Selected poems from "Slant"

Belonging

People follow love to this continent and decide to stay
long after romance has shrivelled like a seed without soil
they open bookshops, teach English, write poetry and marry
cover their roots with each new snowfall and
hide unease in the vowels of a new language
content to join novelty to an old tapestry
like the restoration of a masterpiece
or the slow shifting of continents
something familiar with a scent of change.

People tell me this isn't quite the right time to travel in Europe
and true, the night comes as quickly as melancholy
the statues in great Sans Souci are boarded up like outhouses.

But winter trees have their own beauty
the greys in cold seasons have many shades
people at times are unguarded
like those who have just woken
and with tourists few,
cities become like the ends of parties
where those who stay are those who belong.

Berlin, Germany

Inheritance

Bequeathed my grandmother’s blood,
her allergies, her weak arches,
possibly her frugality and occasional neuroses.

She loved to know I played piano
"that must come from me"
I have sea salt in my veins
warm from her ocean-side house:
everything damp to touch
yellow like unripe fruit
and hollow bamboo.

When the will was read
tradition held:
all to the eldest son
my mother and aunt
got nothing
took it stoically
the boat was not rocked.

My grandmother’s blood courses through me
her monied name through my uncle's house
my skin when cut bleeds quickly, or not at all.

Souvenir

------------After Mardi Gras
the city’s largest bacchanalia
a dazzling display of breast
feather sequin sleek flesh
muscular loins and electricity
contraptions everywhere
thegrit of hard labour. Now
the body unwinds like string
from a yo-yo, the mind tightens
into routine, toxins clear
skin takes in water.

Whole days when I cheated
on any lover I ever had or
will have, both in spirit
and body and unlike this city
I am incapable of hiding secrets
my words are open like the
deep blue night shedding
obscurity, a white dawn
before colour fills sky.

The rains come marking colder
seasons, the near scent of
hibernation, garish umbrellas
try to recapture glamour.
How can they?

---------------Knowing the
rich lay down with
the poor, the lions with lambs
the drag queens meanwhile
remove their make-up and
rest the arches of their feet

this is the state of how it all
should be, a comet in the dark
joy unbounded, so what if
it’s enhanced, doesn’t it
show the capacity for happiness
is big as a dance hall
you arrive clean and shirtless
when you return home
in your hair, on your face
and skin:
------------------------glitter.

Sydney, Australia

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