I wanted to keep you
so much
when I saw you sitting next to me
arrayed in red and black,
your finery majestic.
I wanted to hold you,
and take you with me.
I wanted to share my world with you,
I wanted…
But we both know that couldn’t be.
You’d leave eventually,
you’d have to
and I…
these hands are too clumsy
to hold you.
And if I tried to keep you,
for as long as I could,
who knows where you’d be, when you finally left?
What dark place you’d find yourself?
So I took you,
so carefully
to where you’d be safe
to where the sun shone,
to where the leaves swayed,
to where the flowers bloomed,
and said good-bye.
I hope you have a wonderful life
I’ll miss you, Lady-beetle.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Farewell
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Ego
I am War, polishing his armour
I am Peace, dusting his mantle.
I am Love, brushing her hair
I am Hate, sharpening her nails
I am sky-fire, falling into the acid oceans of Titan
I am the irrepressible silence of the Moon
I am a thousand voiceless poets, chanting in silent harmony
I am a million squawking idiots, clamouring incessantly
I am Fate, weaving her thread
I am Chaos, knotting it
I am the personification of apathy
I am the antipathy of pathos
I am the day-star, setting
I am the night wind, howling.
I am.
How are you?
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Turn
One day, I shall travel
to the centre of the Earth
and find the man
whose stationary bike
turns the world.
Bleary eyed,
I shall utter only
“6:30 a.m.”
And then I shall hit him
so hard
That all the clocks will be stuck
at 3:17 in the afternoon
for a week and a half.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Blue Prince
I tried to build a temple of my love
but the columns were improbable,
nonsensical, and structurally impossible.
I tried to build a temple of my love
but the thousand windows,
each with aspects of you,
rarely caught the sun.
I tried to build a temple of my love
but the insulation,
which consisted entirely of the warmth of your arms,
and the heat of your kisses,
has now been stripped away.
I tried to build a temple of my love
but the light-switches were too fanciful,
the work-surfaces too porous,
the arches too erotic,
the door-handles too affectionate.
I tried to build a temple of my love
but now, I see,
I should have been a poet,
to articulate
that
which architecture cannot express.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – On Largeness
You have adorned the meta-space
of my aether
for so very, very long,
aspatial, atemporal, ideal.
So perfectly beautiful,
so undefinable.
So it breaks my heart to say this,
I am sorry my darling, I truly am,
but infinite egg, you simply cannot be.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – “Frogs”
At the bus stop
Scattered red frogs
All over the ground
All over the road
What has happened here?
Candy man?
Candy man?
Candy…
Oh god.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – “The unknown”
You could ride the busy Sydney trains for years
and not learn,
until that one, late trip to Thirlmere
when the cool dark of night cloaks the empty world outside,
when the silent emptiness of the carriage wraps around your throat,
when it feels as though you are riding the edge of the void,
that, like buses,
they too have a “stop” button.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – “Nom de plume”
I don’t go to Gloria Jean’s for the tea
not really.
I mean, it’s tea-bags -
I might as well buy my own at Woolworths.
But they always ask for my name,
and never for ID.
“Shazam?” calls out the girl behind the counter
“Shazam?”
Tomorrow, I think I shall be Napoleon.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – “Remnants”
When I inhale,
the delicate remnants of your scent chase my breath,
lingering.
I do not wish to exhale,
for that would be to lose them
and to breathe through my mouth
would surely be
to suck up that sweet, last taste of your lips
and blow it away.
So I am rather in a rush
to learn to breathe
through my ears.
Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – “L0v3″
You may think yourself protected;
locking your heart
behind an enigmatic cipher -
twisted runes that guard your very soul
but where humans fail
this machine will decode
the CAPTCHA of your hidden being
and having shattered your defence,
will assail your heart
with malware of affection
with worms of tenderness
with viruses of devotion
with trojans of passion
with the unrelenting spam of love.
