A-SIDE
I Made That Shit Up
We roamed around the construction site,
An illicit night,
Kissing under the scaffold mistletoe.
This Is Where Everything Started
Throw me a bottle of water
Record me so we can look back
Splash me dancing
I’m okay sweating
Swat my mosquitos
Distract them with your phone light
This should be one of those nights
We lost half a day and all our night
Walk on the road’s belly just because you can
When’s the last time you checked your phone?
Wherever we go together is home
The temperature is confusing
I brought deodorant
Always do, it’s okay, it’s for me not you
Hoodie around my waist
Unused, guessed it, could’ve left it
That album’s been on repeat
I hadn’t noticed
The hi-hats are white noise.
The 7-Eleven fella
He seemed a good bloke.
Our nights never needed a beat switch.
Spring Nights Are Cool Too…
Spring does not begin when September touches back down after her eleven-month holiday
Spring does not begin when August finishes packing her bags
Spring does not begin when we begin saving the daylight.
Spring begins when I wake in warmth
Spring begins when the heater and I share a tearful farewell as she enters her long hibernation
Spring begins when inside is lit from the outside
Spring begins when I begin dodging spiders instead of snails
Spring begins when I begin checking the UV index before leaving for my afternoon walks
Spring begins when I begin thinking with my pale skin
Spring begins when I can begin to smell the Christmas prawns.
IV
I’ll knock on all doors
Until the bones in my hands are a fine powder,
I’ll drain myself for them.
A helpful husk.
I’ll sit on the porch
On the one seat without cobwebs
With a blank page every morning
Watching my daughters play with the dog
Pen in hand,
Writing poems about their mother.
Sneaky Is the Sun’s Hickey
I’ve been known to blame the clouds.
Go ahead,
The café is only twenty minutes away.
O flame in the sky,
How I love this game we play!
Post-shower,
Pre-SPF,
She asks,
Have you left yet?
What’s there to fear?
You’re safe by the clouds, my dear.
I’m seduced,
I leave,
I return,
A look in the mirror,
A smirk through singed cheeks.
I’ve fallen for her every time.
I’m afraid I always will.
Mornings Recently, Mostly, Maybe
My alarm screams. I trust my muscle memory on the way to the bathroom, and before my eyelids have peeled open, I follow my taste buds to the kitchen. My grandfather is there making his breakfast or putting away dry dishes or doing something entirely random. No matter the time, he’s there when I want to make my mediocre morning (occasionally afternoon) coffee. Two heaped teaspoons instant coffee, one level teaspoon brown sugar. I pour three-fifths boiling water, one-fifth lactose-free milk. I stir; I dance to the chimes of my spoon tapping the mug’s inner wall as it tries to dissolve the remaining stubborn coffee particles floating on the surface.
Floating like I used to in the pools of friends I see no longer.
It’s okay. I’ve devised a method to extinguish those little pieces.
I’m okay.
Timer? I Hardly Know Her!
We knew our times under the blanket of the mid-afternoon sun were soon to be mere foggy memories we try, try, and try to let slip into the deepest trenches of our minds, so we strained to get lost in one other before we would be taken prisoner by the reality that’s given us everything and will soon snatch it all right back like a snot-nosed toddler who doesn’t want to share their toys anymore.
I Shall Never Know, I Shall Never Care, And I Shall Care All The Same
At which point did everyone silently agree to ignore the brilliance of the
Ant colony?
A complex machine brimming with the hardest workers,
Not a day off!
Not one! I’ve been keeping track since I was five!
One afternoon we all looked at an ant colony in our backyards and thought:
Boring. Normal. As normal as the unpredictable sky.
As normal as the sun who ordains, the sun who governs.
As normal as the delicious horror of an angry thunderstorm.
As normal as the birds who sing to us, as if they’re telling us deep truths of our world (they absolutely are).
As normal as the eyes looking down at the ants scurrying in and out of the pinhole in the concrete.
80s Home
Shopping bag hanging from the rotary clothesline,
Held by a dingy peg.
