three thousand words a day

just keep transcribing this tumble of sickness and sweetness and light and shade until you reach the limits of your language listen to the timbre taken out of context and into subtext strap it down and submit it to paper cut it with razor laser focus finders keepers losers creepers steep tea while you wait for the right words to come come come here and let me tell you why i do what i do how i do it to stay present peculiar particular about the shape of stuff and junk punk who never really grew out of her boots bound to misbehave again

do you have a preference?

yes indeed i do i do i do prefer kind and clever and piano-span hands and laughing eyes and wicked mouths and steady feet and taller than me so i don't feel so all-consuming of space all the fucking time yes indeed i do i do i do prefer honesty and quiet reading evenings and making out in the back row and pizza on tuesday nights and black coffee and cold glasses and dressing gowns i do i do i do yes indeed

ugh, i wish

he's proud and humble and clear and i want i want i want oh just to be within his orbit within his guarded imaginings just a little more often i could stand that i could stand to hear him listening to me how plush this realm is this inner world of one-day-i-will-say-all-this-out-loud-ness that cloaks me in roses

nine hundred (haiku)

number nine hundred
scars bleed unexpectedly 
red against white moons

some days

there are times when it is wisest to hit control alt delete on your life for a minute you can always come back to the misery another time when there's room for tears

legless

there's a tangle of affection in my right thigh dedicated to just his smile and i'm in danger now as this could spill over into infatuation with the gentlest suggestion of reciprocation can never be too careful keep the queen of hearts in my back pocket in case of a crush

discotheque versus library

silence on the dancefloor
or a ruckus in the stacks
either way we'll be joyous

well, will you look at that

thigh shadowed with the chain-link
derriere stained with the hand-print
face plastered with the filth-think

damn

he's good
he's really good
he's really good at getting me
he's really good at getting me to smile

little girl green

self-shrinking madness makes pain possible and rage is the covenant come to thru pilgrimage paid the price with my own feet shredded beyond rejoicing reinvented to the point of hysteria this womb is tired tired tired of tomfoolery and listless afternoons she wants bright burning joy and a scoop of crimson lip-flesh to take away as souvenir of this longing self-shrinking madness

fish(es) haiku

water meets water
at the place of honesty
but are we there yet

ideal women

wire no longer has a place at the altar of my breasts i will not contort in order to conform to a standard i had no part in setting the rules weren't written to include players like me the too-swift the too-big the too-loud the too-much leading a pirate band to the adjacent oval to do burnouts upon your sacred ground

meritocracy

what a nasty word 
a loaded question
gun in a bouquet 
loaded with cynicism
what a joke
are you having fun yet?

take one tablet three times daily

it would be significantly more pleasant if these pills were coated instead of bitter and powdery and hard to swallow discreetly in the company of scholars at least they don't bear a glaring commercialised capital r for ritalin on each side so that i don't have to explain that yes i'm neurodivergent and no that doesn't mean that i shouldn't be here and yes i'm capable of being who i need to be in order to get the job done and no i don't need special treatment just equitable treatment it would be significantly more pleasant if these pills were as benign as breath-mints

A4?

he talks formatting to me and i buckle just as easily as if he were speaking sweet nothings and everything's silver and slick with this she-ness scribed in circles of stories series of shared-ness saved up just in case the sky really does end up falling and the seraphims appear set to collect the unsullied we will of course be soiled forgotten and free to die as we please by the sword by the berry by the truth but no matter mustn't get ahead of ourselves it's only monday monday monday my beloved monday every week a wish granted a debt paid a book returned without the threat of a library fine and all through the week i dream of his sweet everythings

slutwalk

there in spirit
here in flagrante
love radical
rising to the demands
of an answered frustration

status

i am always already text
lines spooling endlessly 
in ink
in lead
in black
in white
in colour
tracing every direction
a disobedient crossword

ego

he collects hearts
as if they were spare buttons
to be hidden away
in the biscuit tin
until such time as he
needs adoration

bartering

what do you want like really want what do you hope for that you've never told anyone before i'll tell you mine if you tell me yours okay ready set go what i want what i really truly want is to go to a garden with you and find a space under an ancient cactus where we can see out but no-one can see in and the air is cool but close and the soil is soft and we can exhale and hold each other and not be disturbed for many hours now tell me yours i promise your secret's safe with me what do you want

