Overload #31

Eastbourne Songs

1. Right there, at Pencarrow Head, alone

Dawn sprung
the waves washed o’er
the sunblest blood
hastily, receding in
the tides of your eyes
those eyes, irises of misshapen moons
limp in your exsanguinated pool
right there, at Pencarrow Head, alone.

2. Spume over the road at Point Howard

The waves are fury
white-tipped and malevolent
surging landward
the mist of breakers
dance like tortured wraiths
spilling across bitumen
by the hairpin bend at Point Howard
the sea lashing: dominatrix-like
the rain falls and falls like sadness,
and the whole roads rises
for a taste of cleanliness,
to be washed, cleansed in the squalls.

3. Drinking Yaqona at Parnell Street

On the mat
at Raymond and Viavia’s house
the men sit crosslegged, reverent
drinking yaqona
and telling stories
supping from the well
sitting around the tanoa like prophets
silently praying with every sip.

4. poem from pencarrow head today

suddenly, the silhouette of gorsed hillsides
look foreign and primitive
as if I was a lost child climbing out of the mist
the land had an incomprehensive language
& my explorer eyes saw new and distant shapes.

it is good to be alone with your thoughts
in the midwinter sun after lunch
on the potholed road to Baring Head
the track like a seam along the rim of this archipelago
between nature and the urban
& from the chilly bluff, a black comorant flying overhead
heading south, heading onward, leads me home.

Overload #31

A few more Poems

an IMMORTAL GREY

1. Look

Arms control –
with those eyes hard as a wet winter beach
you have no idea.

At 14, I worked in a store
where loitering pipe smoke prowled gun oil, licked
sharp edges of senescent inventory, frozen bait.
I was an ear in a tooled-timber box of rationed words.

Occasional weekends out on the property, men with time, their
tinkering congregation of etched hands.
The smell of rolled cigarettes/
tree stumps blown away with a hand-made charge.
Posts planted, then wire braid –
cajoling the assumption of earth.
Later, while pissing against the yard fence,
told the prudent rules of being grown up.
Breath crowded a bruised, shiver-night

I remember the luger: a Nazi, old movie grey …
nest for an orderly queue of bullets
each immobile before its turn to replace the previous.
Malicious, still precision.

War surplus 303, a cannon on the shoulder.
Wilful as a workhorse, one had to be strong just to shoot the thing.
Scrap paper targets passed agreeable lives of compost,
repose on tree.

22s were the incessant kelpies;
followed you around
hauled everyone to a stop at any rabbit, crow or fox.

Every weapon had a character,
its varnished name.

2. Feel (it)

The polished wood, eyes slip on the straight judgment of schooled metal.

With all that compromise & blunder
more sensual than love.
The bullets, the weapon sits there
& ready
placid,
even horny as fingers will brush marble buttocks on a townsquare statue
cupping a breast or balls.
This is the best men can do –
manufactured, calibrated
sings under blunt fingers
then explodes with a husked condensation of intent.

3. Taste

Sharpest in the memory,
a time beneath a hills-hoist North Coast sun
when Tom & I were shooting air rifle slugs
just loose, up into the gums.
Until (colours implausible beyond the palette)
a thing of green & gold fell
clipping branches – rushed, heedless as though
this was the most important event in a life.

Then at our feet, a slapstick red
on its sunglass lime –
tiny chest heaving
grey eyelids locked.
That parrot demanded further butchery
to hide the crime & leave
a flat decency of death,
the jury of worms.

Two small males learnt,
went down the hill in search of a spade
followed by creamcake hours
amongst the baked company of women.
We thought they knew everything
except our filth.

LAST BEST

1. Train to

When satellites write the history
they can say man has built.
Eaten, then built.

Unknowable archaeologists will one-day crunch
through a snow of powdered glass –
excavate layers of concrete, hairspray, rayon & paper –

the cocky hope of one highheel boot.
Our inner-city monologues
written in mascara.

Escalators take us, straight down 10 minutes.
Purpose – a new billboard every metre, we live
for information/
sit in our tunnels
to practise the crash of the world.

2. Kings Cross

Turn the corner, then just like another apartment block
or parking lot … the USS Kitty Hawk
incandescent flags on iniquitous grey.
HERE the last chapter starts its murmur
& I am walking in unscheduled zones.
Spies in crocodile akubras click happy snaps/ volunteers yell abuse
as sausages sizzle in a tent.
Open Day.

There’s art in the huge – port complexes, jobs transformed into coffee
shops.
Middle Australia queues for hours
to touch hunched, shuddering Hornets.

Amidst this field of torpid families
one homeless guy’s unlikely loudness
emanates a feral glee.
He is choice beyond reason.
Above the blasted pink
of logic
why do anything but drink
when science is doing THIS?

3. Secured

Onboard – wet green missiles dance
in nuclear/fluorocarbon air.
Personalised choppers are flown by
“Roadkill” & “Flea”.
Sanyo vacuum cleaners, gunmetal dustpans beside the “Defcon-3 Supply Box”
/a job/
/for life/ for any boys’n’girls
who made it through US public education.
This is real work, to open
singing silicon, woven steel. You can feel God’s offence
when this splendour isn’t used.
War keeps us busy
productive, right
to the end.

MISS MARLIN

1. Like a bundling of magnets
they do not fit here – all
crowded on one stage.
Beauty belongs on each its own
garden-art pedestal.

2. Lorikeets toss bright ink
across the dabbed army green
of our subtropical coastal choice.
Flaking gums stretch across a massage-table sky,
branches drop like worries
on an exhausted lawn.

Game Fishing Week & the bay is clogged
with a purchased
sometimes drunk
but tightly supervised heroism.
They pursue the greater,
dark lives … fellow predators
not used to a fight.

The tides have left.
Someone else’s catch
has cluttered up the restaurant tables, then
the Pageant starts – a second competition
in softened sun
portable stereo
post gravy gravitas.

