as if clouds have hijacked his mind’s eye
and he doesn’t even notice the petrol spilling under his car
like an oasis seeping through the texture of a desert floor
it massages the concrete
it brings us all to lick our lips at the sight
a naked, refined body of fuel
wasted at 95 cents a litre,
the station attendant screams
at the rising sea of gasoline
and our aging friend comes back
sorry, he says, in the waking, my father just died...
deo optimo maximo
for Matt Foley
lurching onto the highway
sporting a rushed pair of $5.95 truck-stop sunglasses
facing off with this intermittent black line,
its cusps hidden in gullies forging south
as it does northward
curvaceous segments of road
like black smiles and frowns
either gazing in the direction of the Pacific or the hinterlands,
dark horses upon the clearing of the dreamtime tabernacles
this stretch from Brisbane to the Gold Coast
since the 70s, its character has been raped too
in what was briefly Joh’s country
yes!
multi-lane monument to the Gods of old and new,
the bandits touched by the spiritual fingers of radar guns
and speed cameras,
the all-knowing, all-seeing
deo optimo maximo; on the tongues of the rogues
—to God, the best and greatest
yet, by God’s hand
what happened to the beasts that inhabited the African Lion Safari?
and did the UFO above the roadhouse just fly away?
or can we even recognise the cemetery
where the solitary Anzac stands
that the surfers would salute
to secure a pact with Huey and his crystal palace on the early morning tide?
protected from the glare by $5.95 truck-stop sunglasses
no one respects the speed limits
and no one owns up to the roadside crosses
’cause I know
there is no God—
there is only the living
and trailers of the dead
gasoline
you just know where it will lead to—
the prelude of a lingering kiss
upon the fumes of a heated and ravenous breath
and you’re already a weary veteran of this road
’cause it’s going to combust,
the spirits of her mouth
entering yours
with that NO NAKED FLAMES tattoo
falling from her lips
into the curves of her chest
the fragrance of a weathered fuel tank
leaking unleaded desire
literary festival bump-out
pictures of bloated lions fill these halls
chewing all night
on the remains
of their last kill
triumphant
in the now-stale surroundings
bags packed
more of these entities emerge
from closing-night interludes
these painters of words prepare
to return
to the rigmarole that
landed them here
depression and success sitting uniform
on the bedside table
statues in a world of observations
and intensity
now with little thought or care
for emotional good-byes
itinerant blue
it comes to that morning
when finally you realise: it’s all going to collapse
there is a conclusion that’s yet to be seen
while loose ends are stacking high to a volatile degree
eyes peering through sun-kissed slits
at a landscape bathing in a varnish of itinerant blue
as if the sky has reminded the earth of loneliness
and the old days of communion
a dawn when gamblers get slapped into remission
and the ball starts rolling again with rogue impetus
time to move and abandon what is built
and may later bleed
after days and nights of bargaining into the mirror’s subversion
as the only muse that serenades you
is a computer generated mirage
wishing to advise
you have limited credit to make this call...
products of mexico
been trying to write for days
and now pushing towards the border
to escape serenity,
a mind turning to cheese
heading north
a backseat full of notes
written down-south,
my products of Mexico
that came in the Byron Bay nights so dark
I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face,
let alone write
a body depleted
of 24-hour white-light Brisbane
the never-ending glow of the city
that completes my usual ingredients for sleep
and language of black-rain thoughts
crossing the boundaries
smuggling ideas solid and fatal
as flying bricks
as my mind tried to reason
the heights of Bundjalung dreaming
the night creatures’ endless songs,
praise and condemnation
of attempted human magic,
dialects so foreign to my own native ears
white matter foam
picked off the brain,
in which I carved my products of Mexico
making a mad dash for the border
gas tank sonnets
1 hour out of Byron Bay
and no dreams for three days
when the snakes in the engine
hatched a mutiny
the radiator hose was the first to go
a roadside heart-attack,
meatball surgery with a swiss-army knife
and almost hijacked by hitchers
the days and days of service station pies
finally ripped through my spare tire
and cocktails of on-edge nerves did their work
while all the time
across the hills, the Pacific
looking good enough to eat
feelings of withdrawal
leaving
Byron Bay and the muse,
for the likes of Brisbane-town
and this want of becoming a writer
tongue dragging along the bitumen
regurgitating yesterday’s gravel,
the mind aflush
with gas tank sonnets
sunday
an unwanted cadence
beats on the roof of the car
salty and cold
brought in on the off-shore breeze
as the stale windscreen wipers awaken
screeching
like a pair of dying mutton-birds being pulled across the glass
the sugarcane burning on one side
and the river swelling on the other
acidic grey ash mixes with rain—
fallout across the paint work,
a collaboration that will finally eat
its way through
ahead thick savannah forests of sleep
block the voices of hundreds of thousands of spawn
—silver counterparts at my watery flank
blinded by the wider blue
and just like a lot of us,
some of them must ponder
the freedom
to float in one spot
on a lonely Sunday afternoon
immune from any stagnation
the last bullfighter
walking
alone into the ring,
stamping ground
of uncompromising traffic,
northbound off the mighty Tweed River
a water dragon sat
upon the hot tarmac
body across the white-dotted line
flaring its frilly pink appendage
like a cape
at oncoming traffic
these huge, stainless-steel cannonballs,
complements of human creation
claws working the plain
in a half-baked flamenco
it obviously knows the nature of these soulless beasts
