Riding the bycycle
Nothing stirred except mosquitoes,
and in the midst of a three largactil night,
they bit the mind hard.
There was cold sand
troubling his bed and on this beach
his feet tightly tapped
to Radio Loopy,
his every hiccup, his every nit
rummaged the air –
he dreamt of discovering
a vast continent where rain storms
between sea and sky
were like the strings of a harp.
His very gift was to remain invisible
whilst riding a Malvern Star bike,
one of two priceless possessions;
and he rode around upon it
wearing platform shoes,
along roads beyond mapped margins
where the thrust of muscles reminded him
that nightmares were no longer required.
In wide paddocks were rocks
shaped like cows and sheep imitating hay bales,
and hills so pointed he always looked up
to crimson smears and squirts
of yellow / and past fencing wire and ochre land
he pedalled into prehistoric light
upon two circles of silver,
and nothing (not even dread)
stirred, except
wild orange daisies,
like crazy bees swimming
in the October wind.
The abyss
for Peter Booth
At midday in the bar
I sit and sip and suck
ice from a long glass.
In the bar on Foxtel
a baby boomer rock star
singing about cold rain
and snow / the way
it falls. Hear the cry
from narrow streets –
aussie aussie aussie !
Walking outside into wind
people stand and walk
and talk. The sky
is riddled with turbulent
clouds / so I walk back
to the bar with the wind
inside of me. People sit
here and stand and talk
and watch other people
sit and stand and talk
inside the plasma screen.
I decide to leave
to go walking again
to the art gallery
to find relief and to
stare at the black painting
for quite some time.