new sea sailing

these almost-formed boundaries rise up from within my text-flesh as mantras repeatable remember-able and risky raising the bar for future affections these almost-formed boundaries are becoming a map to decision making a calculator making sense of desire a protractor heart a soul compass i set sail with ballast bravura bending all the rules rapids cannot hold me back un-sinkable a sea creature a siren a sentry at the gates of love

labour of love

i am not a rehabilitation centre wrapped up in fat and humour i am not a therapist disguised as a sex object i am not a nurse pretending to be one of the boys i am not your unconditional lover i am a person a real bona fide human woman with thoughts and feelings and a brain and a heart and opinions and my own life i am not a rehabilitation centre

digi-ghosts

photographs used to fade but now they'll always be out there somewhere in the vast digital ether ready to come back and haunt you with reminders of the way you were before the lessons were learnt before the coffee kicked in before you got the right prescription and unlocked some kind of sanity photographs used to fade but now only memories do that

octogenarian

this whole getting older thing is marvelous when you stop to ponder it the letting go of giving a damn the absence of fucks to give the giving up on fitting in all a reprieve from the trappings of unattainable dreams bought and paid for so many times over in our youth this whole getting older thing is a gift when you really think about it the sheer relief of shedding all those tacky skins that no longer serve you the unlearning of all the trite sanctimonious shallow coding the remembering of the joy of being your own screwed up and outside the lines person this whole getting older thing is the best time of your life and i can't hardly wait to be eighty

retouched

all the old worries are cobwebs now
dangling just out of reach
in the corners no-one sees 
unless they're truly looking
looking at full picture
unfiltered

fiddle

violin hands have always been a weakness ever since the first arpeggio on vinyl carpet burned knees and elbows and grateful ears dust jackets making a moat around me tiny and ringlet-headed between the speakers i played symphonies on skin i made caves for each cadence locked in longings dormant for that first flush of feelings later when womanhood wended its way between my legs long ago now but the wanting remains the eyes still drawn to fingers how long are they how wide are the palms are they calloused are they smooth are they strong do they feel as keenly as i do do they press against strings unconsciously while doing other things is every coffee cup really a fret-board in disguise and when will i be touched again by violin hands

spiral

i'm sure i'm overthinking this but i don't want to cause a rupture this time unusual for me not to just come out with it and see what happens next roll with the inevitable landslide of punches and wounding but no not this time this time i will simply be who i am and see if that brings me more a more agreeable mind-scape than my usual modus operandi of fuck first hurt later i'm sure i'm overthinking this but i don't want any more broken bones

the game (patriarchy)

it's their weaknesses
that fuel the violence
the fear
the never-fucking-ending drudgery 
of this binary divide 
this limiting
bullshit
systemic 
hatefulness
it's their weaknesses 
that fuel the perpetuation

the rules

we're not supposed to talk about all of the things we ought to talk about like poverty like politics like sex like violence like sex like how fucking difficult it is sometimes to not want to die to not want to give in give up give out and run away run somewhere else somewhere new we're not supposed to talk about all the things we ought to talk about like money like power like hate like love like hate like how fucking easy it is sometimes to not want to drop the mask to not want to be quiet be forgiving and relenting and waiting for tomorrow to come as if that will make everything better we're not supposed to talk about it

wonder why

so maybe i'll be like the long-suffering friend holding a candle for eternity watching him fall outside the imaginary lines my poor restless heart drew so long ago when life still held promise maybe i will maybe that's okay maybe it's just how it is we can't choose where our passion takes us we can only choose whether or not to follow in its wake or resist its pull and stay fidgeting on the sidelines refusing to play refusing to race refusing to face the photo-finish millisecond between victory and defeat head and shoulders lunged ever forward into weighted air feet desperate and heavy and eyes blinded by a finish line that is nothing more than a mirage put there to keep you from dismantling yourself lest somebody else does it for you maybe it's just how it is maybe that's okay maybe i will

