#A Single-stemmed Sunflower
one sunflower
each petal, a pittance
“They’re weeds,” you were told
five lies drift,
forming sweet yellow circles
around your ankles;
wet, from a suburb once known
tears once transcended,
now falling,
in exotic irony
you told me to wait
a higher iso granulates bruised lips,
protruding offensive magenta
“Wait,” you said
I was always told I was a bratty child...
CMYK colouring makes the best images it can,
from fragments of four:
three colours and one shade
black
you read cyan lines,
while my mind wandered to a scorpion
lapping alongside Jeffrey Street Wharf;
my body under the bridge,
my mind still in Darlinghurst
sips of my favourite wine,
between bites of fresh raspberries
I was intoxicated;
inebriated, by sheer apathy
on a bench sat the sunflower
bruised
we ran from the rain
and every night following
became yellow...
my brattishness came from the inability to hear the word ‘no’
but you too had the inability to hear it
told to have gratitude; the appreciate your massacre
that of waiting;
that of pain;
that of soothing cyan lines;
masked by punishment, in yellow
“No pressure,” you said
“No pressure,” you lied
#Monkey Grip
sweetest nectar,
you are symbiotic
with your rotted core
I am Nora,
the non-junkie junkie that fucks
oh the sun’s relentlessness,
when I avoid it...
I am Javo;
riding delirium and falling into havoc
laughing while I bleed
fucking while I cry
let’s wander groggily;
submit to the heat,
fly into the light;
blind
we’ll starve
and play our ribs like sweet wind chimes
pick at the sour current,
etch off slivers —
slivers of tartness...
learn mental satiation, my love
and slave;
slave for the walls,
that consume your heaviness
only ever sleeping;
only ever half-awake
leave the stone fruit in the sun;
watch it rid itself of bacteria,
or fester
mystery is a tightrope
between allure and stupidity
delirium is a rainbow gas streak,
in the opal pool of reality
watch the skull become flecks;
through a stark-stunned mirage
through the immortality
of nauseating gasoline...
an unseen ambulance speeds
down Parramatta Road
your highway is empty,
it’s sirens
surrounding you
#Only Passing By
a vessel discarded
at the bottom of the ocean
a sailor steps over the hull
to see himself,
drowning beneath
yet another voyager...
they inspect;
come to experience
the imprint of the night’s sky
overboard
dappled grey galaxies,
of fleeting love
they imagine no attachment,
for sailors are immortal
they wish to touch the sugar of the stars
to lie deep in the womb
in its refracted imprint
with sieved grasps
they trail,
through the loneliness of night
the vessel is inhabited by one,
below
travelled alone,
sunk alone
visitor’s peer at her hollow figure,
but they are mere passersby
the vessel left the dock,
solo
charming and dynamic
though slowly filled with water
along with its captain
the effect of apathy;
the imprint of solitude
the ship used to flirt;
it danced and ebbed with rolling swell
kissing the lips of each wave,
caressing the nape of the tide
the bow was picked up,
spun through the air
though fell without embrace
and left sailing
into a visceral abyss;
into quiet,
into loneliness,
into neglect
it still sleeps intact,
seemingly unscathed,
its tapestries polished;
it’s shape in form
though the ship’s structures,
underneath relentless paint jobs,
underneath golden sheen
underneath,
broken
‘only passing by’,
its visitors say, in the morning
the anger of imminent shipwrecks,
and men overboard
the tragedy of sinking,
sinking solo