leaping into harm’s way
without even a picador to assist
just a loaded gas tank in the morning sun
with no time for
mindless animals on wheels
confessions of a reptile,
last stand of the matador
back road
revisiting childhood
through that time-gauze of greying feather,
back to a time
when the road seemed wider
but had the same volume of insanity
Dad always concrete at the wheel
Mum in the ‘Worry’ seat
sharing with Dad,
the worries sometimes reaching the backseat
as the sporadic vapours got too heavy
and did their backdraft thing
upon our small foreheads
breathing in the pockets of blackness
yet, we ride
our little bodies fading into the upholstery
the rear-view mirror
keeping its eye on us
sultry gridlock musings
sitting in traffic
sweat beads crystallise across her forehead
like soldier crabs on a marble cliff-face
and as they fall,
gathering momentum the likes of
downhill piano races,
smashing my cache of reflections and regrets
endowed by past love
brunswick st blues
Brunswick St
sits like the continental shelf just below morality
rain washes the bad scenes
off the street
the killers still get the air
for free
yet upon the working girls
the evil shadows linger
while the decision-makers bottle the blood
and facelift the Valley
Voodoojack waits at the end of Brunswick St
like some kind of licorice addict;
paved bitumen runs straight into his mouth,
congested with exhaust fumes
and scummed in the beard of night
whistling through blackened teeth
like some patron saint of the red-light militias
that perpetuate the Brunswick St blues tune
a black singing snake gripped by the neck—
can’t bite back
ambulance chaser
somehow, I lost the faith;
’cause the girls in Sunday school knew so much about sex
and now, I find the subject so hard to dismiss
in all its vital importance
but the ambulances
scream past
at all hours
big red-eyed wolves
stomachs wrought with pain
and the contradicting heretic in me starts to lag
makes the sign of the cross
whispers prayers for the wounded
and their curers
as for a moment
my heathen heart travels with them
talking to the airplanes
buses pass in a cold shrill
while cars simply snap!
motorbikes cast
into red-belly black snakes
fast and all-consuming
but talking to the airplanes
you want to tell them, please don’t crash
or burn
carrying angels in their nose
photos of your children under their wings
close to their heart
cruising across the earth in silence
innocent as the wake of peanut butter spreading
across freshly baked rye
three-legged dogs
I live in a neighbourhood
of physically challenged canines
tough, three-legged dogs roam the streets,
taking every day as it comes
staunch tripods of muscle and mut
still as big, still as mean, just less maneuverable
the gutters, pot holes and cars give no concessions
and a local council doesn’t even provide special amenities
three-legged dogs caught in a vicious trilateral world
of the right, the wrong and the cheated
hoping to greet in doggy dreaming
a warm, little pile of legs
fire
for David Gilbey
fire-engine flash of fox pelt
and a plume of tail
fluffy ... like some oil-well ablaze on a Gulf War postcard
and from the body
it was fleeing at a 2 o’clock incline
almost innocent in the ebb of dawn
above the vineyards at Booranga
sauntering erratically
as a red beacon
across the screen of a life-support monitor
up and down and away
this alien enigma upon Wiradjuri skin
the night house
the dingles of branches paint the night house
while the smoky residue formed in the hate of its past
changes the shades of shadow
from black to red
as if Dante himself had tattooed
the limbs of humanity, those who came here to conquer
or as urban myth relates
those black women who once upon a time
had their babies in this yard
before the bulldozers mowed down the birthing plain
and erected the doomed foundations of the night house
unable to stop
the curses falling
the lips of primal vengeance
camouflaged in an eternal apron of midnight’s plague
and just what is left, after night has devoured it?
it is not the smell of Sunday roast that lingers in the air
but other flesh that emanates from
the night house
and the crows that cackle in its unkept grounds
they too have witnessed the decreptitude
and shallowness of love
as the trail leading to the front door
is the sinewy line between life
and burdening tales of death
the inhabitants left wondering
why nothing has gone right here
and just how do the walls manage to stay upright?
old dishes under the verandah
where man once tended beast
wind rattles an abandoned dog chain
now a bloodless umbilical to the dreams
of children who play nearby
while the demons clear the longevity of this place
and all the other night houses
built in the aftermath of heartless atrocities;
the demonic icons of irreversible history,
the sepia images of memory
in a landscape formed
along the blackened fringes
of this sunburnt country
jaded olympic moments
for Jennifer Cullen
they made their way through the sliding-door
and stole the lot
video, mini-disc equipment, fly-fishing reels, my
son’s piggy bank
and my literary award
all on the eve of the Games
capping off a sterling period of post-funeral melancholy
&nb
sp; after my young cousin’s passing
then, sitting on Jen’s couch
as the ochre-kissed women came out
and did their thing in the center of the stadium
we had tears in our eyes
thinking, that’s our mob!
but no,
only a romantic would think that
it’s still very much an US and THEM kind of deal in this modern dreaming,
we’re city people without a language
and some of us have even less
but then the coppers rang
said they’d caught them
three smack-head white boys
18, 19, 20
the gear was gone without a trace
the video, the piggy bank, the literary award
and it made sense
’cause if blackfellas had broken into the house
they would’ve taken Dad’s 10ft Landrights flag
’cause it was worth just as much
as Cathy Freeman’s gold
without regret
we sit there
night after night
until the close of being
draining the last dregs of amber fluid
Smoke Encrypted Whispers Page 5