swamp witch

burden-less these days
unencumbered
big-deal dreaming
has done its work 
on this big-boned 
bad-mannered 
beautiful banshee

caught

to come unstuck
from this keening
i am keeping
a slice of your tongue
to guard against
carelessness

later

when the night-birds
come to their tree-theatres
when the steady breathing
comes to the sleepers
when the temperature 
comes to the tipping point
only then will i release

hurry

stanzas written in haste
require translation
trans-mutation 
from profane
to sentience

altar

turns out i was after a brick house
not a glass one
never even knew that i was
throwing stones
recklessly wantonly repeatedly
breaking the cathedral

monday mid-morning

we are both screen gazing today
me at my words
he at my form
cut across with leather
and scarlet signals
sacred safe sound

seventy two words

only took him seventy two words to break me in half months of promises broken weeks of plans deserted and then after all my careful tenderness everything just stopped and after all his brutish charm everything just stopped and then i was in the air floored i was in the air mute i was in the air i was in the air i was in the air and he was all gone

odd one out

odd isn't it that after all this time i don't want anyone or anything save for a soft landing and a room of my own all those years of desperate clinging wanting shrouding me in repellent neuroses a beacon for the no-good-bad-boy-through-and-through-narcs and bullies stuck to my chest begging me to fix them and i really thought i could but why did i bother excoriating myself at the feet of these thieves an extreme sport more than just a dangerous hobby but a death-wish suicide by so-called love slowly death by a thousand insults and slaps and punches and rapes and oh how i wish i'd listened to all the gentle messages stupid stupid stupid for such a smart girl odd isn't it 

riddle me this

there are clues on the back of a mirror
hidden in plain sight
unfathomable to those 
who wrote the formulas
we unravel in our sleep

bletchley, obviously

i mean obviously i would have tried for bletchley had i been given the chance to take this fractal map of a brain of mine and used it to save lives but fate deemed my time to be now instead so here i am madly tapping out poems on a new-fashioned keyboard instead of a friendly sensual olivetti in some smoke-filled silk-screened studio in soho selling perfume on the side and sometimes putting rollers in when i feel the urge and sometimes sneaking soldiers in when i feel the urge and sometimes solving riddles when i feel the urge i mean obviously i would have tried for blethchley had i been given the chance to take this fractal map of a a brain of mine and used it to be brave but i am brave here now too living with grey hair and i mustache and being fat fat fat and loud and funny and blunt and sometimes kissing old friends when i feel the urge and sometimes getting tied up when i feel the urge and sometimes surrendering to hot wax when i feel the urge i mean obviously i would have tried for bletchley had i been given the chance

memo

point three
i love you
point two
i will never put my art last
point one
i don't know how to say this

matinee idols

perhaps if i'd seen 
sophia loren instead of audrey hepburn 
spaghetti instead of givenchy
i'd have cast off shame earlier
been braver sooner

mid-november

mid-novemeber so i'm steeling myself against the onslaught stealing sleep wherever i can to strenghten the stores of defenses against the enemy of sanity poised to attack some december it's lurking just around the corner with one toe already breaching the battle-lines drawn some nine years ago now familiar foe welcome back i wonder why you bother at all this futile torment of a tired warrior celtic/pict woman she has blue ink for veins head shaved ready to fight she is knows this game better than you and you're on her land her land her land built from pain endured and demons defeated over and over and over again and again and again get on with it maybe we can finish a little earlier this year for a change finish in time for tea

decades

returning in a new form
older
more wary
still like smoking on windowsills
on the second story
no longer compelled to be coupled
every single night
older 
more wary
returning in a new form

sydney bound

i hope i see him
i hope i don't see him
he won't recognise me
he might recognise me
apparently my walk gives me away
even after decades 
will he say hello
he won't say hello
i hope he walks away
i hope he doesn't walk away
apparently my heart still betrays me
even after decades

the final touch

his hand ghosts my lumbar spine
his favourite spot 
the skin taut and smooth
and blank besides freckles
and the memory of
last night's tenderness
soon forgotten with ears
popping during lift-off
never to be felt again

passe

i'm old hat
like a doorbell
or an answering machine
or rhinestones
on a denim jacket
blue eyeliner
stick-on earring
shaped like lovehearts
with silver foil backs
or easy affection
admitted over milkshakes

