Lion Place
woke up boxing like Black Tyger
in The Famished Road except white &
never boxed before but like Okri's man
the community wants me to win & it
comes down to the final fight when
it's me driving a truck like the leader
of the Autobots & parked on the flat
though I can't find the handbrake which
is of real concern & so start fumbling
beneath the dash & no signs of a chimp
sidekick or other chance for comic relief
think it's Sunday but no the light is all
wrong from the city & something is watching
me sleep from the ensuite / clothes pile
sounds like feathers or shark eyes so
big with grey scenery can't believe the
truck's rolling the handbrake the air-horn
the blood on my teeth & lost city by sea
Charon to make-up
wish I’d never kept that fucking
scythe now it’s all grim reaper &
biceps sticker tattoos / liquor store
hold-ups & your Uzi weighs a tonne
call Tom Savini we need blood & buckets
of shit like heads or bikie apocalypse
films that fight scene in Stone got out
of hand walking Kimba in a graveyard
in Crow’s Nest can’t believe it pooed that’s
borderline pathological & China has used
executions to avoid this sort of thing
those pony-tailed devils will be the end of us
give them inkwells & see how they like it
when horse penis goes mainstream
like every street corner.
Synchronicity
4A’s bladder scanner is gone or
otherwise missing the question is what
now? dial zero four times for emergency?
or is it feet up crap / Quest newspaper
start crossing things out? words? otherwise
make nothing of rules / this work station
with its cute black reality & long-needed reminder
of Good Times / Kotter / ‘what you talkin’ about Willis?’
or like dying Germans say – ‘run to the hills!’ –
an Arrakis mythology where you shout down rice crispies / christ
& Sting before turtles or yoga makes decisions like
‘avoid contempo thongs’ & ‘age with taste – no Billy Idol’
but the need to compartmentalise greater than luck or casinos
or pissing off Egyptian barges means the role will be
remembered only as orange hair / black suit
& how cool he looked with the knife.
Third in three days
the new king of nepal is dead,
& beards are worn at half-mast;
on the 190 contagion coats the seats
in sedimentary layers, rain maps windows &
we talk kalighat, goats & circling priests
as though 'out of here' could be anything more
than villages hushed into cold churchbells,
supping the religion of pity, faking stigmatas
during puja & Sai Baba brand snowdomes
shaking every bustee lean-to in this
bad blood animist Black Mary town.
The Great Chain of Being
still riding that coffee at Pellegrini’s
& our time on the clean winter corners
of druggie town reminds me I don’t write
sonnets never have or seen the point
like phrenology waste of time & besides
the future is all floorboards & unfinished
interiors (small) kitchens bathrooms (okay,
bit dodgy) but overall remarkably pleasant
to look at from Swanston Street posted Burke
& Wills selected links from the chain went
down like dry biscuits or eating your pack
animal gets no mention in the collection of
paper film & river in a box under the house
& passed off as your life.
Palace Hotel
the ground floor is full of dirt everything is sinking from my bed MTV Asia in the corner drinking 7-UP the art of commercialised sweating under a coarse blanket the yellowing sheets bear stains of unknown origin beside the woodgrain laminate wardrobe thin plastic bag containing used band-aids soiled cloth & leftover bangladeshi pilgrims wrap cardboard boxes with garbage bags & masking tape contents heading east in the vestibule we are advised don’t breathe or talk re-invent yourself as cowgirl rockstar new york doll fall apart on howrah railway seat.
Waiting Room (March)
the unfashionable collar of ocean
an orbit of dried salt below the whiskers
& straw-like hair of the despairing Gogol
filling overcoat pockets with mineral sand
& sea-cucumbers (new flute of the Spanish
Court). up the beach an assembly of stork-like
collegiate assessors smooth their hair study
reflections of dogs follow the trail of noses to
the kiosk at Hastings Street ask for directions
to nearest fishing fleet walk soberly
to Fish Bay slapping the backs of vermilion
goggle-vendors & licking the cascades of
choc-coated soft-serve from starched epaulettes
in the silence of a granite chicane along the way.
later the men watch in awe as the state councillor
pulls apart a pregnant loggerhead turtle
removes the shell to find six miniature turtle replicas
one inside the other, each smaller & sweeter &
colder than the last.
Not knowing the use of them
“Racism was as functional for the frontier
squatter as the Colt revolver. One cleared
the land, the other cleared the conscience.”
- Reynolds
the indigenous moon like copper
rising full to the right & our plane
window frames the disc north of
Casino & nowhere near Medellin
doves perform vast roughly circular
alchemy & then it’s whirlpools in
Portuguese like known world divination
or liberty at the disposal of Mazatec
tribals your brave choice of socks
with sandals may result in sausage toes
similar reprisals or noble savage
bullshit before Cook they covet not
magnificent houses, enjoy every
wholesome air, etc.
the beetling rocks
that the end-days with their black ships
& splinters of fatted goats & sun's cattle in a trench
will arrive shortly at gate 11 has never seemed
more obvious & unavoidable or bad for my head
with its trained & clever neurons white light tunnels
the wet dead season is rolling time to rehearse:
how's it done? tip back your head open the mouth
seal it with gum? or define exactly what is shut or closed?
this is constructed - the eastern-most point of consciousness,
the red flowers that feed the habit. three grams of reality
powdered & packaged in capsule form & he woke, dressed
walked outside and paused said it was a food earned a living
as a plumber and went on to work in film production.
not Stephen Hawking. playing Mastermind by remote.
these days the real is so much better - we have mountain
wolves & lions dressed as crew & a well-trodden path
where stag are plentiful & men fall to on skewered meat
in the proper manner wrapping the thighs in fat & making
it for the fire that we warm ourselves by is metho-fuelled
My Favourite will colour your lips purple the witch knows this
her drug makes men fall about in sties waiting the swineherd
in me makes libations to Pallas Athene with her many names &
clean hair bougainvillea & rose quartz & her hands to touch
a fine brown chalk or her lips with no reference to wine
Pugilistic Attitude
this afternoon watched the dead rise from the waters of the ganges & claw their way up shivala ghat the baby child the sadhu the pregnant the small pox the cobra the bite all this bound in cloth & heavy stone throw in river. next: cremation ground unhinged tantric mumbling sanskrit in black cotton pyjama suit a cloak of moths kiss my right hand as rancid dogs with bitch-tits form an orderly queue for counsel at his bony feet buffalo children play cricket fly kites from rooftops sell chocolates postcards handshakes a boatman questions me about disco & of whisky in australia tells me ‘the man chest & woman hips never all burn
