bled out, past transfusion

soil jet black and rich but also arid –

water in the blow-up pool found

in hard rubbish pulses with tadpoles

and a warped laminated print

of a painting of the back of a boy

crouched panting on a Black Forest path

sinks, floats – the painting’s title is Lost.

·       

by night, the tall aluminium cone

a colander the size of a boy

is lit from within by a tea light

the patterns it casts on her walls

show Siamese cats eating stalks

of curling grass, and quenelles

of shadow in pointillist clouds –

mice, it seems to me –

mice with pinned tails trying to run.

grizzly bear

don’t you know those hairs on your feet are a sight unseen

unseen when opinions are formed (well after the sight)

that the angles of your face in sunglasses aren’t spoken about

by the men selling polarised portals at Aussie Angler

and if asked they’d say, perplexed, that it was normal

everybody looks through the water for fish the same way –

remember when we’d go to Sugarloaf reservoir and catch redfin

while dad drove golf balls and looked askance for cops

and mum gave the water treatment plant the third degree –

found errors, usually misplaced apostrophes, on its imposing signs –

and barbecued onions would sluice through the summer air

to our flimsy camp seats by the shores of that flash of brocade?

room so dim that the hat on the rack is a spinning black disc

and the elephants embroidered on my bedspread have faded to brail

I think that maybe I haven’t cried for you enough this week

I think that maybe I need to make you cry and cry out that you’re alone

I play music that used to be catalytic in a way it no longer is

I play emotionally defunct music and pop pills and feel dismayed –

moonlight looks jaundiced against their immaculate skin –

those women on the sides of the septums of whom I’ve found

hair longer than your eyelashes, and yet it’s you who can’t leave

aloneness without first cutting them down to size

who sees people as only the compound of all of their problems

who in a couple of months will be twenty-one years of age.

an afternoon, airborne

an afternoon, airborne

that rambling asphalt artery never met you

its pawprinted footpaths never touched your feet

nor did the pair of blue hang gliders scudding

as the crow flies, to a bower by a river

a rope swing with a shrine to a headlong diver

glide pin high for a time with your paltry flesh –

they were outright losers in the fickle index

of the heart, beautiful jolts you couldn’t adjust to

spoilt by a perceptual double standard –

sweeping difference hums with the knell of the sacred

but minor difference heralds a fatal skew

in the world, the crooked stain of a monster

a menace –

you walked on.

croquet club iron gates lachrymose with rust

the only boarded-up bank in Melbourne metro

suitcase piles on blessed op shop stoops

bald men’s heads speckled with coral spots –

sudden inclines beguiling your untrained stomach

at bottom, women brightened by airborne leaves –

Italian social club flanked by plinths with busts

of certain saints you’d never know why they chose

street crossings too wide for the time it took to cross

cars that kept on going in spite of you – acorns

that kept falling – your face a debutante at a ball of suns

spider webs strung between streetlights and marooned trees –

the hawk of a foreign dialect and good perfume

blew as you looked to the parking lots behind

businesses gnomically solvent, and behind them

the crème de la crème of outer suburban zoning

factories boxed in Lego lots with pretty eaves

next to hollow houses, a supersized sign writer’s dream –

sidelong and sweating

you walked on –

opposite a store selling home wares and Polish coffee

the yews in a cemetery whispered that you weren’t still

before you did halt to pick up a piece of scrap metal

that looked like the scuffed fuselage of an old warplane

the size of a model but worn as though flown in combat

and the cold in the air seemed to come out of hiding like tears –

amulet in hand, you fell back into motion for hours

until from nowhere a place appeared, already in your index –

a sprawling tennis centre landlocked between spastic highways

where on the windows of the little pro shop

you met yourself for the first time –

how the tracksuit zipper’s placement could transform your being

what your long hair did after hours of shaking around

how wide were your calves, how tanned your forearm skin

what the other ten year old boys wore under their shorts

the badges of excellence embroidered on your sleeves –

ripple of your name on the glass as it rang from the speakers –

where on the thirty courts you learned what competition was

to a life – where you cheated and swore and threw your racquet

and won trophies and plaques and ribbons and even airline tickets

where your parents called you the best because you were

and the smell of the synthetic grass sand, freshly cracked cans

of balls, sports drink, titanium, restringing machine grease

and rebound netting were your chorus, handing you

triumph and mourning in a single swallowable package –

without that chorus a win, a loss would have seemed

as bizarre a notion as warmth on an unfamiliar street did then

walking through the time lapse of floodlit rows

paw prints in the sand, a poodle ahead, the sky pale and empty

as skies often looked on the morning of long-haul flights.