chelsea

london burrough
or new york city hotel
you choose
i don't mind
they're both grubby
romanticised
and elitist
in their own ways

tarantino

is a professional plagiarist with a foot fetish, dumb luck, and faultless taste in music

cardio

half-in half-out of sleep
dozing
window open to the sultry sydney night
and he rolled over
switched on the lamp
rolled back to face me 
i shifted my chin
opened my eyes
and he said
guess what?
i breathed
i love you
he said
and my heart siezed
his eyes matched the sheets
ice blue like bondi water
 

bushfire season (haiku)

ash on the windscreen
neighbourhood cats are skittish
when will we get home

temptation

the same old push-pull
nudging the back of my kness
and the points of my elbows
won't be denied
because he has an uncanny
cunning about him
a veritable plethora of
possibilities

edging

figuring out this fancy
dancing with danger
she dives
jumps with toes pointed
a silhouette of memories

city east writers retreat monday morning

caffeine loaded and on the verge
we crack knuckles
shuffle chairs closer to the edge
and begin to type
now the weekend-dreams
can be rendered in ink-flesh
three-quarter-formed
and faulty
faltering tongues
stilled against mistakes
pressed to the teeth
testing the boundaries 
of new forms

fatigue

i'm tiring
come and get me
and feed me stories
until the moon rises
and i'm ready
to run my mouth again

50

one day i will say
my name is
doctor...
and i will be
fifty and silver
and serene

HIV

eighties babies thought we would die
by being bowled over by the grim reaper
sex and death always intertwined 
in some pastel bowling alley
burning with disease

and thousands

i could write you one hundred words a day
and still it would barely be sufficient
to work through the mesh of magic
you have woven around me

looking at me

your glance warms long
after it has passed
like an afterglow
of just-burned
sparklers spelling
out lovehearts
on new years eve

for the love of joni

under my skin
like that piercing tangerine ink
that stings more than the other colours
you are a bright painful honesty
showing me myself
and i can almost stand it
now that the years have 
done their work on me 
and you are still around

'...you are in my blood like holy wine
you taste so bitter, and so sweet
and i could drink a case of you
and still i'd be on my feet...'

infedility

years later i found out
he'd been making a fool out of me
the rumours fell on ears deafened
by infatuation
idealism
and stupidity
and you were the only one 
who never laughed

why oh why didn't i just go with my gut?

we shouldn't think of the if onlys
they only make us melancholy
but we can't resist the pull
of the familiar regrets
half-masked by hindrances
long-gone and never missed

can’t get you out of my head (haiku)

stuck on the same songs

superglue sense-memories here

as old as earworms

42 (haiku)

it is the answer
we are out here with our towels
dreaming galaxies

repeat (haiku)

lingering cassette
your side a to my side b
scribbled liner notes

tuesdays (haiku)

succulent tuesdays
sustain me through the weekend
hospitality

eighteen years (haiku)

hello my old friend
i wonder how we will kiss
now that i am free

a to z

just keep typing through
all the iterations of
the how-we-got-to-here-ness
until you no longer understand 
this alphabet of loving

institutional writing

white rooms can only
hold so much
crafting
before the words spill
over and leak
onto doorsteps
staining them indigo

healing

i don't think about it much
anymore
don't wake up from the dreams
anymore
just roll over and stroke
the scars
instead

nostalgia(s)

oh, how we used to long for the phone to ring and now we just want to sleep through entire sundays without once being summoned by those filthy, insistent screens

push

the little daisies wanna come up and bloom in your face just to show you that life does indeed go on after he doesn't message back you silly girl you don't require attention from a cull to be deemed worthy of affection you have everything you need right here in your two work-worn work-forlorn work-foresworn hands and nobody can take that away from you i know they've tried but when have you ever been rendered totally powerless never you are water you are water sometimes spring sometimes swells that overwhelm but never mind those who sail on you they are but brief and pirates all you are the sustaining body of all you oversee and it is your dominion to rake and ruin and rise up from you are siren-strong

why read women at all

it matters because they are still diminished
dismissed as hobbyists
as if a cock would grant them 
legitimacy

