As Writers
one thinks
of the words the other
will use to document the act
the other
ponders one whose language
regressed to grunts and cries
crawled
back to inhabit the sea
the love that pooled under thighs
on the
chair-cum-bed where
one or the other is typing
Three Poems
I
the kids
have begun to call her Mother
have begun testing claws on her back
and curling cat-like in her arms -
during those sick months I forgot
they were mine I swung like an axe
from mania to blood loss and could not die -
in the psych ward they tucked me in stone sheets
leaving the tots to her gathering arms -
home well enough for cutlery and hugs
the kitchen air thick with first words
II
there is
nothing on her bones to sculpt
to prove her more than boyish smile and hips
and thin arms that lash the spine to heat
that don't know when to stop that I kiss
feeling my back scab - stitched in leather
she cannot find her Gladstone grip
yet knows a ligature is kept bedside
should a bleeding not stop - a tram
to Flinders St dawn licks the tree-tops
promises lashings of sunshine
III
the children
are asleep at last
the lullaby tramp of mourners' myth
and there's you prettier than ever admiring
the mortician's art - the old man cranes
to catch his love stepping out
in heaven the sill where skin was shed
your face flung among stars I swallow
a lithium stone - once amongst the living
in theatre-dark she was taken from me
bewitched by simple dialogue
It Is Not The Loss At All
that gape
in the chest
swelling red
with each volt -
the charge
forced
from nerve ends
like an appliance
unplugged
house gone dark
The body no
longer
twisting
sheets in sleep
has triggered nothing
Sight must
now
warn
fingers of hotplates
confident
men
the wife
whose knees have buckled
Should
dawn
bring the charred
remains
of the
heart's archives
an azure sun
will douse a
lemon sky
-
not this testing
of love's vanishing point
not this
child
screaming
and this strange
woman
saying kid get
used to it
Untitled With Stars
tonight
I am blind to signs
your mouth mistakes shoots off there's one -
a sea stilled
for common feet
eye sucked wet of suns
bugs in
lamplight are falling-doused stars
the sky shakes her black hair free like a girl
and
another and another
under this shock of stars I forget all Latin
we trio
in audience gape
the great pond shrinks as blood in lips
unaware
that stars fall
that bone ticks beneath heart
another
black-haired orbits shoulder-height
sea stiff with observance
The Royal Hotel
old men
come to drink where
the younger pray to see
your nipples peak on the bar
this is
bucksnight afterwork
inbetweenfightswiththewife night
first act wonderwoman lasso-legs
cock-blood
forcing the truth
then policewoman slipping
the cuffs round a sweaty wrist
country
bumpkin picking pumpkin
pulling coke cans from her cunt
with a show smile all mates here
I saw
her at Northcote Plaza
buying bananas with a kid - dunno
brought the Force into disrepute -
this
one stung when I first pissed -
the urinal rings with adoration
froth-empty glasses tally the smiles
paid chance
of pulling the bargirl
pulling for decent cash pulling
the pot for a hard earned thirst
Copyright © 2001 Christopher Parry
