Tomorrow at Midnight
tomorrow at midnight
clocks slow by a millisecond with each tick
children’s bones relax and spill into their pajamas
hallways of broken homes begin to heat themselves
tomorrow at midnight
strangers kiss in drunk, dimly lit side streets
love affairs begin and end in poems
promises get slipped into people’s drinks
someone lights a fire
tomorrow at midnight
newspapers hit the streets overfilled with comics and harder crosswords
young girls spill from nightclubs wearing shoes their mothers wouldn’t approve of
and their fathers always dreamed of
tomorrow at midnight
boys jump out of their bedroom windows and masturbate under the moon
whores huddle together for warmth and a light
the elderly wake and remember where they are
the city boils the kettle on its overpriced seduction
tomorrow at midnight
candelabras buckle with grief
someone buys the jewelry of the dead
chips get stacked two fingers thick on the shoulders of the losing team
tomorrow at midnight
I will lean too far off your edge
tomorrow at midnight
my words will spill like blood
tomorrow at midnight
I will touch your mouth with my mouth
tell you you’re the only one for me
have my eye on the time and
I’ll slide along your rim
tomorrow at midnight
it will be Sunday morning
© julie beveridge
even the wind has a poem
words spill
from sleeping mouths
walls hold secrets
exposed in cracks
even the wind
has a poem
i wait for inspiration
to teach itself to read and write
in the drunk and dimly lit
corridors of my mind
feeding myself deliberate lines
i edge off the excess of language
into a blank and patient page
© julie beveridge
Tea For Sunday
I drank that tea you gave me
small pot after small pot
on the front & back verandah
in the bath & bed
I drank that tea you gave me
over Creeley & Cave
Dylan & Saunders
Yevteshenko
Lou Reed & Baccarach
I drank that tea you gave me
in conversation & silence
when the sun rose
& when the moon
shone black light
with & without cigarettes
between drinks
after suppers
at the end of each rope
I drank that tea you gave me
all its seasoned storms
brewing in the one tea cup
quite happily without you
© julie beveridge
home sick
I have never lived in the town
that draws me
like a homesick child
to its doorstep each year
I live in a house with a boy
three states away
in a suburb that holds
his entire history in half a dozen streets
I rely on stories
told to me by unreliable sources
to piece together the past
I never thought I’d need to recall
like Pythagorean theory
or the arrival time of a train
which left Central station at 6.15am
travelling north at a speed of 160kph
each journey to Launceston
leaves an empty calm inside me
a tourist attempting to blend in
with local landscapes
a migrant
in my hometown
sick for the memories
I chose not to make
© julie beveridge