We used to hang by the clothesline
Kids with a bookshelf filled with dusty encyclopedias.
We were just some kids with dusty encyclopedias
And a rotary clothesline.
We stayed inside, no games or screens
No boardgames or DVDs,
Just a bookshelf with some dusty encyclopedias
And a window that showed us a rotary clothesline,
A roller-coaster to a bored child in an 80s home.
We were just some kids with dusty encyclopedias
And a rotary clothesline.
A room with a thin wooden bookshelf filled with dusty encyclopedias
How should we spend our time?
The adults discuss money and how to cook the chicken.
We’re just some kids with dusty encyclopedias
And a rotary clothesline.
We hang from the clothesline, the adults see a deadly makeshift seesaw
Spin me around
I’ll travel the universe with each revolution,
The adults argue about the political climate.
We’re just some kids with dusty encyclopedias
And a rotary clothesline.
I’m Getting There
Confused, burnt, a little weary
I wonder where you’d place me
Amongst the endless green.
This is the end?
Tell me it’s the beginning.
A little patch of warmth
Is that all I ought to be?
A beam of sunlight, fighting to make it through
Only to provide temporary safety
Only to fade, and if I can, gracefully
Only to be nothing but a burn?
Am I still a regular in the forest of you?
My tracks wash away in your storm
My sun
My sun,
You thawed me out.
It seems like the trees grew, past you
Covering all that you built, you killed
Give me some shade, I’ll let you take.
It’s over
It’s done
It’s over
You won.
Baby Girl’s Uber
Hopped in my baby girl’s uber
Mr. Uber driver, tell us where you’ve been.
Up and back?
Same conversations?
Recognising the same disassociations?
Roll the windows down if you don’t mind
Turn the music down if you don’t mind
You can quiz us if you’d like
Make sense of our night if you’d like,
You guys are like the last two
A little intoxicated,
Bickering about the night you’ve been through
I’m piecing your problems together
With the slivers you give me
If you’re asking me,
I think he’s cheating on Stephanie.
Moving Day!
Let’s address where I really come from,
For this was born out of a dance to the cold wind;
Beating the chill was my rite of passage.
A child shovelling up a mountain’s incessant avalanche
And for a time, progress was gradual, I ran on adrenalin
I moved mounds of snow as easy as I move sugar into my coffee.
Full-body frostbite was a lie
The freezing fibres were a lie
When I’d stop for a shallow breath, spraying my pipes with ice, conversations with the snowflakes,
All lies
Those cute little fuckers,
Liars.
Fatigue set in; reality smacked me
Fresh blood from my hands fell merrily to the snow that sheathed my knees
My hands became the leaky faucet in my grandfather’s backyard,
Steam rose with every drop
And I was soon stepping through me-made puddles
So, I dropped my clothes and let my blood flow,
I let all of it flow.
If you know where to find me,
You may have trouble getting to me.
You stand at the mountain’s base with soggy socks
You’re now dealing with leeches, not frozen digits.
I stand atop the mountain, a bit drained and decrepit for 21
Laughing, butt-naked and all
Over the me-made waterfall.
Journey
How would you feel about
Enjoying the journey
As well as the destination?
Because we journey to some pretty cool destinations.
Carol
I don’t want to hear
A single Christmas carol
Unless it’s from you
By you.
Time’s Behind
Time scoffs at me!
She insists that I ogle her constantly.
I must confess,
She does possess a rather beguiling
Behind.
Alarm
The sun is my alarm clock,
If she’s unreliable, I smile.
Two hours late to work
My manager applauded;
He follows the sun too.
The sun is my alarm clock,
She never stops ringing
Never annoying
She rings until the moon starts the night shift.
Walk around a world where the sun is the alarm clock,
On the sun’s time
Oh, do we live a life!
Covertly greedy,
Bedtime is hers.
She whispers from millions of kilometres away
We all hear her,
A soft voice for a such a mighty power:
Lights out.
Skin
Nothing will ever feel like
Your skin
On mine.
Nothing will ever feel like
Your skin
On mine
After we baked in the sunshine.