3. Growing up here is both pretty cool
& a monstrosity. Lycra rules.
The young compose for battle –
ones granted prime DNA, blonde charms,
thin charms & parent-paid-for
straight white teeth.
Armed with speeches they have their war
beneath boorish tourist applause.

This remnant is not the role you’d hope for women
but perhaps Beauty is a thing you cannot own in isolation.
Must it see the light,
be fertilised by eyes
to retain its foliage?
Friendship here is tutored –
a practised peck & goodwill voiced.
But grim as tackle/
the hook versus life …
defeat marks everyone like a scar.

We can’t all wear scientist coats
or fall across olympic lines.
Still, any human feels the itch … at least for a time.
Jobs (within reach), university (daily bus service)
A bit scant but
today Jodie Thompson wears one crown.
Ron Griffin’s 245 kg black marlin wins the other.

This poem has been accepted to form part of his 7th book,
Stories of the Feet, due out from Five Islands, April 2004.

PEAK HOUR

Padded sky – needlepoint showers & a rainbow.

Churning topaz, delinquent Derwent River.
Our feet about an old growth stand
waterlogged eucalypts give long
vertebrae cracks – the forest moans.

The cloudstruck greens of southern rosellas rustle tree to tree
like couriers. Fresh winds thrash the leaves – hyped & flighty.

A wallaby flops back into cover
surprised, distracted slapstick.
Two Tasmanian devils rumble in the scrub
ferns flung aside in rage
as the lake stops to listen.

the TIGHTWIRES

Fear nothing more
than young men’s passion.

It smashes the teeth,
the brittle delineation, words slipped
between great loves & rape.

They invented sport
& war
to keep it in the lines
“Call it quits, eh?”

The heat
can eat the oxygen in an old car.
Great art with big tits and spaceships.
Anti-politics, cheap gossip, the put down.
Led – stoned & frantic.

Despite everything, to still see this
as the moment alive …
your self emerging
from the sculpture of fists or an outbreak of truth.
You & your mates
Saturday night.

Overload #31

Three New Poems

The Faltering Circus

One foot shuffling
in front of another
without,their children
hope, falling: wobbly
like on a tight rope,
poised on knotty
varicose veins,
hovering above
the breathlessly
erect crowd
where every
spectator in
this faltering
circus is finally
a performer.

A Walking Tour

“All sorrows can be borne
if we put them into a story”
– Isak Dinesen

My guide book tells me
that terrible plagues once
visited this medieval city.
Yet today it still seems
diseased, the old stained
walls gone leprous with
smeared circus posters
streaming rains have
melted into red and
orange running blisters,
a perfect exile for a
modern Job seeking
to camouflage his
own sores with words.

Last Man Off The Bench

As if in a nightmare,
fleeing a stalker with
good defensive skills,
the last man comes
off the bench: his Nikes
have broken wings,
feeling like boots
slogging through
oil or mud. Too
skinny to be in the
game, a pathetic stick
figure, his crippled
hookshot kills a fly
on the top of the
backboard. Trying
to escape a slow
motion replay from
which there is no escape,
his belly turns to
jelly, his legs to lead:
“rebounding” means
he cannot escape
the laws of gravity
or the leap of fear.

Sports is a metaphor
for life: some of us
should never have
made the team.

Overload #31

Brisbane Poetry

Dervish

hung herself:
from the hose
like a pendent –

slung back neck,
sweat in the hammock
of spine.

her exquisite body
ratcheting –
against the pull,
of cotton filled hose

Her audience below,
where strut winged souvenir seller,
carry mini-flags,

a sequined afterglow,
in dry-throat disciples
waiting the dipsomania
of her dance off.

In the Yellow Hour

I counted eleven

yellow rabbits counting
seven beats of yellow

pupils in a lizard stare
shattering into yellow

skeletons, the obese daffodils,
yellow habits

no longer neatly laundered,
the hanging yellow

suits on yellow head pins
of tickets handwritten

by an owner of yellow
nails and skin

that smells yellow-a scent
wood expels when cleft

by the yellow-handled
axe that cuts

into the orchard thighs;

in the yellow kitchen
unaware, she watches
the lard drippings yellow.

Verandah

Sitting, ankles
crossed
navel extended
looking down
on the boards.

Where many
feet have trod
where backs
have rested
chairs scraped
where splinters
erupt.

Sitting ankles
crossed
staring down
the horizon
where feet,
backs and chairs
fall through
wispy knots.

Overload #31

Wickedness

Arnold Sinclair befriended me on the first day at my new school. I had only lasted one term at my previous school before my mother pulled me out after a row with my father which had ended with him lowering his eyes again, and becoming silent. I found it awkward, what with Arnold being so friendly and me anxious about fitting in with the main crowd, because I quickly realised that he was unpopular.

When I had established myself sufficiently to get some straight answers from that main crowd, I attempted to find out exactly what it was about Arnold besides little things like his fruity pronunciation and the way his school uniform still looked immaculate at the day’s end, that invited scorn. But nobody could or would tell me. They exchanged knowing looks, flicked the ash off their cigarettes, laughed mirthless laughs, and said things like: ‘Jesus, the kid Sinclair! What do you want to hang around with that cunt for?’

‘Well just tell me what’s wrong with him for fuck’s sake!’ I said, exasperated. ‘What’s the fucking great secret?’

I was big for my age, and training well with the football squad. I shared my smokes. I got the cuts as often as anybody else in my class. But I was still given no explanation other than ‘You’ll find out’, and I felt uneasy about the way I joined in the sneering when others were around, yet treated Arnold reasonably if we were alone. I still find it difficult to be distant towards people who are friendly, even when I don’t have enough trust to develop the friendships. This sometimes adds to my problems.

Nobody ever did tell me what was wrong with Arnold but I gradually came to realise that he was someone whose external charm only worked on a certain type of person. For others he seemed to possess an innate repellent factor.

