hassle house

A husband lied to his wife this morning,
         5 o’clock shadow cast across his lips
Still poised open
         As his eyes flicked sideways.

A sister went to school sick to the stomach,
Fearful of staying home,
           of being a hassle
           In a house of hassles
And cracks above doors that slammed

The boy who played cricket left handed
Left silently, like usual
After sleeping silently,
         Living silently

Tucking under his left arm,
His four leaf clover collection
in a postage stamp album,
He ran away from this hassle house
And never said goodbye

The house sat in the city
By the park that measured time by the back and forth of the swing set
and the light that blinded off the silver slide at 4 in the afternoon.
People played and fought
Made love and sandcastles and dinner and lies.
Told secrets.
Threw tennis balls
                           and sticks and stones insults
And tantrums.
Heart beating,
Children breathing
Passionate life,

It all surrounded the hassle house this morning

Surrounded a lying husband, sick sister and silent boy

each following their calling, each falling as Alice down the rabbit hole,

making life altering decisions, with little thought,

because this was the only path,

And it looked straight from the road.

she couldn't lie and he asked difficult questions

Broke through small talk constructs,
Knew her face through story board life lines
Key points and summerised chapters
He was the exception to the rule,
The trust singular
Couldn't stroke the cheek or grasp the secure embrace,  but each could hold their stories straight.
Would not break,
Fixed and permanent
Constancy, amongst the mockingbird world

Mind

Stranger you are
                  -stranger than me.
in that way, everyone is.
what thought migrate across your mind,
do they ricochet? pinball style.
do they flow?
Do they move in
          saccades      stochastically      st--turring
their way through,
are they firm?
fixed?
honey?
Plasticine?

Mind
I Mind.
Yours is sex to me
let me arouse your mind,
I mind.

Turn me on with theoretical physics and philosophically conclude.
Argue right wing economics and left wing politics
and that
intelligence is beauty,
beauty is intelligence.

Tease me,
I'll rise to it,

thwack it back, relaying wit until its thick in the air,
until sarcasm and superiority hang in the air,
like unwelcome tobacco smoke.
Mind me,
home in arms long enough to encircle my spirit.
it's big.
stranger,
we've never spoken
romance is fabrication
carry on with your book,
and don't mind me.

cool
wet,
interlocking chains,
held beneath
cool
wet
interlocking fingers,

Seated, on thick rubber,
kicking woodchips with absent-minded abandon.
places, phases
chapters in life,
locations
are warped by memory
of years of self produced propaganda
Reinforced bad days by added gloomy weather.

On reminiscing, music disappears - lost sounds dim and smell rises.
Of food and sweat and soap and sunscreen
of petrakor
the smell of rain on dust.  

Discover you,
adventurous explorer me
mapping your moods, your faults,
to see the unmasked hero
weakness
don't be an open book
a face-value man.

Have to run a mile before I give an inch
but
if you get even an inch
you have me,
I'm yours
hook line and sinker
lover
loyal
I don't trust easily,
I fall hard
graze my hands and knees when I hit the 'in love' concrete mentality.
But I've always been running on netball courts.

Shower

We shower for longer now,
as children protesting water -
become adults who
demand it.
Shower longer, scrub harder,
later soap into sinful crevices and
dirty surfaces.
Shave growth,
wash away the dirt of the day
of a life that never used to leave you
                    unclean
Stand in the downpour, as the tears fall, silent splashes in a room of splashed,
melding into shower water,
condensing,
diluting,
washed away so quickly,
they were never really there.

You lied,
and uttered truth,
on hesitant mouth,
that closed in slow motion
                                         afterward
As if trying to take them back,
eat words,
that had already spat out,
fallen out,
tumbled and hit an unsuspecting witness
weakness or strength?
Should have lied to protect her,
told the truth to warn her.
and now they both exist on concepts of reality
that are not
                  full
And forgiveness is hard to find. 

You can't fight it,
can't hide it
can't lie and say you like it.
your face is sick green with envy,
you want him.
not all of him.
but now,
you know his choice,
his condition,
his thought process in meaningful indecision,
you realise that he doesn't belong to you,
doesn't want to
does what he wants to do.
And he knew.
what you thought,
your carefree demeanour doesn't fool strangers,
let alone him.
He knows you better,
has held you truthfully
has treated you brutally.

you've always had a type.

100s and 1000s

I'd knocked it over,
the jar I'd filled with all my hope.

It scattered across the floorboards - scittered,
like 100s and 1000s
full of colour
individually insignificant
but sweet.

I cupped my hand,
and tenderly scrapped them up,
flutted my hand,
streaming them into their broken jar,
ruined now, couldn't consume.
but the memory was important.
shattered glass fragments cut my hand,
my fault.
an accident
time to rebuild.

the text

venomous spit, flew,
through fingers, hammered
words texted, not spoken
with the force of fingers on typewriter - dusty.
message sent.
There, it was done.
echo heart, breaking,
occurred bus stops away.
defeaned.
made teeth rattle
eyeballs ache.
One particle. A truth.
hurtled at his heart.
he'd cry, he'd die.
he'd learn to love again.

