the ending of something which i am yet to write the beginning for.

"... the romanticism had faded: without hot water, the baby cried, without fresh food, he cried, and without sleep, his parents, behind doors or late at night, they cried too.
Shivering on the step with a blanket wrapped around him, Jones told Betty; I'm sick, he said, I'm sick and they say I might die.
She stood up.
I thought I heard the baby cry, she said, but he was asleep, and they both knew it, so she sat back down and took his hand.
I'm only young, Betty, he said, I'm only young and now I'll never be old.
Now that's not, necessarily, entirely true, she said quietly, because, she thought, to look at us, who would have thought we were so young? He started to cry and it embarassed them both. She moved to touch him, but hesitated. There was nothing she could do but live; and nothing he could do but die, and nothing that the baby could do but grow up thinking he was invincible until he didn't, and by that stage, he was as good as dead, anyway. No, she decided, pulling out a cigarette, she would live."

anti-school.

in equal parts the yellowed street lights, like old cotton
fill the holes of winter sun.
midday reeks of no-one
but nighttime solitude is communal:
in the rush
smooth tyres on concrete
patchworked advertising / melange of housing.

this city
can't make up
its fucking mind

"it's an improvement on zero, isn't it?"

coffee leaves a stain
on my stomach;
burnt skin a deep, dark red
shallow breaths and
deep, chesty cars cough.

i thought you would.

japan: travel list #1

"Lovers hang padlocks on this statue at the top of Venus Bridge. They write a message, lock it then throw away the key. Those steel wires are unhooked from time to time to clear out the locks. Some couples don't use the statue though; you can see padlocks hanging here and there all over the bridge and around the park."

found here

amitriptyline

inept.

tomorrow's escape, we fail to understand that
change
between the silence of six and that of eighteen
is a damp web
centred in what cigarettes and cask wine
cannot dry.

the suggestions of
a history dictates
cheek kisses do not give
and hand shakes do not take.

what you need to do is simple;
what you will, and can, is not.

today is taking knowledge
from untrained teachers and the
aspiration of change.
growing older is not the answer.

from the walls of a cubicle

"before i could read, i could pull a book of poetry off the bottom shelf,' she'd told me, and went on to write such awful odes, working in a call centre and paying half the rent. though the other half belonged to me i do not live there.

i watched the goosebumps crawl around me; bare legs in the rain. wind whips a cigarette and next door i hear her cough, heartily, before falling back asleep. the lights are still on.

outside a man asks patrons for spare change. i shout him a beer. the nameless and the incomplete are no more crazy than the average fucker out there on the street, but who's he - and who are we - to know that now? he leaves but the space of conversation remaines, not in free verse but without grammar or metre or ryhme. though she will always carve meaning, sometimes, it must be said, words mean nothing. there is no noise to fill the silence.

last summer on that same veranda she explained to me the visuality of good poetry, and in the dust on the window drew a wonky silhouette.
"this," she said pointing, "is a poem, and it draws the author's face."

fangirl

"THE SMELL OF OLD BOOKS, 1970′S LEATHER BOOT HARNESSES, WORN IN JEANS, SAM COOKE, BENAH MINI SATCHEL, RIABOOSH.COM, BIG SUR, TAILORED SHORTS, JUMP ROCKS, TAN MARNI WEDGES, COEN BROTHERS FILMS, PEDRO GARCIA BOOTS, BUNNY LOVE, COLORED SUNGLASSES, MARIA’S ENVELOPES, MY TIBETAN SHERPA RUCKSACK, KARLA SPECTIC SCALLOP DRESS, AIRPORT TERMINALS, MAPS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, BLUE BIRD BY BUKOWSKI, MY BOYFRIEND’S ART, DESOLATE ART GALLERIES, CASHMERE, HUNTER S. THOMPSON, MY FATHER’S RECORD COLLECTION, JÉRÔME DREYFUSS MESSENGER BAG, SUEDE TAN BUCKET HAT, WARM SOCKS, JEFF BUCKLEY, MY CAMEL COAT, FIGS, LAYING ON THE STREETS OF MELBOURNE, THE DREAMERS, THE SWEET SOUND OF FRIENDS PLAYING MUSIC, SNEAKY HYDRANGEA PICKING, MY NUDE LEATHER BACKPACK AND FOREVER BEING YOUNG"


here.

speaking of art and life and things you can wear, i'm going to knit myself a big chunky warm dress. it will not be knitted before next winter at least. but i am quite a bit excited.

canadian poet makes jewish folk music

"...like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I'm stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it's delicious and it's horrible and I'm in it and it's not very graceful and it's very awkward and it's very painful and yet there's something inevitable about it."

sharing cognac with Sharon

liturgy:
"A man's origin is from dust and his destiny is back to dust, at risk of his life he earns his bread; he is likened to a broken shard, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shade, a dissipating cloud, a blowing wind, flying dust, and a fleeting dream."