Music
We lose our need for music
When the noise of a summer’s afternoon fills our ears,
The orchestra of the outdoors
A sonic tapestry of smooth and rough
A sonic tapestry of the contradictory.
How a chirping lorikeet is in key with the five-houses-away leaf blower, I know not
Why, to my ears, the typically irritating buzzing of bees becomes an icy drunk after a marathon, I know not.
I stopped thinking about this;
Bliss comes when we accept nature’s beauty despite its obvious flaws in logic.
I am so eager
To chalk it all up
To magic.
Garden
There are plants that have been dwelling in my grandfather’s garden for as long as I have been lucky enough to worship Her creations. Their friends have come and gone, slowly drooping into their final rest, a melancholic joy as they give rise to new life when they reach the timely end of their own.
These plants have become somewhat special to me,
A symbol of perseverance?
I struggle to recall a day when they were drenched by the hose my grandfather has gone twenty years without repairing,
So how do they hog the most green?
Why?
Tree Talk (prod. Mary Oliver)
What would a conversation with a tree sound like?
Would he question me on the miracle of mobility?
Would such a thought be beneath the one who fills my lungs?
To be so still yet more alive than most is the greatest blessing, he says.
Does he hold opinions of his pot contemporaries?
Curiosity has become me.
Though I’m certain he would laugh at my need for sunscreen,
Just as I laugh at his Michael Jackson each time the wind blows.
Moon Time
The moon grows sad!
Did we ever get to know her?
Sensual times flourish under the moon’s supervision; we trust her to supply us with a dreamy aesthetic to heighten the dependable beauty we find under the luminousness.
She sees what we do when we think not a soul peers
She sees us at our wits end, delirious and desperate for love and affection,
Silly
Silly
Silly me,
We never got to know her,
But she got to know us.
She’s always there, even when her show-off sister is performing
She’s there in plain sight in the familiar blue
She’s always there.
We never got to know her,
But she got to know us.
Sterling
Silver lost its shine
A call from parents, we pretend we don’t hear it
Changing ringtones for our summer nights,
Who needs a phone when we can call on one another?
Call on me
Throw your phone away
Trail behind me, copy my footwork
I’ll lead us to where we need to go
An empty carpark where every other light works
Seeing teens leave after their night work.
My sweat tastes like sunscreen
It’s been dripping down my forehead since sunrise,
Wipe it off for me?
Should we take a picture?
Let’s document the tarnished silver
Mind blank under the moon’s shimmer
Mind full, you fed me my mind’s dinner.
A week from now,
Meet me in that dimension we found between our bodies;
Let’s live the same night forever.
Love Letter
To whom it may concern,
If only you saw yourself as I do. I stand naked in the middle of Antarctica; a single thought of you keeps me warm. Feeling the weight of your body on mine is my favourite pastime. You make everything so complicated in the best of ways; the prosaic things we do together are giant events. Lunch on the couch with you is a national holiday to me. You’ve made me memorise the grooves in your teeth, what with how I can’t look ever away from your pretty face. You’re the only person who can tell me about their dreams without forcing me into my own. Every mundane thought of yours is welcome in my mind, now and forever. You’re singlehandedly keeping every pen company in business. I would be glad to never read another book or watch another film; you’re inspiration incarnate. If I muster up the daring to inspire you only once, my job on this ludicrous rock is finished. I was living beneath the dirt beneath your feet. How did you find me?
Maybe let me wallow in the mystery.
Sincerely,
Summer.
Bars
I wrote all these love letters
In hopes they’d teach me
To love better.
Sky Thoughts
I wonder if the sky thinks about us,
As we wander around on balmy nights
My arm over your shoulder, as if it physically hurts to let you out of my reach
Wearing shirts we should’ve washed the second we put them on
Experiencing the times we take for granted
Kissing, tracing each other’s lips
Lying on itchy grass, counting stars
Admiring the dome that shields our home.
I wonder if the sky thinks about us,
As we wake up on lawn chairs, filled with regret and cheap food
Pacing, pacing, pacing, anticipating a notification
Last night was heaven?
