in the funnel
of perfection
my addiction
blurs the world-
running
narrows to a
thin vibration
plucked and humming
mosquito-fine
only I can hear
what’s almost comfort
sets off
something
whispers
to my inner ear
I don’t stumble
so’s they’d see
just feel my
direction
skews
a line’s breadth
devastation-
failure-
and a child’s
unformed craving
-hovers
unbelonging
raw edge of fear
Photo: Claire Doble
caged sunlight
I was desperate
for another start
to bleed through
and renew
my contract with life
lizards flick
at the corners
of my vision
not quite snakes
but shedding something
a tail, a skin, a bad memory
an addiction, and
the crows call my name
when I pass
beneath the trees
another day forced awake
to meet desires
shucked off
like shoes
like socks
like trauma
like the stumps of his fingers
which set off a gleam of
peculiar-memory
wanting to remove
one digit
trim the top-third
of my ring finger
maybe I was crazier
than I ever knew
bleed out
grow
don’t forget
to
move through
weird-warm pockets of air
on the headland
is it
enlightenment, also?
missing my trips to the city
and how
the abandoned cokeworks
rotting away
by the train tracks
sent my thoughts
to that place
where things were so different
a secret world
I want to write about
immersed
in an industrial
wastelandscape
how can I capture this imagined
space
I don’t have those skills
or patience
scrolling in my bed
past my headache
reading about runner’s face
and Nick Cave
and grief
and grace
Photo by Darla Hueske on Unsplash
he remembers
when my hair was long
a decades-old flirtation
not personal
if it ever was
with him
I remember
that pale, waxy skin
like marble
the feel
of boy-men muscles
along limbs
as I struggle
to catch slurred words
in a noisy pub
even though I’m sober now
he’s invading my space
after 25 years
of long-forgotten…
suddenly
confronted with
being seen
in a way I haven’t been
for ages
is it good or ill
to bathe
in that male gaze
again
I am, am I?
a person now
or then
how to define
myself
hard-up against that
strange
living-memory thing
the tongue is more sensitive than fingers
teeth shift and move
into more conventional spaces
do teeth have a morality
or is it just vanity?
on a perfect yellow morning
kookaburras outside my window
laugh at me for leaving
and I ache not to go
heimweih
feels like family
sunwarm and delightful
sense of
remembered yearning
from living overseas
all those years
crammed into my niche
missing Switzerland
where I could be anyone
recently
a stranger reassured me
I’m better now
content here
in another heartplace
fitting almost perfectly
conventional
with a kink
do teeth have a morality
or is it just vanity
you couldn’t invent the tide
or the blood in my eye
imagine creating
a land
where waves
rushed in
once a day
then left
sand
like the bare spot on your chin
I see from one side
and wonder if anyone
else has spied
do you feel that
something
between us,
the sea and the sky?
or are the pebbles in my mind
worn too smooth by
tumbling
endless thoughts
washing nigh
turning over and over and
the way they
swell and subside
not even a hangnail
to catch certainty
just a shallow
goodbye
her first album
I was back from
Switzerland
calling Melbourne
quite often
listening
catching
the train
on up the coast
on Fridays
randomly
I fell
in a moment
unexpected
but so vintage-sweet
my cardigan
under the bed
where
your handcuffs
held my grief
that weekend
(he died)
and now there’s
a new album
it repeats on
and on and on
her voice
a yearning
for another
happening
do I welcome
love now?
summer’s here
again, again, again
Soundcloud recording of this poem: https://on.soundcloud.com/65nRL
Photo: Claire Doble
In another amusing
twist of fate
or destiny
or conditioning
I’ve bought the same
kitchen table
as my parents
to go with
matching knifes
and our bread tin
a set of sheets
so many things
it’s dirty on
the underside
with old wine
when I
thought I was
so clean
dust in
the bathroom
like mum’s
I guess it is
conditioning
sometimes think
I am the person
who doesn’t notice
other people
don’t get along
because they see me
lollop up
to their
relationship
like an enthusiastic
puppy
so they smile
pretend
because they
don’t want
to hurt my
feelings or
destroy
a loyal naivety
of course
might just be
overthinking
and
egotising
after all
would anyone
change their behaviour
for me?
Photo by Marliese Streefland on Unsplash
it came in the night
driving and thick
a vertical virtual
wall of precipi…
tation
–
wind rumples
through the eves
crunkling the cardboard
taped to my ceiling
“spielkiste”
from the last time
–
my spiders watch
from the opposite corner
of the room
their spindly legs
like stripped
upside down
umbrellas
–
dehumidifier hums
on 80%
carpets
still feel damp
–
the rains are here again
Photo by Anna Atkins on Unsplash
clairevetica 