We caught the school bus at the same stop, and my mother met him when she dropped me off there. He oozed good manners of an old-fashioned kind that had my mother gushing in response. He sounded more like one of our teachers than a schoolboy. That was the start of my mother’s exhortations. Unlike my father, Arnold’s father was successful, and his mother wrote the column about our area in the local newspaper. My mother regularly referred to these facts. She, who had always disapproved of my mates (who, I admit, behaved like trainee gangsters) began urging me to invite ‘that polite Sinclair boy’ home on the weekends. Why couldn’t I be more like him? she wanted to know.

I wanted to tell her that Arnold was desperate to be accepted by the type of rough kids she despised, tell her with triumph in my voice, but I didn’t. I couldn’t allow her access to any part of my adolescent world. She didn’t even know I smoked.

At school we had a smokers’ club. We met at pre-arranged times during recess or when we wagged a period, usually in the bushes surrounding the football oval which was part of the schoolgrounds. We all had tobacco tins and we would crouch under cover, watching for stalking teachers sniffing the air as we smoked and bullshitted, passing around just the one cigarette if that was all we had, and sharing a kind of guerilla camaraderie as if we were acting the parts of rebel soldiers in a film about war, wearied from holding out against the enemy, but still nonchalant.

Arnold, who was in the cadets, a straight outfit despised by our group, kept pestering me to make inquiries about him joining the smokers’ club, to put in a good word for him with the others. He always had money, and he assured me he would be generous with his cigarettes. When I had first mentioned Arnold’s request I had been roared down so vehemently that I pretended it was just a joke. Then I had listened to stories of some of his earlier attempts to weasel his way into the charmed circle, this platoon of which I was now a central part.

I’m not sure why I broached the subject again after such a refusal but I think it was because of the wickedness in me. This time I was ready for their snorts of derision. I reminded them of his money and all the free smokes it would mean. They said having him around wasn’t worth even a free carton every week. I could see the sense of this so I added that we could have a bit of fun by leading him on, taking his smokes, then turfing him out. That caught their interest.

I don’t remember whose idea the final plan was. I don’t think it was mine. I hope it wasn’t my idea. I know I played the Judas role, luring him to the boys’ toilet where I had told him he was to be initiated into the club. He had his application fee – a large amount of cigarettes – and he wore his ingratiating smile, but with a hint of cockiness, a smug look I have come to associate with him.

‘What do I have to do?’ he asked several times once we were inside the toilet. I could tell he was nervous, and I guessed his nervousness was caused as much by wagging the period after lunch as it was by his impending initiation.

He was told to hand over the agreed amount of cigarettes to each of us, and to keep his stupid voice down. Out came packets of cigarettes and whispered apologies from Arnold. He was swaggering and laughing too much as he was told to light up and we each did the same. I had a crazy urge to instruct him, to tell him how to act in a situation like this, but I knew this feeling was just caused by embarrassment. Someone told him to do the drawback and hold it until he was given the command to let the smoke out.

Of course, nobody said anything and he ended up coughing after keeping the smoke in for a commendable time. We all laughed and the mood was lightened. Like a fool, Arnold laughed too, still spluttering, and said: ‘Is that all? Heck, that’s nothing. I thought there’d be more to it.’

Several boys mimicked his use of the word ‘heck’ and one said suddenly: ‘Now get your cock out,’ and everyone fell silent.

‘What?’ said Arnold, his voice rising in incredulity and dismay.

‘You heard. Get your old fellow out and give us a look at it.’

This is when I wanted him to say something like: ‘Get your own dick out and shove it up your arse, rat-breath,’ but I reminded myself that crawlers like Arnold could never speak like that, didn’t deserve to be able to. Instead, he said: ‘Don’t be silly. Get my cock out? Just like that? And flash it in front of everybody?’

‘You wanted to join. That’s what we all had to do.’

‘Did you?’ he asked, turning to me.

‘Yeah,’ I lied.

‘O.K. fellows, suit yourselves. But I tell you, I feel pretty stupid doing this.’

So you ought to, I thought as we all shuffled towards him, blowing the tips of our cigarettes into glowing points as he fumbled with his fly buttons. Surprised scorn and amusement were the expressions on the faces of my mates. Arnold showed us his penis for a second and immediately began stuffing it back inside his trousers, saying: ‘There you go. Satisfied?’

Everybody protested at once, telling him he had to get his cock right out and hold it in his hand while we had a good look. I had caught just a glimpse of his big brown circumcised penis.

Out it flopped again, along with a dramatic sigh from Arnold. Somebody said: ‘Now!’ and we all pounced, trying to stub out our cigarettes on poor Arnold’s exposed flesh.

I don’t think many struck their target because he crouched and covered himself with a swiftness I didn’t think he possessed. I know my cigarette missed. What I don’t know is if I meant it to miss. Sparks flew, at least one of my mates burnt his own hand, and Arnold howled like a wounded wolf as we scattered, shrieking with nervous laughter.

***

Arnold was never admitted to the smokers’ club but he still maintained clandestine contact with most of us. He used to commission us to steal bicycle parts for him. If he needed a dynamo set or a seat or handlebars, any part he needed, but never the whole bicycle which might be recognised later, he would give one of us specific instructions including the price he would pay, and we would steal it for him. He put all of these parts together and sold them as complete bicycles.

I went to his home just the once, raising my mother’s futile hopes as I was to do many times before settling down later than most people do, and he told me he enjoyed assembling the bicycles in his father’s big workshop, and that he could never risk stealing anything. I think he addressed his father as ‘sir’, when he introduced me, but his voice was so muffled I couldn’t be sure.

My mother always seems suspicious of my late-won quietude – she favours sayings like ‘a leopard never changes its spots’ – and one recent afternoon we were bickering politically, as usual. My old wickedness rose belatedly from deep inside me where I thought I had suppressed it, and I finally set her straight about her polite Arnold Sinclair, told her of his little Fagin-style business in the past. She said nothing, just fixed me with the look she used when berating my father for his failures, and then she got up and walked away.

I could never admit to my mother what we did to Arnold, and whenever I saw his name in the newspaper, or his smiling earnest face on television, with his hair still sticking up the way it did when he was a boy, as he lectured us about tough decisions he was forced to make on our behalf, or the benefits resulting from the promotion of motor sports, or licensed gambling, or people having had it too easy for too long, I imagined his big brown penis, its blisters still suppurating, sullied, dishonourable, like my long-ago betrayal.