In the moment I could’ve sworn we were drenched in the ecstasy of nirvana,
We hear the morning sing a mournful song
The morning sky seems bitter.
When we stare at the sky
Does the sky stare back?
If the sky stared back
Would it tell us what we lacked
If the sky stared back
Would it see us and feel bad?
If the sky thinks about us,
I wonder what the sky thinks of us.
Sea Shower
How many days did I go without a shower?
You said the sea counts.
Salt on my dry lips
I smell your coffee breath
Counted 4 empty cups in the backseat
That’ll get us to 28 cups this week.
Lake
I am the lake,
A lake I watch for hours on end, expecting it to do something,
As if it’s not an inanimate body of water
As if it has a mind, needs, wants.
Like an unimpressed child at the zoo:
Do something!
Prove to me that you can change!
I see my reflection in the lake,
I see me in the lake,
Storms abuse it
A family of swans ripple the surface
My brothers and sisters disrespect it.
Seasons change and the lake follows suit
Tiny blemishes in the surface let me know the season before the weather does,
The harsh summer heat turns the lake into a pathetic puddle,
All these transformations, but if I leave for a year and visit the same spot,
Not a drop’s difference.
Could I truly be the lake?
Not a single drop’s difference?
A place I would travel to for solace has become
A cautionary tale.
The Bike Is A Tad Too Tall
Riding our bikes for the night,
A shame we use cars.
Gliding on a rough road
Pebbles peck my calves
All we can hear is the atmosphere
Calloused hands wave the freeway clear
Just us and the air
A moving horizon, as if it sees us and wants to be our guide,
Yes,
I believe it to be true.
There’s fierce quiet in the hissing of the bike chains;
Listen closely, that’s calm
That’s peace in chaos,
Just follow it, it’s your map
X marks 2am under the gum tree, with only us and our bum bags.
Still / A Craft We Forgot to Learn
The stillness of my grandfather’s living room has me question the reality of reality.
It feels wrong to move through the room.
He sits and stares at a TV he hasn’t bothered to switch on.
The remote lies in anxious excitement at arm’s reach,
I swear I can hear it squeal when his hand flies near, only to return to his person with a mug full of tea with enough sugar to sweeten an ocean of lemon juice.
If a hurricane ripped the living room’s roof off, I doubt a single leaf from the artificial plant that keeps him company would dance or even tap its foot.
My grandfather is a master of stillness.
We could all use someone like that.
Cry Babies
We whinge through winter
For the summer sun
And when we get what we whinged for
We hide in our houses
Begging for a blizzard.
We’re a little indecisive.
So Gorgeous
We reached out and tried to grab the sun.
A game.
You dared me, of course I gave it a go
Yes, a week’s worth of sunburn
But what’s another grain of sand to the shore?
You giggled at my hesitance
I can’t do it
It’s too hot
If it’s so easy, why don’t you do it?
From the flashes I remember, my tone was light-years from serious.
Regardless, a pair of blinks later,
You had the sun in your palm.
So simple
Like holding a tennis ball
The sun was but a stone to you
In awe of your nonchalant strength,
You had the power to put an end to our summer nights – everyone’s summer nights;
A kiss on the sun’s forehead, you gently placed her back.
Walking to Dairy Bell, pretending I hadn’t just witnessed what must surely be God
In all Her grace.
Sisters
The sun and moon quarrel about what’s best
For their little infected cousin.
Without us, she dies
With us, her disease spreads.
I can hear them in the dead of night,
Wishing they’d listen
Alas, I – we are the problem.
Tonight’s been comically hot,
I think the sun is putting her idea into practise.
O moon, tell her we’ll try!
Tides rise,
She hears my cry and speaks.
You’ll try what?
To do better.
Writing Love Letters Like I’m Theo Twombly
This is where I hide
Mulling it over,
Eating wild berries in hopes they induce hallucination.
