∞ mL

There is a

majesty in the murky

creek that bespeaks

its kinship with the sea;

there is a glory. In

the pen is the god's

finger, life-laden trailing across the Nothing.

I've seen The Dream in the dreams I've seen

in half-hearted poets' eyes. There is a greatness,

the Vast Uni:

verses contained.

Drafting

Who here hasn't

worked her veins into

an arid argument

outline?

The blue bin is bursting

with so many rough draft heart-

ideas exchanged

for evidence of

what makes existence good.

But what makes existence

good?

And so I uncrumple

the discarded bits of me to re-

consider. My work is incomplete.

the calm

I will let you off me

like a tear, like water

drops down the drip tip, into the dirt

where things lie buried,

and into the air and into the dirt and

into the air; your words go as far as

oceans and you mean no more at all

than the breath of me.

art of detoxification

Think of her how you must today.

Make of her the villain that you need

to hate. But when the anger has

abated

know her, too, as the smile.

Fill in the gaps not with the permanent black

of an iron mind but

with all the swirling colour of

sunrise and set

that make us human,

that make us an

"us."

fish

i hang my heart on fishing wire

and cast it out to sea,

to see what creatures of the waters

wide will come to me.

it comes up, mostly always, with

a sick thing starved for care.

i lay it down and watch it slowly

die gasping for air.

Conception

They tremble at the

pentip-paper

fornication beneath my

hunched figure,

tremble at the birth

of the harvest, of clouds gathering,

the damned infants of my labour.

I fear them too.

They are and will be death and hurt and once

they were. One does not forget

the monsters one sees in a reflection.

And thus the fear.

And thus the hate.

Thus the fetal thoughts

waiting waiting

for a nurturing hand.

To love these bastards is my greatest struggle, now.