MY OLD MAN

Thanks to the drone

Of the afternoon's football

Sleep has taken him

Replaced his curious face

With a look of utter

Gormlessness

His neck has broken

And sent his head

Sliding off down his chest

It is as if he is admiring 

An invisible necklace

I've watched the deforestation 

Of his head, worrying my own

Watched the furrowing brow

The crows press in their feet 

His feet twitch

He obviously dreams

Of his electrocution

His complete failure at fixing

The washing machine

His punishment for poorly carving

The lemon roast chicken 

My eyes eat him up

He is infinitely more interesting

Than this afternoon's football 

AN EYE IN THE APEX

What am I as I dash my skull

On the side of this mountain

Crying out on the valley pass

Granite bursts out my throat

What am I given life by lake

Wrought by sea and wrecked

By wind, ghost breath of dawn 

A belly full of broken ships

What am I to make fragments

Of the human face, frivolously

Bedecking silver jewels, prismatic

Angels when you catch the light

CYCLE SONG

Only green lights this blue morning

silver-black road wheeling out ahead

ice prickles my windpipe 

condenses, steams from mouth, ears.

Do I leave a contrail?

rubbery hands fuse on the bars

injecting steel, coursing up arms

tolling in shoulders, pedal 

reels the earth

round and around

eyes chained to the road, fingering

the catch of the breaks, 

for movement  

on pavement

I'm trigger happy

to the duck and dive of walkers

stealthed between parked cars

primed to burst beneath me

the hackney cab flashing amber

silent alarms that ignored,

could swallow me

this is the road's nature

to run 

and run over 

winding the bitumen

round and around

SCRIBBLINGS ON FERRY MEADOWS

Magpie in his midnight suit 

Sense trails - all sight and sound and smell combine to create a pathway for him to follow

But he hearkens back to me, head turning every minute or so; unsure if I am there

I confuse him with meandered path his premeditations confounded repeatedly 

Breeze on the lake rumpling the surface 

the metallic tinge of open water first on the nose then the eye 

The shaggy fringed inkcap mushroom known as tippler’s bane - a chemical within blocking the alcohol breakdown and causing palpitations, headaches and vomiting. Lots and lots of vomiting 

The Midas touch of mustard powder lichen

The old copper greygreen of lepraria like an exploded milk droplet 

Hearts tongue ferns leering from under a sessile oak the brown leaves touched by a rime silversmith

The bright orange balls of stinking iris garishly light up the pathways 

Catkins of hazel hung like rabbit pelts or cocoons; states of early skin - what will we be what will be 

Crack willow bursting out of its gnarled bark, while high up warblers sing the world awake

The Nene has burst its banks, the surging mudwater swallowing path, heron stands sentinel metering out the flow

EDISON METHOD

I bite deep into the wood

and get it good and strong

my jawbone megaphone

I’m all about vibration

That real child of atom

conductor of moves

those silent grooves 

we flip-turn-play 

tabletop ballet 

The words? Who gives a shit

holes on the page 

rail through my reed

the hall of my head

caged in birdsong 

The old lonesome silence

a silent film, my bit part 

a cop car is nothing

a screaming child means nothing

in every crowded room, I'm alone

But now I’m a bulb,

screw me in

explode me in light 

PINE HOUSE

In wet earth my pine house rots

Closer comes the dirt, shuffling

One day, maybe in a year or two

A hole will appears to release my stink

But here we are now

Trembling out the mallow

I have become a house with a pine fence

A lush garden of yellow red and green blue

My watery sockets ponds and pools

Rest easy as we slide into a deeper rest

What’s this? A root has collided

In the darkness under time 

I hear it’s scratching and lo! It bores through

I am a warm milkshake sucked through its straws

Happy to help, happy to help 

When the roof caved in, so did I 

The last of my wetness consigned to soil

The mealies make the most of me

NEST EGG

Oh egg 

kept you top pocketed 

an inch from my heart

the restless resting beat

knocking on your door

nestled in old linen 

hoping for the best

your dream to come 

cracking through

stroke your dappled shell

Stared into your shape

blue dusted, freckled 

I wondered whether

if I concentrated hard enough...