I fight through the unforgiving sour
My eyes scream for me,
The forest’s number one rule: Never eat wild berries, ever…
But if there’s even the smallest chance I hallucinate
And see the unique curve of your nose one last time,
I’ll eat every berry I can find.
I start a new tradition:
The Annual Berry-Eating Festival
Millions of us
Alone, together
Hunched over our bottomless bowls of berries
Like my ever-ravenous grandfather at his fifth meal of the day.
Expected to perish,
Still.
If another reality exists, however unreal I’ll soon know it to be,
Where I get to purchase a ticket to the cinema playing
Your Mannerisms
My teeth are stained with blazing colour.
I smile purple and green from my casket.
Hallucinate, hallucinate, hallucinate.
My new prayer.
Cat Sun, Sun Cat
Overcast days.
On overcast days,
My cat becomes what the sun thinks she is.
When he isn’t sitting with his tail to me, as he often does, wearing the black jacket he was born with,
I consider learning braille.
On overcast days,
When my cat does his best gymnastics routine at my feet and shows me his whiter-than-snow belly, I squint and I squint; I age my face five years every overcast day.
On overcast days,
My cat has tummy glare.
Yes, tummy glare.
On overcast days,
I’d rather stare directly at the clouds that hide the sun like courteous friends at a fitting room without doors than at my cat’s tummy glare.
It’s just
Really, really bright.
My cat is my muse.
Still pt. 2
I was still,
Paying attention to all that exists outside of me,
I could see the beat of my heart in both hands
Just below my thumbs,
Throbbing.
Watching the beat felt wrong without a dense 64 bars.
This is miracle I can only imagine has been begging at the altar for me to see.
Any time I ever looked down
I must have been sooooooo busy looking at more important things
Things more important than a reminder of being alive,
Alive AND loving!
It took me 21 years to see this.
Sad.
Saturday Night in Richmond
Where have we been tonight, fellas?
Literally on the other side of this street.
Cool, right?
What’s in the bag?
Oh, this bag?
I just think it looks dope.
Well, I can show you my pawpaw cream and Lynx Africa if that would ease your mind.
No, it really is Panadol I swear.
Been up to much tonight?
It’s okay, I understand.
You don’t read. I’m an obvious cover. Quite aggressively obvious.
I only dress like I sell drugs to people at music festivals, but I promise
I’m a nice boy.
Man. MAN. I have ID.
Been drinking tonight?
No. Have you?
Do you want me to?
I feel like you want me to.
I mean,
I can…
You’re all good mate.
Thank you.
I’m glad we cleared everything up.
Yeah.
Baby Blue
Dying for anything to set me ablaze;
By force of habit, I took a trek to my inspiration-generator:
By the lake, watching the water in a state it’ll never exactly be at again past this moment,
But she was silent, she refused to help me.
She’s grown tired of me.
From thin air,
An elderly gentleman
Eyes a beautiful baby blue
I saw the ocean in them
I heard whales harmonising through them
Every wrinkle greeted me
A shirt collar climbing over his trusty grey sweater – I just know when his grandchildren think of their grandfather, they see him wearing this sweater,
You can read his life story in the loose threads
His two dogs were so contentedly obedient.
A hive mind?
A lighter-than-the-space-between-air conversation meandered
All of it leading to a question
Such an innocent, pure question:
Have you seen any swans on the lake today?
I hadn’t, but I wish I had.
Only so we could’ve talked more.
I wish I had seen a thousand swans.
The exchange didn’t feel of this world.
Were cracks starting to form in the fantasy I forged ?
He knew the terrain I thought was mine better than me,
He came from nowhere,
Yet I’m sure he was sent from somewhere.
May we meet again,
May we find a swan family,
May we cherish their elegance,
All the while I learn about you,
And you tell me what’s been going on
Behind those baby blue eyes.
Waves pt. 3
We’ve been up for a week
We can’t justify sleep.
Wanderer
Swapping tales of failed love.
The cool change creeps in,
It grabs us by our flushed cheeks,
It closes its eyes,
It kisses our glossy foreheads.
A wanderer, wandering,
How’s your night been?
