The Best Australian Poems 2011 (11 page)

So when I went out of the bathroom I knew that no one was there.

So I went out naked, dripping wet, it didn't matter.

So I was surprised when I was decapitated by the ceiling fan.

So I was upset when I was castrated by the bread knife.

So it was very hard to understand when I was disembowelled by the corkscrew.

When the television curled up inside my vacant abdomen,

it was not only extremely uncomfortable but it was also incredibly hard to watch the six o'clock news.

Only then did I realise my error in purchasing at a heavily discounted price the wide screen TV that was all the fashion.

 

The linoleum spinning, coiled round my feet, I tripped and fell.

Retarded, I threshed on the floor raising weeks of unswept dust

curling up in hurricanes, gouging emptiness into the walls.

Disturbed cockroaches fled in plagues to the safety of my only safe earlobe

with a flower pot hanging metallically by an ear-ringed mutilation.

The abdominal TV was vomited in my terror through a torn oesophagus

while its news presenter sprayed litres of insect spray on the forty-thousand cockroaches nestling cosy by my eardrum.

Only then did I notice that I could not notice what I noticed because the notice was pinned far away in the kitchen on the fridge.

 

The kitchen, my enemy, scalded me with its water, burnt me with its stove

and soaked me in the chatter and clatter of frying pans and saucepans.

Sugar stirred cunningly in every sweet delight in the pantry

in an unflattering eagerness to rush me into a diabetic extreme.

The power of the fatty food and the lure of the lounge

sent me spiralling into inaction, baldness and middle age,

severed from my reality by an unkind addiction to a comfortable life in a suburban brick and tile lawn-mowed masquerade,

in a piteously unwanted prosthetic of a globally embedded city, flamboyant in fashion's leading skirts.

 

And the notice, it went coldly, refrigerated as it were in temperatures Antarctic.

It told me its ol' story, flapping beneath a dreary plastic butterfly magnet:

buy some milk, put the cat out, duck when the ceiling fan spins,

sweep the floor, spray the cockroaches, mow the lawn,

avoid the knives and the corkscrew and don't turn on the TV.

I replaced my head and my balls, and other bits and pieces wherever they fitted best.

I coerced the TV back to its allotted place, and pontificated to all household items to be reconfigured to suit the decor.

So I went back into the bathroom naked, dripping wet, it didn't matter, I knew that no one was there.

I love work even on weekends particularly on weekends

I love work on holidays

I love work after making love after eating a good meal after drinking a good drink

I love work trying to let other things rake my brains

I love work even when I am with people who talk rubbish

I love work even in sleep even when I am in a dream even when the dream sweats me

I love work making people happy making people forget me

I love work right back to the seventies right back to the fifties right back

I love work in deepest pleasures my mind bent to its inner curve

I love work when night straightens its back and stands

I love work filling the gaps of fallen teeth

I love work seeding the future with an irretrievable me

Silence is argument carried on by other means

                     —Che Guevara

Against an outgoing tide

he comes up sluggish and sideways

like a reluctant
No
,

 

breaks the surface

and spins under my arm,

his shocked skin flashing orange.

 

There is only unhinged mouthing

and raised hackles; his panic

is a slow internal bleed.

 

I know who he is:

shape-shifter from a life

with other rules for beauty,

 

for movement and sensation;

a wet and breathless life.

We're spellbound:

 

I only have eyes for his eyes,

black from the grottos,

his faltering fins,

 

his undersea sail in tatters,

his sequined sides,

his crown of spines.

 

Kiss me now
, he says,

his argument perfectly formed.

for Bernie McGann

 

Gruff at times but not ill-mannered

 

A hint of old-time dancing but

              the flattened fifths as well

 

Laconic, yes, but savage too

 

Angular, with no glass broken

 

Sad though far from sentimental

 

Aged but never out of date

 

Metallic but with friendly alloys

 

Unique but straight on down the strait

 

Legato, yes, for preference

              but still there at the turns.

 

The low notes hoarse the high no less so

 

Harmony remembered and euphony forsworn

 

The late-night book of smoky clichés

              always pushed away

 

