The body of a lover stretched out like the hills of Adelaide.
Your body looms above me like a hill
A landscape dignified, rolling white
That stings sweetly like frost
And fumes with the ghostly pollen of your breath
These sordid souls sing hymns of praise
While monkey-men claim cheap outrage
To ring out for Eldorado
Quick quick this lust for material gain
A frightful spectre to myself unknown
Unrecognisable, a dried and blackened shell
That shuffles through the city streets
All its cavities smoothed over by gentility
No public flame, nor private dares to shine
To grope his way finding stars unlit
Bestows one final patronising kiss
Upon this concrete democratic night
Drinking deep draughts of the most simple medicine of your arms
In your pastures we observed all things as though for the first time
Number to number, in no mode or order
Half-formed thoughts disappear into fog
The silence of the flood as intimate as love
Amongst the flames of burning livestock
And palls of smoke above the roof tops
The sky a blood red mass
Birds squawked, dogs howled
Sly-grog, lynch-mobs, unholy hunger and schemes of villainy
In the burning afternoon
We walked on leaves and silence
Volcanic silence of solitary travel
Where the past would make no demands upon the present.
Ask the flames she cried
For they will never hear the silent scratch of pens
That writes away man’s being
Like unset jewels in the shallows of clear water
Or the stench of men who have over-exerted themselves.
Fat lands set in a hot monotonous endless time
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
His sleepy mouth now at last free of bile
In the wilderness turned winter in his head
The seed of love was sick and shouted grievously
Crossed my brow against dreams to come
Put down my phone, wallet, keys
And gave myself to the fire and grass.
