A hostel in Cairns
Stepping in and hitching on
the wheels of savings,
now in a hostel in Cairns.
I’m 35 this year. 35.
That mean something?
It sounds like it should
in a hostel in Cairns.
Over dinner,
beneath gazebos,
beside dorms,
I wanna tell this couple
not to do it.
Perhaps return to Scotland, kids.
Get some land in a sleepy town.
Give us stacks of babies
and feel the warmth of it all:
the dog at your feet,
the child in your arms,
the love in your bed.
Return.
You really wanna break each other down?
Think of the honey,
the toast,
the morning porch
you built with your mates.
Don’t be charmed by the road
—the first temptation of many.
Go back.
Do I even believe that, though?
Do I?
Too late anyhow.
We’re here.
Adults of the adolescence.
Was it worth it in the end?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Too late anyhow.
I’m 35 in a hostel in Cairns.
Life’s canyon has roared
with torrents,
cascades,
so much song,
so much noise,
coming up to 15 years.
For now, it’s emptied out.
Trickles down escarpments
here and there.
Thunder far away.
A hostel in Cairns.
I stare at the ceiling before the lights go
out,
and I think of the Scottish couple,
and I hope they make it.
----- ----- -----
The crow
The emperor has no clothes out here,
just wings,
and barely bothers making way
as you power down the bitumen,
and it powers through the flesh of the
battered roo.
But whatevs. It’s the crow I love the most.
Besides the eagle, other nobles too:
the hawk, the kookaburra
—all a little regal, a little proud.
But I love the clown the most.
Its ludicrous sunrise moan-squawk;
its black coat keeping the night alive.
The crow is the troll of the animal world.
Perched on its jester seat,
it twists the peace
into knots
of caws,
getting the nobles back
though they can’t quite tell.
As the eagles and hawks and others
prepare themselves to be brilliant,
the little nutcase groans with laughter:
“That’s it,” it cackles,
“get up you stupid bastards.
Salute to the orders of the day.
Live your life as if it’s yours.
Just how much have you won
that you now must rush around?”
The crow:
the clown that trolls the morning in
with anti-beauty,
the subtle genius
reminding us
—as light reveals the stage for the day—
that we’re all
in fact
clowns.
----- ----- -----
So much life
The chicken fence allowed the chickens
a castle
away from the dog
that lived for the hunt
and our love
for its wild heart.
The frame of a door was chewed upon
one night
by a busy rat
—a tiny goer at 1am,
a high-vis spirit
pounding away,
tearing down the house and
blowing up the night
with its tiny teeth.
We set the dog on the job,
and the little chippy
didn’t last the night.
The chickens none the wiser,
sleeping through the hunt.
Life.
So much life: two homes side by side
and seven housemates
and rats,
chickens,
dogs.
And the huntsman upon my arrival
—a watchman inspecting a tenant moving in,
a lightning flash on the ceiling,
spiraling down the wall
and falling in panic.
I try not to kill the smaller things these
days.
Two years on,
I drove a mouse I’d trapped to the other side
of town
and set free its little soul.
You just get older, I suppose,
and feel less sorry for yourself
but more for who you used to be
and more for mice
and spiders
and even the dog with the rat in its mouth
—it’s complicated, I guess.
So much life.
Many houses
and many miles between.
That chicken fence: is it there to this day?
I heard the place got pretty messy once we
left.
What remains?
There’s always something,
and when you return you say
“Look, that shovel hasn’t moved”
or “Shit, no-one’s touched the tarp”.
Maybe the trees you planted
shot up,
and the ghosts of the huntsman and rat,
plus arrays of the living,
gather there
under protection of things that remained,
by the place where the chickens had little
lives
and a little fence
for their little castle.
----- ----- -----
Everything
There was Jordan at first
—the original game of chess,
the template,
the moves made.
Oh Jordan…
Were you lifetimes ago?
We rendezvoused at family homes.
We talked of having kids.
We were the kids
—on backyard trampolines
somewhere overseas.
Forever young
somewhere still.
And then
there was Mel.
My gorgeous Mel.
We crossed the Rubicon to adulthood,
and I to sin.
Mel of the Garden,
I of the fruit.
If God could not forgive,
I know that you would still forgive,
Mel: the one who saw a prince in the eyes of a
toad.
Mel: with whom I ate at home
and was at peace.
And then
Diana.
My mountaintop.
My lightning.
My pain and grace.
My Magdalene.
Diana, Diana…
All in the name if all could know
what we once knew.
What now, queen? What now?
The line crossed.
The ribbon snapped.
The medals stored.
The crowd went home, sweet angel.
So did we
—without each other.
The churches, the flesh,
the us against the lie.
The glory.
The aftermath.
To rejoice or despair, sweet queen?
The stage is set.
We play our part.
I rise from a mattress on the floor
and draw the curtains.
----- ----- -----
I was you
I was you,
and you were me,
and that’s the way we wrapped ourselves in
love
—our silken case
that hatched a memory
flying back to me from time to time.
Though love did not survive,
it didn’t die
but grew the wings of
something else I need not understand,
that flies to me from time to time
to reassure, to let me know it never died,
then sails away,
thanking me, I’m sure, for having let it go.
----- ----- -----
A mystery
The women mourned
at the base of the cross,
tending the wounds.
The nails removed, the earth prepared,
they sang the body home.
The formless forgave the form.
The men roared
and hit the wild sands,
laying the concrete down,
rolling the stones away and
clearing the tombs.
The blood boiled. The path was forged.
They come together when Spirit makes it so
—the woman and man,
the body and blood—
to birth again the Christ,
to glorify the infinite.
Forgive me, Almighty.
I know not what I do.
My words are weak and impotent
and hardly start
to grasp
the mystery.
