shhh

Intention was a smooth round stone, rolling over and over in my palm. the light hung like mist, slowly floating down around the back yard. the air seemed cooler than it was. the house was soft edges of blue.

i am tone deaf. the world has one vibrancy and it pulsates with all the vivid imagination of a four year old.

words and music

It starts with the unravelling of thoughts, words, memories and emotions. It starts with a couple of beers.

Every song has a thousand reference points, every album a constellation of flashbacks. I could take every conversation I've had and to a burnt CD and still have enough room left over to drop in some quintessential favourites.

That riff was us driving away from those shallow hot water streams, where I lay in the water till my skin turned into sunsets of blisters, pink is the colour of love fading. That was the first time I read those cards and what they told me terrified me so much that I almost threw them into that cauldron spring.

These lyrics are the longing of distant lovers, of unexpected phonecalls and flooded desert sands. They are the words before you came here, the ones still pungent after you left.

And this sympony, that whole wedge of banded silver. They are the days of eternal baking, $1 stone fruit and clothing racks. The days of kissing at train stations, love so passionate it shook the whole house even as the Upfield line was still. The days of the little house in flemington, too much gunja and the boy who planted flowers as a sign of his love. The boy who forgot to water them, planted seeds in too shallow ground. Their petals grew stunted, cornflower blue. All my walks to the maribynong wouldn't save us. No matter how many punnets of cut price potted colour I purchased, the drought was long and the city was dust storms.

He has since found greener fields.

Me. I moved to the desert with dust older than kin. With mountains that mimic my spinal column. keeping lovers close to saltwater, I plunge my fingers into these empty river beds, and strain my nails searching for liquid. My bed is silent now. Tossing in my sleep, dreaming of sustanence that never reaches my lips.

and beyond that?

the things that I can't talk about
anymore
slack jowls and dirty towels
left on the floor

I scrubbed myself clean
starched and layered like paper reams
turning myself into an auto feed
coloured copies of myself

I am on repeat
skipping to the same
old crack in the cd
holes in my cv

reaching for the polly
filla want a cracker
meant to dust this off
and paint it over

red rover
now your it

so far

It's been a long week. It's tuesday.

Sunday dawning washin away all adolescent hangovers about love and need. The alcohol induced one hung around till lunch time, placated with coffees and springrolls.

Sitting in the shadow of the gap I tell my sisters about my revelations, about the moment I looked deep enough to see how shallow the stream really was. Cleansed by dipping a toe in. All this years of confusion lifted in a single sentence.

Funny how naked boys can do that.

Monday morning saw west macdonnald long drives, all hypothetical about professional developmet, health workers with hangovers and impromptu meetings. By three pm I was asleep on the couch, dreaming of that thin slither silver moon I saw chasing the milky way as she stretched over my backyard.

Then that night came the dreams; layered distortions of yum cha and city streets and making excuses for my illiterate faux pas.

And today.
more driving, more card reading, round table divination surrounded by burnt out nurses.

now the house is silent. I am searching for company and fried food.

Good on paper

Today is unexplainable anxiety. Bonsai conversations and ricochette thoughts behind bullet proof screens. Too much caffine and not enough food. Honesty comes in stacatto, blunders into idle chit chat like an ex wife on valium; vaugly innappropriate, full of appeal.

I am long distances and narrow goat tracks. A check list of ideas pinned up on the fridge. Nothing gets behind the texta marked facade. It's all plywood and mirrors.

Looks good on paper, not so flash in the flesh.

I am 10 rationalisations. Yep, I'm happy. I really am. Just ask me to recite the reasons, monotone like a national anthem, like a manifesto someone wrote a long time ago.

It's just a minor crisis, a loose connection, a crackly line. I'll be over it by dinner time.

back to back

the dust hardley settles before I bathe my throbbing head in cold beer. The milky way has moved above us; skies folding back to reveal the fullness of the universe.

juggling ex lovers, crushes and media men. reconsidering what is right. lining up ambitions till I can see them in clear sights, crossed like a christian, seeking a bulls eye in this land of camels and donkeys.

after Noon

chain smoked ciggerettes and airconditioning. thick black markers and wanking to leonard cohen.

three hours off the plane and I am floor patterns in hallways, hallucinating ambition and checking in with the technology. the fridge is full of wilting food. my flatmate is unable to eat. it all seems the same round here.

The chickens are roasting inside of their coup, I throw scraps of garlic and olives over the fence. They don't seem to get the joke. Everything is irony in this palace of idealism I have built around my life. Her face seemed stretched with the realisation that things had finally worked out OK for me.

I am pages upon pages of inspiration, scrawled and splayed in notebooks that are left in loungerooms and bus shelters. What is this sadism that drives us to document every moment? Like a tourist strapped to a camera, will we miss the point whilst trying to capture it?

cut and paste

Ctrl C
coffee shops. Last time I was here we thought my mother was dying. Do you remember the letter I sent you?

Ctrl V

Back then I was akward. Well, I'm akward still, but it gets to me less and less these days. I'm sending drunken text messages to boys who don't matter. But at least I know they don't matter now.

I am a hop skip and jump from maturity. I am faking it till I make it past puberty. I am racing round corners, ignoring the landscape, trying to pinpoint places I recognise on a map without street names.

I am all inspiration and pens left at home. I am passing out on the fumes of my daydreams, running into people and accidental ideas. Eating chips and gelati in this city of birds.

Ctrl C

Last night I remembered all the reasons I loved her. Beyond the obvious things like talent and style. The way her eyes grow large and distracted mid conversation reminds me of my mind. I remembered that something about her was familiar. in a whirlpool of terminals, thats a comforting thing.

Ctrl V


Cunt chased my friend to my hometown.
It's too small for the three of us.

Ctrl C

I don't like change but I'm addicted to movement. The sleek lines of going somewhere else. The simple beauty of a wellpacked suitcase. The routine of passing through security screens.

fast change

Another logisitical cock up. I should start breeding chickens. The click click of directions changed with each webpage reload. I'm getting tardy with my money, indecisive with my fate.

And as if on cue melbourne opens it's skies and pours out glorious spring days. Like a mistress in fresh lingerie, she is luring me back to her crotch. Days like these were made for chain smoking. I sniff the ground for inspiration. I am hunting coffees and support materials, scalping fast men and slow meals.

rest and reset

The tyre tracks in my drive way have not yet cooled. They are layered, too many seasons of come-go to distinguish the names of the departure points. I am hauling in bags of left over food and blankets my mother crotched when she was manic. Dumped on the lounge room floor, I ignore them, and loose myself in my first beer for days.

I am leaving again.

Bags unpacked to be packed again, to be unpacked and packed again. I am a carousel of destinations. Last night I slept under Ntaria skies, first quiet night in the community all week. Tonight I rode home through small town roundabouts and watched the largest shooting star I've seen in months descend from the skies like a suicide bomber, like a moths final declaration of lunar love. Tommorrow I'll be back in that rabbit warren city, quipping in bars, wearing my red dust like armour, trying to suck all the authenticity out of the tram lines and wandering aimlessly through places I've forgotten.

I take my dirty laundry with me. I travel dirty, and light.