Minor third without the third

              as T. Monk used to say

THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE I'VE EVER HEARD ANYONE PLAY THE SOUNDTRACK FROM GHOSTBUSTERS sadly my dad is not rapping in hebrew with his rainstick, it just sits there next to the pile of newspapers we have … i spent good money on that thing, do you want bubblegum for your cough?
is cute & we have fought twice, which isn't bad. (both times about her mobile.) my results were ok, but not perfect. there is a castle here. grandma is convinced a MUSLIM woman is cutting the heads off her gardenias. she is covered in a layer of what appears to be fine dust. or ash. perhaps i'm a marxist? this is not like
coming out in one he was the bigfoot & he & neil diamond were selling an album they've made on garage band i went to see kevin johansen play for a second time. drunk a lot of mate. haven't got a job. today i helped a man catch his runaway donkey. but i had better start from the start, everything else in tokyo seems to be just as good as

their toilets, it's weird to be in a place with no bogans tomorrow we're going to disneyland! my boss watched centrestage … she tell me to write this movie … i want a nice bed linen … i loved so much to stay the wife … i want that here in japan i am an old man. & you are a beautiful chicken. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! this marks one week without an infection. no pus for you! we are professional blueberry pickers. we are now professional apple pickers. sorry for my lacadazeical approach & spelling of lackadazecal i am the quote dirty dirty child who doesn't succeed & hasn't made the movie of the year. love, john-hair-implants-didnt-work-galliano o i think i can be famous … but i feel tired … please lets go shopping i miss you like it is winter here.

See the people crying in the streets.

The streets are rivers. They're jumping in.

Who is there calling?

 

See the ripples under the skin,

the terrible truths, the people's houses

tumble into the waves, their children

on the window sills, food still on the table
.

 

The people aren't ready. They're still

in the uncurling, in a scene dark and

beautiful.

The danger is that we'll drink this
one quick drink
too fast. The

danger is that one vodka beckons, flirting, to the next. The danger

is that, catching vodka's white wave, I could spill, purple. The danger is

that I will become a nest of Matryoshka dolls, falling out of myself. The danger is that

your umbrella, stripping its black veils one by one, will spoke my eye. The

danger is that the rain, hard, will fill the streets with people, pushing. The danger

is that with the smallest shove I'll miss my train. The danger is

that your every gesture, like a Cocteau film, must be deciphered. The danger is that

if I'm not lifted out of this hot storm everything will open, slippery and roof-shaking.

The danger is that I have invented you, and your hip bumping mine promisingly. The

danger is that the rain will wash away my lightning-flash glamour. The danger

is that you feel my softening. The danger is that you know it already. The danger is

that my rained-on hair cannot pretend to be a satin sheet. The danger is that

the only umbrella I have is paper, crimson and stuck in my third drink.

The danger is that I am well out of my depth in this gutterless downpour. The

danger is that you feel the mercury's rise and rise. The danger

is that you don't feel its rise, retaining your leather-jacketed cool. The danger is

that I am making this up out of nothing. The danger is that.

I'll say how it's done so the difficult questions can be leavened

into small loaves of bread given in praise of crows.

 

Let's start at the beginning: under a perilous sun she wore

medallions of clear plastic, pom-poms of summer grass;

I wore fretted blues and feathered kneepads so our scuffle

precluded my bruised knees.

 

It is true I ripped her earring out which looked more dramatic

than it was.

 

She did hit me first, by the creek and the single willow

and after that, to my mind, she no longer resembled an orchid.

 

                     So yes I pushed her flat into the dirt of this

difficult country; and it is true that I write as I read –

mistaking wreaths for wraiths, spires for spines, girls for orchids

… the cute and loving appreciation of my book and me

by them in Australia has gone right to my heart.

       —WALT WHITMAN
writing to Bernard O'Dowd, 1891

i wish to specifically send remembrances & love to you

& how is your mother bernard is she well? i do hope so

 

(tho i've never met her or your good self nevertheless

send her my regards & tell her to water the daisies often

 

& fred woods is well? i do hope the bruise heals soon

(tho what happened to him i can't tell either no matter

 

& young jim hartigan is he likewise well? i do hope so

but please do send him my best regards & the solution

 

to this week's crossword is enclosed ada i do hope she's

well you speak so highly of her i wonder whether she's

 

not your real wife after all now don't go jumping to

conclusions bernard i can only go by what you tell meh

 

about your bowel movements bernard are they regular

i pray so for you know my views on this issue prunes &

 

buttermilk (enough said eva i presume she's well oh

i hope so & as i know oh she's very cute in that photo

 

you mentioned enclosing never did arrive unfortunately

still i see her pretty well from here & very cute she is

 

& her parents mr & mrs fryer are both cute i hope so

please also kindly pass on to dear mr fryer my sincere

 

congratulations on winning the bridge tournament &

i don't ask how i know! tell ted he's wanted in several

 

states over here (i'm sure he'll get the joke it's private

i don't recall who louie is but please send him or her

 

fond salutations & finally tom touchstone who i can't

place (no i'm getting nothing but suppose & hope he

 

is well i guess that's all but hi also to other friends not

named e.g. pet cats the milkman (oh he is a cute one