Overload #31

A Pretty Crazy Little Vignette

Loved One

Loved one, it is time to begin communication. To begin, I loved you the moment you stepped from behind the hope hidden within me, not one thing or person, but everything. Gardens themselves have spoken to me.

Would you sit beside me? Do you feel me when I visit in my sleep or the morning sun rising? Help mate, help us reconcile. I love like the lion, Babylon and a madman who can provide and do all. “Can you do it?” I asked her.

“I am to retreat to a world that wants me without you,” was all that she could reply.

The loved image, forget her. I sit between the once walls of Eden and the gate that Satan slipped over. I give my body up to patience. I have tried to forget the heart felt need that keeps wanting her to be here. My Genevieve, woman of the earth, let me wait for you lonely like Adam, asking for goodness to help him. God take my rib, it is ready. Split my side in my sleep and give it to her to eat. Bring her wisdom.

Everything must be done in this time backwards.

“Patience my friend, bodies are not ready for the steeling of ribs. Just sit, forget need, and write your love letters. Swim in the ocean, and speak to the people you meet on the streets. This does not need even Eve. Adam has had her already, and given her up in a wailing and beating of breasts.”

Beach Wedding

“Genevieve I can still see you.”

The colour of our sun is a purple blue hue that washes my vision. Ink from some gland that gives love. I feel how it calms. Reminding of this beach, of her smile. Brown smiling. In every pore brown pouring into her from the earth, being more than reflected she smiles.

“I see the glow you have, with your brown toes, against the grained sand, again the same sand I now kiss.”

In the photos there was a line of people, brides maid’s gowns, men dressed in tuxedos. Though I saw only her, Genevieve, her leg, the hem of the dress hitched up over one knee. From the smile in her eyes I remembered each pulse of that evening.

She was my Dorigen.

“This is the process where the soul throbs and palpitates,” I said as I rose early the next morning. “I am suffering with the growth of love’s wings. It is feverish and itches. A two minded sensation. I am perplexed and maddened.”

My fiance and I returned from the wedding, went straight into our hotel room. I slept on the floor. Fever had hit, sweating and high. High from a beach night’s dancing and madness. I picked up Plato and threw him at the wall, above her sleeping head.

“Let no one disturb and frighten you by saying that the reasonable friend should be preferred to him who is in a frenzy,” I screamed down to my sleeping innocent, with all the silence I could find, hopelessness trying to pierce her heart quietly. “Love is not sent from heaven for the advantage of the lover and the beloved alike. We must prove that such madness is divine and given for our greatest happiness.”

I picked up the torn copy of the Symposium and quietly whispered, “ I understand. I am going to leave you, you know that don’t you?” She did not even move, was still asleep. Guilt tore across my heart. How could I leave? My heart sank past the pit of my guts, and picking it up, after minutes of quietly watching, I finally climbed into her bed. Closing my eyes, a kind of reverie followed far different to hope, though not a pinch like regret. Far different from hope and regret.

Genevieve was beside me, looking out over the ocean. Though her hair was blond, not auburn, and her eyes now blue, the colour of the sky over the ocean.

“Look at this place we have found ourselves in, it seems familiar. Do you feel it?”

“Like you do.” She whispered, quite close to my ear.

“Then trust it. Let the air in your lungs warm the sun if our love is now gone.”

Turning to me, the transformed woman, more memory than apparition, took my hands and spoke directly into my eyes. “You seem like something without even heaven.”

Particles from the sky floated down over our heads. Soft ions and water filled molecules landed on my shoulders, her hair. Some passed on through us, settling on the grass, or moved into the earth.

“We stand, I beside you, beside me our hands touching.”

“As if some god demanded it long before the day turned long, and the morning woke us with its smile.”

The Event

When a young man was given over with love he secured his lady with a lust for best deeds in many an enterprise and quest, and suffered at love’s bequest else she was won. She was among the loveliest given for the sun to shine upon, and came from so high a kind that he scarce the temerity mind to tell her of his longing and distress. But in the end she saw his worthiness.

From the bridal table there was definite depth in the way she looked at me. I knew that, for it was perceptible from that place where necks grind, from where the air flows open to when I felt her. And eyes, as she stood before me in the shadow of a goddess. Her my Odysseus, telling me that I loved right, that she was loving already. I let her hand warn me of her feelings. Not so much a warning, than an understanding of where future earth lies.

This feeling is consciousness and awake now. Last evening lust is behind me and life’s meaning is growing. I give up to the image for the heightened happens. The selection, the movement of neck granite bolder over sand in the pit and the air that seeps up to my heart.

Look. This day I live. All night each train of thought was for her around turning. We danced and spoke of love in our action. Language need not when our bodies continue.

I love the wanton girl this morning more than ever. It is relaxation now, a feeling of not wanting to leave her. However I look I must love, must give all that is inside me. Yet for some reason I was convinced I would return engaged from the wedding. I do not know what it is I’ve become. Following love like a Romeo in training I have decided to move. After drinking her lipstick a red pink to my vision did not leave my liver for years. So imagine my joy when new love smote the glow with a nautical blue. Cross legged in my lounge room thinking of you, knowing that living (not waiting), will be enough.

Overload #31

Four Poems

IN MEMORIAM

We
witnessed
azure shores
turn crimson with
the crisp, healing wind.

Summer came and went with the sun
dancing over lush hibiscus,
drowning in watery sonnets;

manila-papered reflections
of sentences never written
or uttered, except in prayer.

Our verve born in modest clusters,
lost in the veiny leg of an adjective
I choked on while thinking of you.

What word was it? What song? What thought?
I fancied it to be more of a sound,
an artful stroke of a waking timbre

merging with loose follicles of
a cryptic truth, tinted by penumbra
of the mind’s myopic eye.

There was no reason–
no grand meaning nor
divine answer to life.

There was only then
just as
today is only now.