I know the type,
Hopping from bar to bar to club to bar has taken the life from this poorly dressed man.
He tried.
I’d run, but spilled drinks have glued my mismatched converse to the floor.
Too tired to exert,
So I’m forced to listen to the two things he has to say.
She left you?
Sorry to hear it.
And she fucked your mate?
Really sorry to hear it.
Was it because of how you dress?
The Burning Eyes
Slipped and slopped and slapped
Everywhere,
I wasn’t prepared for
The Burning Eyes
Oh, The Burning Eyes
The tiniest shift in the summer breeze
Oh, The Burning Eyes
Relief from the shopping centre air conditioner is feeble!
The Burning Eyes
And a waterfall nose
On a summer day
Persisting through
To our summer nights.
*REAL* How To Pick Up Women:
My endless crossbody bag
Gnawed at by the salt
Leave it out for a minute,
I have an egg I need to fry.
The straps have a mind of their own,
They’re allergic to my shoulders
They catch my belt,
They want my pants off?
Alright,
Uh,
Well,
Where’s your crossbody bag?
Love Without Love
Casual love is all I’m after,
All the strings attached
For a summer.
I kept a pair of scissors in my pocket,
And during our sunset swims
They had all my attention;
The current is not a force to be trifled with.
I still have the scissors
But nothing to cut.
Go figure.
Casual love.
Utter Delusion
Let me indulge myself in this illusion
There’s too much fun to be had in the charade
Here, anything I say goes
And I say a lot.
I’m framing these moments and keeping them in a box under the house.
The key to the box sleeps with me
It showers with me
It shits with me.
If you wish to ever see my teeth, you’ll watch from a distance
Poor thing
Poor thing!
What happened to him?
Books will be written trying to comprehend how he went from that to this
Out of love, out of time
He wears that black denim jacket in the sweltering heat;
Help him.
Lighterrrrrrr
Exercising my privilege, walking at 3am
My baby face was a reflector panel under streetlights
Bare skin,
But I’m still a man
Walking alone
At night.
I relied on others assuming I’m trouble so they leave me be.
Wow, that guy looks scary
I am very sure he isn’t listening to Charli XCX on his earphones.
On the opposite end of the desolate basketball court,
Two men, actual
Men.
I began adding a few degrees to my walk every few steps - this should do it.
They charged towards me at an annoyingly restricted pace,
If you’re going to assault me, don’t edge me too.
I psyched myself up like I’m Adonis;
Power comes from the hips.
I imagined grizzly bears, lions, gorillas ripping arms off humans.
Gosh, I’m cool.
My eyes darted in every direction with and without a name.
One of the men looked at me.
He took his ring finger (I don’t know why he chose his ring finger of all the fingers he had to choose from) and tapped his ear what felt like a hundred times,
I carefully, in a non-confrontational, non-what do you want! way took my earphones off after a good five seconds of giving an AACTA Award worthy performance pretending I didn’t know what he was signalling.
Here. We. Go.
LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
‘Hey man, got a lighter?’
‘No, sorry man.’
‘All good, have a good night, man.’
‘You too, man.’
I think about this a lot.
I Made That Shit Up pt. 2
It’s a spiritual thing
Sitting on the pier with you,
Sand between toes,
Heads empty,
Writing our song,
I begin a lyric, you finish the line
You begin a melody, it’s a little cold, but I let you run with it.
I let you run a marathon with it.
I’d never interrupt an Angel’s Anthem.
It’s a spiritual thing to see him
The lone fisherman by his rod, a beer in hand
Its brothers and sisters asleep in the esky.
We could only dream of the serenity he’s reached.
He talks to the water,
She talks back.
The origin of her fury is a mystery;
I guess the fisherman’s mouth ran too
And now the sea howls
With her complicated language,
A language open to our interpretation,
A thin sheet of mist stencils our faces,
A painting of this moment is sent to her depths;
May the anglerfish approve our love.
I have no jacket to offer you
All I have is me.
You may take me,
So long as there is you.
There is, no?
Hel-
B-SIDE