Brisbane to Adelaide

driving New England Highway all day

and now

rain falls out of the blank.

night mountain hungry,

bitumen is a thousand mile black snake.

falling through steep corners,

fiancee with child,

nauseous,

humid,

steam rising up to the headlights like a multi-noded ghost;

motel so far away,

more than two hundred,

CDs in the car are shit.

Brisbane

the geckos bark in the humidity

and

I think it is owls hooting

in

various darkened trees beyond this charcoal backyard

and over the path.

on this

hot

night I must not drink all the beer

or

eat all the ice cream.

a thousand deep lakes fall from the sky,

rivers growl.

Friday night at the Eastern Point

noises deep in the suburb of Byron Bay;

euphoric cries from a party beyond this street
but louder is the wind in the palms. 

sheer curtain against my open window bellows in and out
like a pair of empty lungs.
water of Belongil Creek pours into The Pacific with no hesitation,
no protest.
solid planets spin and orbit like a television on mute.

tonight I wish to leave no traces.

central coast

in this beach house perched on a cliff,

I am lucky

to

be here, the heavy ocean

and beaten sand fuming in slush,

the surfers bobbing

slowly

dying with the age of cliffs;

clean off, the endless sky sends a message,

gather your life.

the car park of wet morning gravel

enclosed by dunes

is witness to seagulls scavenging for the half eaten bakery items

of a bus load of Chinese tourists

up from Sydney.

and forget.

failed poet

friends are entering middle age

and

still I haven’t written anything that could be of use to them.

to grab one by the shoulders

and

demand –

this ain’t no subject-object world!

new lamp

new lamp

from Cash Converters

only $8

next to the microwave now,

as blinding as a tiny sun no matter which way

you angle it.

it now lights up the kitchen

with

the black shadows of the fridge and drying pots

stretching across the floor.

it even lights up a palm frond beyond the window,

furious.

sprinkler

on this fine spring morning

I connect

the twisted old sprinkler

to my ten dollar hose

and set it going on the front lawn.

soon the blackbirds discover this event.

they flutter around,

or just walk under it.

and a little goes over the footpath

and school kids laugh

as they dart through,

followed by their smiling fat mothers.