NAUGHT

Earth tasted strange,
like prepubescent moon salt
fashioning its iridescence on my tongue;
sweet of a verb’s membrane
so alive, it moved within me.

It was as if I bit into a shadow
and realized a dream,
treading through sky-kissed waters
curled around my knees,
thinking that was the closest
I could get to infinity.

I would melt and bleed into the world.
Horizons would melt and bleed into me,
disappear into cotton mist of softer notes
better sung after a glass of wine
in a gentle, if not soothing, hum;

then steal me away
to an eternity of non-consequence
to watch noble willows
break ground beneath ground,
bash the eager sunset with fists
till pink fades and falls into night,
and live till I am naught.

RHYME

Before the crying season,
I’ve witnessed flora
arch toward the ether,
the flavor of a nimbus cloud,
faltering on a petal’s eclipse
till she was weak of weeping.

We were inebriated,
open and full moon,
caught in a thespian’s verse.

The lines were bleak, swollen,
misconstrued June green filaments
of dragonfly wings – the color of
eureka-bearing notions,
thick with ambrosia.

It was dulce,
spicy, eros, chilli on the lips.

Sliding…
It was poetry.

We were cat-eyed, sleek-tongued,
forbidden crescent apertures of night
beckoning words more succulent
and warm with the fog-crested hours.

Flying…
We were rhyme.

TO LAURA

Once,
I felt
like sphagnum
lying flat on
a demi-god’s knee.

Hell could not have been more obvious.
It was Sunday from the fold of her skirt,
the arch of her brow, and the feel of her…

Twilight rested on her chin like a moth;
the carelessness of which made me grimace.
I delivered a curse in semaphore;

semi-affected gesticulations
that bled into the configuration
of her curves. She was all but womanly,

with the audacity of a man’s spit.
Time thumbed through her wrinkles but she would not
bend to him for repentance. She flourished

like lice amongst other lice. I hated
her D cupped bagpipes, that heaved as she breathed
criticisms while quirking a pinkie.

She was an ill-sung paean, refusing
to croak till the last pinch of salt crumbled
on her defiant palm. How I miss her.

I wonder if she’d still remember me,
call me stubborn, lazy and foolhardy
if I stood by her grave long enough to
listen to her cry from below the ground.

Overload #31

Texte

Anrede

die die denunzieren könnten
leben nicht mehr
wie die die duzen wollten
dissen werden die
die siezend sezieren:
wer wär, ist schon
in zureden wie gestellt
wider abruf geholt
auf offerte zu tätowierern
gesetzt die denunzieren
könnten nicht mehr

(es) extra leben

Ausriß

einer trichotillomanie waren wir
aufgesessen vor verschlossenen
klaviaturen schnitten wir uns
die nägel schoren unsere wuchernde
scham über unserem wuchtenden geschlecht

entzündete sich aufgerieben
im guckloch der hände weißer zwirn
als bergab zu begrabendes
zwischen beäugen und entmündigen
die von aroma gestutzten
hemdkragen der frauen

trichotillomanie krankheit, bei der sich betroffene zwanghaft haare ausreißen
(vergleichbar etwa mit dem abkauen der fingernägel)

Bi ‘n’ go

die kreuzworträtsel kamen
rabatte quer überm mendelschen regen wurzeln
den stromernden bogen sich haare
opulenter nach den kopulationen
dem dickicht ums feuchte gesäß
im zug blieben aus die ampeln
kontaktlinsensuppe via schlafabtei
vom diskanten toner der patrone
tunneln x-obeine boxen
blecken
ein allel
gregorianischer funzeln

Come in to look out

es gibt kein innen zu veräußern
kein außen verinnerlicht gelassenes gut
sein anderes mal um eins im soll
für nichts zu haben mehr ist

wie du den deckel öffnest
das alte lid, des zyklopen
monokel hast du auf

die brille, gesetzt dir, braue
ich weine sartres b-saiten:
staub und schweiß

i.m A.uftragen eines winters sich leiden schafft
wer mit den eselslauten eifer sucht, jedwedes credo
sensitiv für passiv an performanzen bringt

es gibt kein innen zu veräußern
keinen autismus ein entrinnen zu erinnern

E-Urologie

(Ein Kapitel Kapital)
für „flanzendörfer“ (31.12.62-05.08.88) zum 40.
(die wechseljahre zum jahreswechsel)

                      was wir verteilen an dreck
hin über die oberflächen
uns oberflächlich herziehen die hand
ist auch nur so ein wisch, textiles utensil
in das wir spucken das geleckte
eurer fingierten drücke zum gespurten
greife eingeseift abgeschmiert
von der fassade her an
künden die kinder (so sehr
sie auch ba-r-föGeln
mögen) das zu reinigende
mit dem reinlegen auf beschlagenen fenstern
u.a. namen feste zu landen
wo flüssig war nicht mehr feierlich zu-sein vergaß
wie ich ausschwitz das sich weggeholt eingeworfene
mit dem eingeholt weggeworfenen perpetuierend möblierter
picknix glaube ich werde nicht mehr wie die beheimateten
automaten die dritten pro cent verjährend schlucken
ohne von sich es wider geben zu können
kannst du von oben herab zusehen
wo unten rum du geblieben wärst
als reißen (weißer) eines gullivers geschäfte sich machen
um einen einzigen waschsalon auf der ponderosa für lau
den aggregatszuständen des körpers notdürftig bar
läßt politieren sich was gebeutelt
nicht mehr zu sacken war zu plätten
kontaktete g-leitcreme bei jedem handshakes
was wir verleiten zu dreck vereiteln
ist eiter bis schicht für schicht verkrustet
gesellschaftern auf pump arschgedeckt ein-gelenk
es gesäugt herablassend abzublasen
die schwärze gleist mit kohlensäure
versetzte sprechbasen enteisent
ein regen auch nicht überwintert
wenn kapitalismus kapitulieren muß

dezember 2002 / januar 2003

ERROR-gierte/ EGO-zentren

wenn du mich runterholst kommts mir
hoch gehen immer nur die bekannten fremd
zu leuten an türen über die namen im schilde führen
sich auf MENSCH im deutschen kein REIM-patent zu machen
zogen sie einander gern manisch (arien) auf
jojos, wie sagen zu liften dass heruntergekommen sie seien
drahtseilschaften im schachten matt ergrauter felder
schließer am drücker schieber für springer
axeln gezückte achten sich sichern die
sieben stäbe buchen digital fingierte ausgehmachen
eingeweidet ihre nummern schubsen
ließ zu unterst der oberst blut im schuh
stuhl fahren und ballon steigen                 sein