OktoberFest

He walks,
teeters, dazed,
glazed,
hands held parallel to the ground,
tap dancer hands
balance, precarious footing on horizontal earth,
                    walks to the sappling,
still growing,
still pushing itself through the earth,
dirt and excrement,
falling, churning,
by its side

His friends jeer, encourage,
taunt,
point a lens at him,
timeless, fixed,
he clasps the sappling - thin trunk in tight fist -dancer's hands,
vomits his last meal on it's base,
           
All the alcohol of the day-
laughter sickness, self-inflicted poisonous fun,
rushes out, gushes out, in the sun
5:00 on a spring fling afternoon,
where the grass is still fresh,
still green and clean

As vomit splashes his sneakers.

6am

6am.
I wake; to the vibrations of my alarm clock
I fumble with its buttons,
pressing snooze, by mistake, on purpose.

I dream of my father - a dream in which we know he's about to die
And joke about his funeral,
And his illness like they are funny
Like they are punchlines
Not deadlines.

7am
My alarm wakes me again,
the sun is setting fire to my apartment wall.
I am asleep.
I want to be asleep,
I clench my eyes shut and try to recreate the moment,
Pull the covers over my head
block out time passing.

It is the past -
it is a world of family and love,
And infinite possibilites.
Where the future holds hope,
hope of my father holding my hand on my wedding day,
or holding his grandchild,
or his cup of coffee on a cool spring morning.

Of holding onto life, of witnessing it,

But despite my best efforts, the world is not in my dreams
And I must face the day - not clench my eyelids,
tap my heels
whispering
"There's no place like home."

Men

You'd forgotten, hadn't you?

That they are flesh,

That they scar and burn and bleed -

as we do.

They seem so strong, for so long, can cause so much,

longing, tears, frustrating, indecisive, conflicting anguish, 3:00 in the morning, naked outside your room and calling.

                                          pain.

But we can do it too,

lock them out of our hearts with as litttle care,

with diminished opinions and defensive believing,

that we don't want to hurt them,

That you don't want to hurt him.

But you do.

And all you asked for was the truth

All you wanted was that -

and now you don't answer his calls

because you haven't finished stitching all the lies together

into a quilt,

that kept you cold before.

And you know it, 

Know how to break a heart now, 

How to stop its persistant loyalty - I mean - He did it to you so well, 

and now you pay it forward. 

Like you swore you never would, 

like you achingly vowed you never could, 

and the selfish thing is what you do

-protect yourself

You can never rely on a cold quilted lie to do it for you.  

A Loved Situation

Woman, what are you doing?
I can see you building a house you've already moved into.

That's not how it works,
you can't find yourself in a loved situation and scramble to fabricate your romance in time for bad weather.

I can see you, still peeling off the wallpaper of your last attempt at a constructed relationship,
where you had simply covered up the holes from the last attempt,
left with paste enough to just hold yourself together.

I know you're not bleeding anymore -
and that old house doesn't fit you at all
-but be careful about building a new one,
you're still on the same foundations

And you've rented other peoples hearts,
and people have rented yours,
unclean feet on your doorstep.
For a time.

And I know how much this house seems necessary,
safe, secure
and jeez, you deserve a roof over your head,

But do you know what you are building?
You're changing so fast.
And just because it will be good,
does not make it a natural fit.
Might not be the right one,

Might have cracks between roofing tiles where the storm can get in and no doors and windows
                                                     Don't forget doors and windows, 
                                                           you know you always do. 

Interconnected thoughts on jigsaw puzzles

Circling thoughts of rings and interconnected thoughts on jigsaw puzzles.
"This is my universe," he said, as they lay, tessellated, moulded, curved into each other,
"It obeys me."
And the stars blinked knowingly at the perception of a unique belief,
of a new idea
in a universe as ancient and young as time isn't either,

The trees breathed the air previously breathed by a thousand humans
the wind whistled the sound of a hundred orgasms
                                                 and babies crying
                                                 and men dying, and with their final breath -
laughing.
The seas churned with the rubbish of humanity,
with ship wrecks and shopping bags
with decomposing bodies and oil spills
and with a message in a bottle bobbing slowly across the world

A million stories were told that moment, into different ears
whispered, yelled, sung and danced
and yet the man perceived none of it
so none of it was important
he heard no tree falling against his will.

All importance revolved around him.
In his bedroom.
With his mouldable girl.

Brother

And I shouted out to you, running through the night
                 Chasing the sparks from the bonfire light
Chasing shooting stars, chasing hopes, chasing wishes,
                 chasing the ephemeral twilight of time

We didn't know it then, did we?
    That our childhood melted.
That these days of
       ~football, chassies, sandcastle battles, flags~
fun
       ~with no consequences or responsibilities~
of freedom,
                  that they could fade,
like the sparks, scattered to the wind

We were close - for a time - for a few spins of the sun dial
you taught me to face a tackle head on,
to never pick a fight with someone bigger than me
         That words, are just words.
          But promises are promises
and that I should never doubt family

You set the bar high, and I grew tall to fill your shoes
        to follow your footsteps
I envy your independence, your strength and your lack of caution.
I envy your conviction in everything you do .

I hope you discover your passion,
and that the long meandering path set for you by life,
    that all the twists and turns
                               and set backs
                               and red herring choices
have taught you something valuable.


Brother, you and I have seen it all
                        and now you're tall and cry silently at our father's funeral
and hug me in a way that tries to deny how much we need each other,
but also cries it out,
 as we did,
              crying out to each other,
chasing sparks through the twilight.