autumn #5

autumn is for mustard coloured socks
and knitting sweaters
and the smell of roast lamb and rosemary

the grave digger's collection

I don't believe in ghosts
a collection of metaphysical particles
but I do believe in memories
so tangible
it physically moves you

I believe in what I see
and what I see are vestiges
they stain the air
they haunt me
I believe in howling women 
and weeping men
in absence that knits and writhes across faces
in scratch marks in the dirt from clawing nails

I am not a sentimental man
I am confronted with the fleeting nature of life so often it chokes me
but when you've been choking your whole life it starts to feel like breathing
soon, the ephemeral nature of life
seems like the only stoic constant in a man's heart.

I am not a sentimental man
I have seen enough
residual chaos, cold and clutching
I have heard every moribund dirge
every effusive eulogy

I have learnt to breathe.
and now I don't even blink
as I dig a hole to house
a rotting body
I don't blink as beneath me
flesh decays and curdles
as bodies cook in coffins

But every once in a while I do blink
in this labyrinth of finality and fatality
something will catch my eye
will eclipse my determined resiliance
and usurp my curiosity

a body part.
leg...arm...eye...viscera

I'll collect it
my eyes will work quickly
memorising details
texture, shape, dimension

Early one morning
when weak sunlight
bleeds trite anticipation into the sky...

I line up my collection
I take each part out and line them up before my eyes
I inspect them,
a purveyor, a curator 
of sacred items, shriveled and swollen
all rotten but preserved... pickled in my memory
in labeled specimen jars in my mind.


A desperate hand
a clenched fist
fingers wrapped tight

a gluttonous leg
swollen with apathy
distended by disuse
a tumour of anticipation unsatitated

a pirate smile
bright and brilliant
mirthful, mercurial and meretricious 
that dances even in death

the arm of a lover
curved gracefully in anticipation of embrace
nimble fingers poised
to seek, to search, to soothe

a pair of pious knees
aching and stiff with reverence
fecund, fertile faith
wearing holes in the carpet

the breasts of a mother
heavy with procreant urge
with intimacy, nourishment and comfort

the lips of an erudite storyteller 
warm with rambling wisdom and wit
tangential torrents

the feet of a strider
of swift stumbling gait
battered and bruised
but graceful footsteps
clumsy purposefulness

the eyes of an architect
diligent attention to detail
with patterns etched into irises
always seeing the world 
as potential space
delighted by angles and depth


what is this collection of mangled memories
and eviscerated eulogies?
I drag the pieces together, desperate for a sense of order, of purpose
they fit together oddly
with a sense and structure that runs deep into my heart
I am a curator. A collector. A purveyor.
I am Frankenstein.
and my creature, a patchwork of body parts
is my own collection of particles,
my own tangible memories
my own ghost.



(this is the poem I wrote for Liv and my second feast - with the theme of 'bodies')

autumn 4

autumn is for roasted warm colours
sweet potato, red onion, capsicum, eggplant
for the smell of garlic
and bergamot earl grey tea

Autumn 3

Autumn is for rich strong coffee
And home made jams from country towns

The second feast: bodies

I approached this theme with confidence which quickly turned to trepidation which quickly turned to excitement.
I love writing about bodies. It's one of my favourite most fertile muses. It's infused with desire. Physical curiosity. But not necessarily sexual.
A delight, a craving for details. To seek and explore.
Angles, shapes, curves.....
It's very natural, very visceral, very intense.

But then I realised.... The point of feasts of fancy, what I want to get out of it is to explore NEW ways of writing. I always write about bodies in this way. So I should try to expand my limited field of inspiration.

I'd always wanted to write a haunting and intense country style ballad. Like Liz Stringer .... Beautiful and fearlessly intense. And I thought, maybe now is the chance.

I suddenly caught this idea ..... How a body part can represent a person. Or capture a moment, or a story, or a life. I had this idea of a list of body parts and what they mean to different people.
What if someone went around noticing people's body parts, and what they represent. And in their mind they collect them.
How beautiful and intense and haunting could it be if that collector was a gravedigger, who walks through this labrynth of rotting flesh, noticing a clutching hand, a curved arm, a swollen leg, seeking eyes, a warm belly...

That way I could try something different. Write about something familiar in a different way. In the frame of a style I've always wanted to try.
So I started 'the gravedigger's collection'.

Autumn 2

Autumn is for swift stumbling striding gait

For walking so fast with sophisticated swishing skirts

And being so distracted 

That you bump into people 

Autumn is for clumsiness 

And gracefulness 

In equal dichotomous measure 

Autumn 1

Autumn is for red wine and pining
For a beautiful warm bouncing baritone
in a lace skirt and curly hair