Incident 67

Incident 67

Oliver was stirring a vat of molten fondant when incident 67 took place. According to the log, the time was 6:05. While no more than an estimate, it made sense because by then the production area window, an oval of frosted glass spanning the entire rear wall, had taken on a milky but not yet sunlit glow. Any earlier and the window, daubed in steam, not without a certain menace, loomed like a sparkling icon of the night over the brightly lit kitchen. Any later and it shone with such intensity that it sometimes seemed to Oliver as if the frost on the glass was real frost and that at any moment it would melt away to reveal the giant padlocked waste bins outside, and beyond them the small employee car park fenced with barbed wire, and beyond that the houses on Davey Street. Also, the first trays of bread must not have been out of the proofer yet, since the only smells his memory could ascribe to the moment of incident 67 were those of fondant and yeast, and scoured metal from the bowls and benches. That, at least, was the logic he employed when filling out the log some three days later.

The bakery belonged to Oliver’s father, Max. A butcher by trade, he could have more fittingly been described as a food entrepreneur, having done very little in the way of butchery during Oliver’s lifetime. There were the odd training seminars for a technical college in the city, and, thanks to his burly, likeable panache, demonstrations of German smoking and curing methods for culinary TV programs. But Max’s true passion was small business, or more correctly, that form of alchemy which conjured success from failure. Still, were it not for the tailored suit the man looked every inch a butcher; hairy forearms that bunched at the elbow like bulbs of garlic; huge hands; a reddish complexion; a grey moustache that was halfway, quipped Oliver’s friends, between David Boone’s and Nietzsche’s; iron bones; short hair combed the old fashion way; a chest and gut like a monolith.

Every food business, according to Max, was essentially the same. To a large extent the product was a front, a cosmetic variance. This was evinced by the number and variety of establishments that he had taken over and then worked to prosperity: “run one,” he would tell his young son on the way to the pizza shop, the fishmongers, the private school café, the biscuit factory, “and you can run them all.” Thus, well before he knew how to articulate it Oscar had thought of his father’s existence as both absurd and fundamentally manly.

Like the bakery, those other businesses were in the outer northeastern suburbs of Melbourne, where Max had settled with the mother of his five-year-old daughter, Maren, nearly a decade before Oliver was born. The rolling hills of the Yarra Valley reminded Max of Bergischesland and certain parts of Bavaria.

new love after surgery

new love after surgery

soon she’ll roll onto the side with bath tap burns

big veins, sketchy pigmentation, big pores

and that side won’t exist for you or her –

soon she’ll be floating in the centre of your wails

her other side, dark as roast dandelion tea

peppered with dark hairs curling like herbs on ice

hairs scattered over paper bark skin in ritual

scattered to summon the gods of your hanging fortune

shaped like a chipped protractor vainly trying

       to trace a perfect arc for a corner sun –

       that’s the side you’ll answer to all night

those are the hairs that will cover you by morning.

oxycodone an anti-compass, giver of a grudging warmth

while she’s ensconced in your able side like language

charting your beard line, pressing the ice pack down

by the muslin cosy you cut from an old bridal veil

and you find that your groove in the bed has mutinied –

two halves of halves coalescing in the salt lamp light

wreathed in your wails, and footfall, and the ceaseless gnawing

of the rat who raves like a poltergeist in the ceiling –

dishes washed in a basin of black mud are clearer

than your mind after three days of pharmacological healing

       and yet it’s enough for her to remain afloat –

       is it because of you or because she’s young

you think, scissored by her legs, falling to heavy sleep.

in the spa

riven by a pack of water jets

black ink of a Big Oil conclave

pen around her dewy lips

bleeding – in the wood grain

underneath the table

                                 – white plastic –

on which the pen and an empty notebook sit

there’s a mass of flickered faces, protuberant

mirrors of the moles on her shoulders and back

and steam scuds through her nose ring

through the discs that make her ears yawn

and her mien seem unreeled, unpacked, a mess

and the faces aren’t looking at anything.

two percentage points away from rain

a few down lights from total darkness

the water ristretto-thick and sweet and gold

when the jets go off she turns them on again

but not before your fragmentation fires you

into realising that cold and quiet are the same.