for walking

i wear boots!
and they make me feel tall
so i can stride down the street
and not feel so very small

leave

oh! this breaks my heart, because
i love what i do

i've discovered

....that when i get really excited, or worried, or i want something lots and lots and lots, my vision gets slightly blurry. not enough to make me blind, just.....unfocused. tres weird. ironic too...cause those sorts of things are usually very um, focussing.

trickle

let me
crouch in the cooling water
while the light drips
over the windowsill, tripping
the shades of fantastic
between tasting tin and the ecstasy of inside apart.

wild swans

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

recoil

recoil
v.
To jerk backward, as a gun upon firing: rebound. To draw away involuntarily, usually out of fear or disgust: blench, cringe, flinch, quail, shrink, shy, start, wince.
n.
An act of drawing back in an involuntary or instinctive fashion, in alarm or horror:cringe, flinch, shrink, wince.
Also n.
The backward action of a firearm upon firing.

In most small arms, the force of the recoil is absorbed by the body of the shooter.

shiny ghost

i wear my grandmother's wedding ring
if i forget to i
can still feel the
ghost of it
curling round my finger
i remember...her hands, so well.
hands, hair and smile.
some days it seems to shine more brightly than others.

jumping jacks

...what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.

chord

there's a girl playing piano in the theatre behind my office today.
she's good.
oh, sometimes i miss playing so much that it aches.

fiend

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet; he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.

wake

....i just had the strangest dream
that you were real.

a beautiful lofty thing

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling she knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea.'

surface

so…
now i have some bruises
just under my skin
and if i put my fingers here and here
(like so)
it tastes like…midnight

strange, but

love
makes
me
sad

diversity is nuts

before 10am this morning, these had all passed my desk. whew.

squid
bushfires
stem cells
marine ict
squid (*again*, what the hell)
built environment planning
devil facial tumor disease
disposal of human body parts
aggregate media analysis
maritime law
aboriginal remains
innovations research (/mutters...)
aged care
corporate finance
japanese whaling policy

1966

oh my gawwwd!
icky freaky game for girls

things

some heartache/kept me awake

love
i take a very long time to be convinced
(which often makes things too late)
and i was so very sure
that i could live without the big fall

hurt
if i
(pinch of salt, leap of faith)
kiss you on the bits that hurt
will it make everything ok?
will you even feel anything?

heart
absence makes the heart grow fonder
so they say
they don't mention much about the cold
or the empty
or that damned ache where
i miss you so much it hurts

hold
what i have i hold...no, not really
what i have i disbelieve
right up until it does the disbelieving for me
mostly i can hold memories in the palm of my hand
cradle against them for a warm smile
sometimes it's like gripping water...
...the flimsy slips away, i want for the real thing

ache

ache, ache, you live for the ache
that reminds you you're human
and wanted
and alive
but then it snaretears you
and catch-unawares you
and leaves you adrift
staring into the night

i keep getting to the edge and being too afraid to cross over. it's so much easier to keep everyone distanced and boxed up as abstractions...i get bowled over with the shock if i find out someone's actually thinking about *me*.

whispercroon and jazz

i heard this at the end of a french short film, being sung in a jazzy-fem kinda style, and i couldn't pick why i knew it until i realised it was words, not melody. sounds different when elliott smith whispercroons it.

Drink up, baby, stay up all night.
With the things you could do, you won't but you might.
The potential you'll be, that you'll never see.
The promises you'll only make.
Drink up with me now and forget all about the pressure of days.
Do what I say and I'll make you okay and drive them away,
The images stuck in your head.
People you've been before that you don't want around anymore.
That push and shove and won't bend to your will.
I'll keep them still.
Drink up, baby, look at the stars, I'll kiss you again-
Between the bars, where I'm seeing you-
There with your hands in the air, waiting to finally be caught.
Drink up one more time and I'll make you mine.
Keep you apart deep in my heart separate from the rest,
Where I like you the best.
And keep the things you forgot.
The people you've been before that you don't want around anymore.
That push and shove and won't bend to your will.
I'll keep them still.

made in egypt

some or maybe one of my edges
is made of sand
and when i lie down i
can feel myself trickling away into the nothing
grain by
grain by
grain.
sometimes it tickles and i just
idly wonder
when it will all flow back
other times
it makes me forget how to play