traitor

caught out
he skulked away
tail between his legs
ego wounded
and now he is
too infantile 
even for me

compliments

she told me i had the charisma
of a preacher
she told me i was going to
to great things
she gifted me these jewels
freely and without
prompting

dreams

when i grow up i want to be clean 
spotless hospital grade bleach sterile and silent and
who am i kidding this flesh was made to disrupt 
to bleed and be too big and 
wear sensuality like a bullet belt 
a firearm disarming charming and courageous 
when i grow up i want to be more me

goals

if i'd been braver younger i'd have been a spy 
i would never have committed to so many identifying marks 
i'd have stayed plain and ordinary and blend-in-able 
i'd have gathered data with laser efficiency cold calculating 
never surrendering to the human in me 
if i'd been braver younger i'd have been a spy

bad old days

too many to count
those nights
those nights that seemed
to never end
those nights
those nights that limped
towards sunlight
too many to count

a wasted trousseau

linens neatly stacked
and cloth nappies
languishing 
in the bottom drawer
waiting for a day
that never came
never will
once wanted 
desperately hoped for
now moth feed
now that i am deemed
irreversibly
sullied

on bearing the weight of returning

the scene of the awakening
is decorated with a fountain
and a celebration
of neon 
this is where i left
grace and youth
and priceless ignorance

because i want to

if it wasn't so delightful
i wouldn't bother to sink
into this silver lined
salvation of serenading
you from a safe distance
hoping your echo
comes back to bite me

pussy

your word for kisses
clings to connotations
lost in translation
on the journey 
between your mouth
and my deviance

city east writing retreat #3

my first word was a drum
i am percussion steady
even when the pit is empty 
and the house lights are up
and the velvet curtain is dropped
scarlet upon a dusty stage
strewn with forgotten bouquets
we are alone in the wings

'...every moment we could snatch
i don't know why I got so attached...'
our regret is louder even
than a standing ovation
take me backstage again
and let's make the same mistake
once more for luck

little/large

i hid behind curtains
because i never 
wanted to be seen
that was the first sign
of the maladies
yet to plaque
this outsize corpus

how to build a woman

out of context
out of content
out of time
out of text
out of key
out of kin
this is how she is made

sinnergirl

patience is a virtue
but i've never been chaste
never had the chance
urgency was taught to me
before i could even choose
a different path

kiss chasey

catch me if you can
if you can and you want
and you need
both mirror and window

simply other

all this time i've lived
with the illusion that i am less than
rather than simply other
and now i know the truth
i don't know where to start
this brain of mine
so fractal and uncanny
and this body so restless
yet staunch and reliable
all this time spent
hating this vehicle
without even considering
the driver

directions

map his lies
until you can clearly
see the way out
 

beached

lies linger in hearts longer than the truth of things
we hold on in the shallows
scared of the depths
but the water is cooler there
and the reprieve from the shackles
of the sandbars
is another temptation altogether

underworld sorority

if patti smith met burroughs who else did she meet and is she in fact part of this invisible sorority this underground ecriture feminine that moves in the dark and scribbles after lights out or in moments stolen from the domestic realm and hidden at the top of cupboards away from husbands and errands and that creature put on like a venetian mask and called wife rather than artist poet writer publisher painter sculptor the shoes match the handbag match the lipstick match the nail laquer match the colours of her nightmares the drudgery and repetition lifted away only briefly when she is not on display when she can let her smile down and let her belly out and let her breath come rushing in to strengthen her resolve to just keep going until the children go to sleep and the husband is out with the other husbands and the front porch is finally hers for smoking and writing and thinking without interruption just hold on until patti is free

daring

there's a hint in that smile
a clue
if you care to look
do i dare
i do 
daring comes easy
when you have so
little left to lose

cold/sun

it has begun
the dreaded remembering 
of a summertime betrayal
as soon as the days get longer
and lighter
my whole self is inverted
heavy with grief
for who i might have been
had i been spared

cishets

we are counting our losses
while they count their blessings
truly blessed they are
to be so very lucky
so very dumb
so thoroughly saturated 
by privilege that they 
are blind to pain
and the endless
strangling
wanting