P O – S T O P   I M   P O S T – O P

Mikadonische Bananen
grenzen wir maß nahmen auf fleißbanden stäbchen hin mitzuessen waren wir zapfen von dschingis khans goldener
horRENde
	bitte ja der nächste freizumachen nächtens sich ums nein danke gebrachte stünde zu ihm die schlange an der kassiererin schalter

O(-pen) P(-air)

mein darm ist eine brezel
an einer stange salz
schneidest du in raupen
was dir ein wurm war
hinterm zerstoßenen nabel

mein darm ist eine brezel
mikro in meinem mund
handy in deiner box
failscht vibrationsalarm
emaillierend um abgerundetes mobiliar
ein zu zertrümmerndes bonbon

mein darm ist eine brezel
bis blutgeleckt ich leben mag
von luft allein berlinert deine liebe
wird schlecht mich machen flau
faul ich doch

Orthopädisch de-kurieren

stell den tod
ein bein aus
esche und kiefer
sprossen wie holme

bock auf die leiter
verkeilt und geleimt
sind die deckel
mit den tuben

posauntest du
gen ostern gerichtet
in finnischen bädern
überzeichnete eier
zur einführung erstarrt
ver-westen

Rausch
	zeichen
zusammen gekommen steckten wir uns an zu gehen von den gazen betuchter herde machten uns platten um keine feuer, im arsch hätten wir uns benommen gehabt
	so verkommen wir vorkamen hatten wir zu sein waren nicht zu haben außer gummiparameter geschmolzene unserer liebe am mann es ab und an tun zu können pflegten uns die tode denen wir beischliefen
unternommenes zu übergeben übernahmen wir untergebene
	übel uns

Warum sich Dienste leisten

wir fanden schlaf
nicht beim anderen
eine leiter zu stellen
an gewandte türen
die abgehangenen
uhren vor den betten
nachgehen wir straßen
mit dem edlen feudel
fremdeln leiber eigen
wem wir auch fronten
in abgezogenen kriegen
bleiben aufgelegt wie zugedeckt
bloß die schuhe sandalen
für vaselin am nackten uns
sage und schlage ein
eine abgehängte erde
pfänden wir falsch

Overload #31

Ottensheimer Geschichten

Der Autor dieser Texte legt Wert darauf, dass die Leserschaft weiß,
dass der Autor jetzt weiß, dass diese Texte – gelinde gesagt – schlecht sind.
(Stefan Rois 2007)

Chaostheoretiker

Im Abendrot verschwammen die Stadtrandhügel wie magisch mit dem Rosengewölk. Der Sendeturm bohrte sich dort hinten in eine mondlose Nacht. All die Häuser und Straßen hatten ihre Konturen verloren, schliefen gemeinsam als dort und da blinkendes, von abertausenden Lichtern zersetztes Schwarz.

„Es ist immer ein berauschendes Gefühl für mich, wenn ich eine ganze Stadt unter mir sehe.“ stellte Björn fest, bevor er wieder an seiner Zigarette zog. Ein kurzes rotes Glühen. Rauch schwappt über seine Lippen.

Sylvia besah Björn, dessen Blick sich irgendwo über den Dächern verlor, von der Seite. Da ihr nichts einfiel, was sie hätte erwidern können, begann sie mit zärtlichen Bewegungen über seinen Rücken zu streicheln. Sie wollte ihm zeigen, dass sie zuhörte.

„Es ist unglaublich…“ Björn vollzog mit den Fingern seiner freien Hand eine Abfolge kleiner Greifbewegungen, als könnte er die Worte, nach denen er suchte einfach aus der Luft fischen.

„Einfach unglaublich…“ begann er schließlich erneut. „Ich meine… ein einzelner Mensch ist isoliert betrachtet bereits so furchterregend komplex, so unverständlich mit allem versponnen, solch ein gigantisches Wunderwerk; er ist eine eigene völlig unüberschaubare Welt, ein Universum für sich.“

Björn spürte noch immer Sylvias Hand auf seinem Rücken, aber sie lag nun still, schien zu lauschen.

„Und dort unten in dieser Stadt leben dreihunderttausend… dreihunderttausend! dieser Universen, von denen sich nicht einmal eines selbst auch nur ansatzweise versteht. Sie leben tagtäglich miteinander. Sie stoßen immer wieder zusammen, in den unterschiedlichsten Formen. Allein die Gegenwart, nein die Existenz! des einen beeinflusst das andere und unzählige andere permanent. Gemeinsam spinnen die Menschen dieser Stadt ein Netz unvorstellbarer Verstrickung.“

Björn lächelte sanft. „Und das ist nur eine Stadt. Bloß eine etwas größere Stadt in einem ziemlich kleinen Land.“

Er senkte den Kopf, starrte lange auf den Kies zwischen seinen Schuhen, nahm einen tiefen Zug.

„Ein wahres Paradies für Chaostheoretiker…“

Sylvia verspürte in diesen Momenten Zuneigung für Björn in einem Ausmaß, für das sie keine Worte fand. Als sie dann seine Hand in ihre nahm und fest umschloss, war es ein sanfter und andächtiger Ausdruck ihrer Verbundenheit zu Björn, aber auch ein Festhalten, denn die Distanz der Bewunderung hatte sich in ihr Empfinden gemischt und ängstigte sie.

Björns Lippen legten sich wieder um den dunklen Filterbereich seiner Zigarette. Ein roter Punkt erhellt das Beisammensein im Dunklen. Ein Fingerklopfen. Asche fällt.

