I was looking at pictures of Norwegian grass rooftops

When you told me

“I just want more than this.”

I was staring intently at my laptop display

At these hobbit cottages

Pregnant with pastoral simplicity

Trying not to betray distraction as

You were sobbing down the line

And the phone felt heavy in my hand so it fell,

                         reflected up

At my eyes

Staring off into a Norwegian wonderland and I tried to hold my breathing

Steady, thinking

“I wonder if we would have travelled there.”

You say sorry so many times I find myself apologizing

Telling you, “It’s ok, it doesn’t hurt

                                                                       THAT

                                                                                               bad.”

Twisting a little deeper

I feel small, insignificant, a lost blade of grass on a Norwegian rooftop looking outward

As a frosty winter seeks

To sap our sodden ceilings of their rusting autumn glow

One of the rooftops had several trees atop and

I wondered where the roots would grow

I wondered if I could know who I was anymore

Or who I was going to be now

That you told me that I needed a break

And you told me I wasn’t coping

And I didn’t realize I was leaking

So thank you for making me aware

I suppose

Sometimes a tree knows not where it’s roots grow

Until he’s two foot tall with nowhere to go

So, he sits, little bonsai, waits for the cool Norwegian snow

To settle

To pry his matted tendrils

And make for the sky.

I remember running through the paddocks in a thunderstorm,
My four pairs of socks and gumboots,
Your rough coat of black fur shining in the rain;
Artillery blasting holes through the stratosphere.
We ran and ran and ran and I’ve never felt so free.
Crash-tackling into the grass,
Wet paws and wetter arse.
You nuzzling into my side,
Both staring way up at the dancers in the sky
Thrashing and tumbling, you and I
Were monochromed matadors courting the lights
– Those great rods of thunder bursting through the veil –
And feeling petty and frail but happy as all hell
As you breathed fire to my frozen neck
And propelled us forward with that skipping tail.

Blasting through the hail.
Bonnie my love, though you can now barely move,
I see the lightning in your eyes
And I dream of us there still
Me 14, you just a pup,
Running up that hill.

And I hope you know when I hold your paw
For the final time
That, though my gum of memory
Is now missing teeth,
I will always be there with you running
Through the paddocks,
Just two joyous silhouettes stained against
Those short-lived skies.

[Do you remember when you slayed the red-belly
And I nursed your stuttering chest through recovery?
My lancelot, my knight in dark shining fur,
Sleep well my strong-headed baby
I’m sorry that I wasn’t there.]

The clouds smile wide
The skinks sun their backs
The garden weeds rise
The dog curls on my lap
And I think I’m happy, even
Though it’s all gone in a flash.

Revolving home a thoroughfare
For sometime ago friends
Barely scratched tickets
Potential for riches
But I can’t make out the digits
Vague penumbral entities

This is no place to find a family
To penetrate the atriums
Of carefully-potted planetary systems
The orbits always misalign
And I’m Halley’s once again
Trailing through the inky brine.

You held me
Out digging for fireweed
Buckteeth blooming with buckwheat
Pastoral fiction

Ranch dressing, flannel heading
Blue jeans giddying up
Belt straining

Your knees were dirty
You told me you’d been praying

Feeding licorice to horses
Mixed with medicine

Remember me when I was him
Or when the sea salt stained my chin

Vol-au-vents stuffed to the brim
With tuna and all the breadcrumbs that
Blew away with the wind.

I love you but could these wings fly?
Freshly plucked, flesh dry and petrified
The sky is burnt marshmallow
And the southerly blows hard against the swallows

Fighting stance looks oddly
Like a mating dance

Less than whole
Wholy empty
Arms are limp
Shoulders plenty

Priceless pain
Strategic folds of brain
Origami avoidance
I crane my neck to dodge
The oncoming thesauraus

Trauma euphemisms
Build distance from hyperventalism
Avoiding romantic vandalism
Light a candle for love handles
Gripped too tight.

I dread the animals that are close to me

My soul longs for anonymity

All my turrets are slurry on the shore

Handles rattle on deadlocked doors

Core hard with membrane jellied

Scales black with my beet red belly

My hedgehog depends on the sad song

You’re bleating —

What went wrong when quills thronged the bed

You were seeding.

To the swine we pour our pearls and red wine

Cast our sins off the cliffs and turn our soul to the divine

The brine grows, the monkey crows,

What loves goes and we dodge

Time’s blows that mean to kill us,

Close our eyes and bite down on the lime in hopes it fills us.

Hindsight brings light on the inevitable catastrophe

But I prefer the illusion of autonomy

So now only.

Taking refuge in unfilled potential.
A farewell to arms and stencils,
We free-hand with blunted pencils
Our crude etchings of the inconsequential.

I try to follow the scattered crumbs
Of a prior ideation, the Wunderkind
I was never to become – the youth sensation.

Most books are left un-creased,
The others in-one-ear and out-on-the-street-
Curb your expectations for you won’t be
So enthused when you’re breaking up the pavement.

Pray that your rubble may be gravel
For some hardened enamel to travel upon.

Gather your pawns and set them forth
To clear the way
For the Artists, Architects, Administrative Officers
And all the other capitalized A’s.

We mightn’t be sharp but we lay ourselves down
Like a paint-stained tarp and
You may take of my atoms and
Stitch them up with your stars.

Socks up on the headrest,
Bare chests
Shining the moonlight;
Breathless.

Windows fogged, Winter’s clogs
Tapping.
An enging in the distance
Forcing a hasty
Rewrapping.

I wore your pants
Backwards, my shirt formlessly
Collapsing
Over your small breasts.

Your eyes gently batting at this
New wakefulness,
This wilful entanglement.
Realising, you offered to take it off.
I told you to keep it.

Oh mother God,
I long for that bosom;
For your long hair that once tickled
My chubby cheeks, spilling
Over me as I fed.

I have found many avatars
And their candles flicker and fade,
Falling in sequence
From up along the palisades.

Autumn is on the verge with
Winter in the wings,
Shoulder-blades scarred from
My hot glue wonderings.

Frost keeps my eyelashes
Sewn and tethered in their place.
I flip the coin a million times
But never see your face.

What are the odds that you
And I would find ourselves
So utterly divorced?
But you were baptised in the rapids
And you knew this river’s course.

Oh Mother, Lover, Sister,
Dearest friend.
I’m smothered, covered, twisted
And I miss the peace you’d bring.