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Orange Bowl diptych: Byfield National Park

Sand Racing

Let us stand at the headland, as you inhale
all that turbid saltiness that whops
and clubs at us about our mastheads
as we leer at the Pacific beneath. Feel
it thud, as I put my thumb under
your chin and turn it southward, see -
there it is. A great yawning mouth, a jawline
slack open in the face of the primary dune,
a pock mark, no - an open wound, framed
by a fringe of coastal heath. They've put
an end to all that now; four-wheeled parasites
scraping and surfing the inner parabolas
of the sand blow. I'm easily fooled. You lean over
and trace an outline of tyre track drag lines,
tattooing the orange sands as if animal
teeth gnawing on dune bones.

Still Life

At night, at 3am, we leave our sheets
and stand pale-bodied on the verandah.
Strange sounds of acceleration
and carousing, below us the headlights
of vehicles traffic the beach. Human
phosphorescence. Filaments, diatoms,
vanish beneath wheels that churn and spit
youth sideways. We remember the boy
who fell off the back of a ute and broke
his neck, another hospitalised. Voices carry
up through the scrub, squeals and laughter.

In the afternoon we stand knee-deep.
Our toes and feet enlarged and strange
through the lens of water. The submerged
sand terrain of peaks and valleys explodes
beneath us - each wash of wave
a ricochet of artillery fire. Behind you
the Orange Bowl lends its citrus spectrum
of sands to colour the light. We wait
for the gentle tap tap tap of whiting.
Our trigger fingers tense on our lines.

    Featured in Queensland Writers Week 2011 in Another Lost Shark

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Night Walking: New Farm Park

Brown bellied fruit bats crash
rowdily in Moreton Bay fig trees,
inhaling the fruit, chatting &
squawking above us like a school yard lunch rush.
Below us, the Brisbane River opaque with night
appears to ask us to meditate on stars,
neat flickerings of neon light and distant suns
ebb and flow. We walk, following the tail of path

round to the new & old electricity power station
in hazed colours of salty light. Considering
voltage and wattage, you explain
electricity to me, synapses triggering, firing
response as our first kiss.

    Poem featured on Brisbane City Cats & Mary Ryan's Bookstore Annual Historical Literary Walk

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Domestic Patterns

Procrastination

Difficult to say
which way the hemisphere
will turn in this cup,
the tap
streaming, cool liquid
swirl in white china, my fingernails
small crescent moons
chipped ragged & not poetry.

Random notes

All day he's been playing that guitar
and I (the jealous girlfriend)
pluck various monotones of discontent.
He suggests I write the lyrics,
offers some analogy between harmonics
and the oscillation of notes
a.k.a - the relationship,
but I refuse to buy into 'good vibrations'
and take a pen and the napkin
from last night's Thai outside.

Here, there and everywhere

Lines arrive all night,
     shuttling into Central,
commuters rise and converge -
stare expectantly at the automatic doors
and the city.

But it's the middle of the night,
locked between apathy
and fatigue,
     the screen flickers.
Arrivals and departures
soft blue-lined pages
unannounced
and featureless in the dawn.

Laptops and drives

In the morning,
you mention in passing
that the coffee tastes like cigarettes -
this is odd as neither of us smokes.
Our eyes meet
over my words scrawled and wired,
reading and sipping
you lower your dog-head.

    published in Small Packages 2010

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She Leaves From an Australian Forest,

her eyes are the light
softened in the hour after sun's descent
a deepening of blue grey
 
the colour of small shells
or the elongated shapes of eucalypts
blue gum      you might whisper
leaves which refuse to homogenize
 
instead the razor fall of spines curving
 
small retreat into forest
stands of trees humanize our frailty
the mind widening in grasp
of last days together
 
inside my chest the heart hammers
irregular      close to the skin
or is it my mouth that falters?
 
stalks of grass spear upright
vertical stands          isolate patterns repeating
thinking of your hair
my hand reflexes
my body delivering response
 
this shape of her body
ascending        already spectral
her hand lifting and held
motion carrying her
sounds of dry sclerophyll breaking
 
 
  from Fragile Context.

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