„Scheiße ist das Leben groß…“ Björn deutet ein ungläubiges Kopfschütteln an und grinst. Sylvias Augen strahlen.

Über den beiden Verliebten rauscht der Wind des Abends im Geäst der Esche.

Sylvia beugt sich vor, führt ihren Mund nahe an Björns Ohr. Ein Verharren. Schließlich ein Flüstern.

„Wie groß das Leben ist!“

Sie legt langsam ihren Kopf auf seine Schulter, schaut hinaus in eine Nacht voller Universen, doch sieht nur eine Zweisamkeit.

In Utero

10:43

Aus dem Gebäude kam eine Frau. Ihre Lippen schienen lautlos nach Worten zu suchen. Während sie ging, hielt si den Kopf gesenkt. Mit langsamen Schritten ließ sie das Krankenhaus hinter sich. Sie überquerte ohne auf den Verkehr zu achten die Straße –auf das Hupen eines bremsenden Autofahrers reagierte sie nicht-, bog um die Ecke und erreichte das Geschäftsviertel.

Menschen mit Einkaufstüten, Einkaufstüten mit Menschen; eine nackte Schaufensterpuppe; bis minus 30 %; Top-Angebot — Schlagen sie zu.

Ein Mann stellte sich der Frau in den Weg. Langer Mantel, altmodische Brille, Schmutz an den Händen und Schürfwunden im Gesicht.

„Hätten sie ein paar Cent für mich?“ fragte der Mann.

Für kurze Zeit standen die zwei Menschen einander wortlos gegenüber. Dann hob die Frau den Kopf und begann zu sprechen.

„Hätten sie eine intakte Gebärmutter für mich?“ fragte sie den Mann. Der sah sie an, als wäre er eben angeschossen worden. Danach versuchte er einen Augenblick lang zu lächeln, doch der gefrorene Blick der Frau ließ seine Mundwinkeln erst erstarren und dann nach unten sacken, was ihm einen Hauch von Schwachsinnigkeit verlieh.

„Oder vielleicht neue Eierstöcke?“

Top-Angebot. Schlagen sie zu.

 

12:09

„Ich weiß… denen unterlaufen auch… Fehler.“ Die Frau holte Luft. Ihre Stimme zitterte. „Ja, oder ein… verdammt schlechter Scherz. Ein ganz mieser Scherz von einem… Arschloch in Weiß.“ Einige Momente schwieg sie.

„Ich liebe dich auch.“ Die Frau nahm das Handy vom Ohr, legte auf und schob das Gerät zurück in die Manteltasche. Sie zog sich etwas Rotz in die Nase hinauf und wischte sich dann mit einem Ärmel die wartenden Tränen aus dem Gesicht.

Sie atmete durch. Mit geschlossenen Augen.

Das Klingeln der Straßenbahn. Das Stimmengewirr der Fußgängerzone. Weiter weg Motoren.

Sie hob ihre Lider, sah neues Licht.

 

16: 40

Ein Junge streichelte der Frau durch das Haar. Er biss sich auf die Unterlippe und legte den Kopf schief. Auf seiner Stirn bildeten sich Falten.

„Mama…“

„Hmm…“ Die Frau nahm ihren Blick nicht vom Fußboden.

„Schau. Du hast in deinem Leben doch noch nie etwas Verrücktes gemacht.“

Der Ausdruck in den Augen der Frau verlor seine Leere.

„Viel zu wenig, ja…“

„Aber wenn du dann eine Glatze hast; dann kannst du das ganz leicht nachholen. Dann lasse ich mir auch alle Haare abscheren…“

„O nein Schatz, deine schönen Locken…“ lächelte die Frau.

„Dann lasse ich mir alle Haare abscheren und wir ziehen gemeinsam durch die Stadt, machen nur noch Blödsinn und scheißen darauf was die Leute über uns denken! Mama, das werden wir machen. Zwei Glatzen auf Chaostour!“

Es hatte zu regnen begonnen. Der Junge und die Frau hörten wie die ersten Tropfen gegen die Fensterscheiben fielen.

„Ja, Schatz.“ Sie küsste den Jungen auf die Stirn und streichelte seinen Rücken. Das Trommeln der Tropfen füllte das Zimmer.

„Das werden wir machen.“

 

20:15

„ICH !!! — HABE !!! — KREBS !!!“

Manche ignorierten die Stimme. Die meisten Fahrgäste sahen jedoch für einen Moment in den hinteren Bereich des Waggons, bevor sie ihre Augen wieder in die vorbeirasende Dunkelheit schickten oder ihre Köpfe hinter ihren Zeitschriften versteckten.

Die Frau stand dort hinten, eine Hand im Haltegriff, ausdruckslose Miene, die Lider gesenkt. Als wäre nichts geschehen. Als hätte sie nie den Mund aufgemacht.

Die U-Bahn hält an. Die Türen werden aufgezogen. Leute raus, Leute rein. Ein, zwei kurze Blicke im Vorbeigehen. Verstohlene Betrachtungen, die wie zufällig wirken sollen. Menschen, die vorübergehen. Menschen, die sitzen bleiben.

„Respekt meine Damen und Herren… wirklich sehr… beherzt…“ flüsterte die Frau und begann zu lachen. Erst ganz leise, dann immer lauter, so schallend als wäre sie verrückt geworden.

Dort und da ein Kopfschütteln. „Na hören sie mal!“ rief irgendjemand.

Auf einmal schnitt sich ein Schluchzen in das Gelächter der Frau und Tränen quollen hervor. Sie brach nieder, krümmte sich auf dem Boden des Abteils zusammen, presste ihr Gesicht an ihre Schulter und weinte los.

Die Lautsprecher spuckten „Zug fährt ab!“. Die Türen schlossen, die U-Bahn setzte sich in Bewegung, verschwand aus der beleuchteten Zone und wurde erneut von der Schwärze des Tunnels verschluckt.

Nächster Halt Zivilcourage.

Kick

Donner. Ein riesiger Hammer der auf dickes, elastisches Blech niederfährt. Hundert treibende Pauken. Raubtiergebrüll.

Blitz. Eine plötzliche, gleißende Erkenntnis eines erbosten Gottes. Ein Riß im Himmelstuch. Für Sekundenbruchteile offenbart sich eine Leiter ins Universum.

Ich stand am Fenster.

Die Mauern meines Zimmers schienen zu flackern wie eine defekte Glühbirne. Alle paar Augenblicke erhellten sich die Winkel. Alle paar Augenblicke bekamen die Konturen der Gegenstände ein Gesicht.

Draußen rollten die Donner über nassen Asphalt und brodelten durch die zerschnittene Dunkelheit. Die Baumkronen taumelten, träge und trotzig, sie suchten Halt; und alles tanzte bei ihnen — bis in die letzten Blätter. Was für eine Nacht.

Ich liebe Unwetter. Wenn alles rauscht und knickt und der Sturm regiert, der Regen die Luft mit seinen Lanzen flutet, die Natur in bizarrer Finsternis mit sich selbst kämpft; dann ist es für mich, als ob die Welt am Abgrund steht und im Begriff ist einfach auseinanderzubrechen, Schluß zu machen mit all dem Theater.

Ich stand am Fenster.

Ich bin nicht gewöhnlich. Damit meine ich: Ich glaube, dass die allermeisten Menschen, wenn sie mich kennenlernen, Vieles sehen und erfahren, das sie so noch nie erlebt haben. Ich mache beispielsweise Dinge, die anderen sinnlos, verrückt, wahnsinnig erscheinen. Und ich mache solche Dinge oft.

Ich stand am Fenster.

Jetzt bin ich im Garten.

Der Wind zerrt an meinen Kleidern und strömt massiv über meinen Körper. Er scheint beständig seine Angriffsrichtung zu wechseln. Ein naher Blitz bricht aus dem Sternenfeld.

Ich will Fußball spielen. Ich will in diesem Szenario des Untergangs ein paar Haken schlagen, imaginären Gegnern den Ball durch die Beine spielen und aus vollem Lauf ins Sträuchertor treffen. Schwerfällig und irgendwie neu sind meine Bewegungen. Wasser und Luft wüten um mich, während ich mit meinen Sohlen über das Leder streichle und mit einem Fersentrick glänze. Manchmal treibt mir der Wind den Ball davon. Der Regen ist schneidend hart und derartig dicht, dass ich durch zugekniffene Augen nur ein paar Meter weit sehe (Vollristschuß!)und so erscheint mir dieser Garten wie eine unerreichbare, gespenstersatte Insel. (Fallrückzieher!) Er ist die ganze Welt, von allem abgeriegelt, von allem gelöst. Ich bin im Exil der Alpträume. (Er sieht die Lücke!) Am Ende der Wirklichkeit. (Golden Goal!) Im Gartenstadion.

Plötzlich überkommt mich ein großes Gefühl von Freiheit. Allein und (für diese traumtrunkenen Momente) ohne Halt in der Realität glaube ich ein gigantischer Vogel aus stählernem Licht zu sein. Ich rufe in das Gesicht des Gewitters. Jedes Wort wirkt wie eine Hymne. Ich lache. Alles ist voll von Bedeutung und Größe und frei von Lügen und Fesseln. Ja! Diese Welt kann ich lieben.

Und dann.

Irgendwann falle ich erschöpft ins Gras. Das kalte Wasser kriecht durch den Stoff zu meiner Haut, legt sich in einem dünnen tropfenden Film auf meinen Körper. Egal. Ich ringe nach Luft. Meine Gedanken. Mein Befinden.

In den Wolken herrscht Krieg. Der Himmel kracht und kracht. Meine Finger spüren die Nähte meines Fußballs. Da sind wir. Drei Freunde im Jenseits der Alltäglichkeit. Ein Garten, ein Ball und ein Mensch.

Ich liege im Garten.

Ich stand am Fenster.

Overload #31

On Current Affairs

Let Them Eat Cake

You have no wood to heat your stoves?
Then burn your dead.

You have no water, the wells are bombed?
Then drink the blood now flowing on the ground.

You once sold oil, now burning in the sky?
Sell Tupperware, or Amway for a while.

And be glad!
Praise the saviors of your land!

They have brought to you
Life     liberty
And their pursuit
Of happiness!

Multi-culti Christmas or
there’s no place like home for the holidays…

We’re in the mood for love,
For peace
Let’s show our heart for fellow man
And trim our homes
With worthwhile things
From foreign lands,
Count the blessings in our lives
We faithful of the global village.

With chestnuts roasting on an open fire
We’ll need a tree.
Freshly chopped or uprooted
From its Scandinavia wood
We’ll nail it
to a wooden cross,
Cornered on the Oriental carpet
In the living room

We’ll deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Hang thin glass balls
Bought from eastern bloc lands
Where people happily paint for less, and
We’ll stick on
sharply pointed straw stars
Plaited by kerchiefed women
Hunched in quaint stables or shacks
In little towns of Kosovo
So grateful for work these days.

When the snow lays roundabout
We’ll boil, bake and broil
A turkey who has gobbled his last
After months of gullet-stretched fattening
Among his Hungarian friends.
His insides will be rammed full of
Tasty, ready-made American stuffing mix
And then he’ll rest in peace
Next to blood-red yams
Discovered among now long-dead Incas,
His place adorned by colorful salad leaves
Cut and sorted by those who speak
A colorful but misunderstood tongue.

We’ll tear open
The packages wrapped
With sprightly Pokemons
Cavorting so far from home.
We’ll admire the cunning devices
For fun and amusement
Made by workaholic Japanese
Who slit their guts in shame
For quotas unfulfilled.

We’ll leave
The carcass of our ravaged bird,
His wish-bone cracked by our desires,
Amidst the carnage of our feast and

We will march
To our church

We’ll sing
And wait

Stamping our feet in cold impatience,
For the knolling of the bells
To tell us of the coming of love.