Need something to read?

 Need something to read? Preferably not gold-stickered by the Women's Weekly Book Club?

My nicely corporeal boyfriend and reading-machine @timsterne has blog where he is writing about each of the books he reads this year (and other stuff, because that's what is blog).

He is funny and and excellent writer (I'd say I was biased but I thought that before we hooked up anyway), and he mostly reads things I've never heard of so it's a nice antidote to the FTBCOD (First Tuesday Book Club of Doom).

Head over to Respectable Street.

There's also sometimes guest appearances by Luka's ludicrous super-hero figurines.

Unlikely (for Tracy and Mal)

The biggest thing I know is that
we found the most unlikely joy.
Something that was held down
with the left little finger and tapped
upwards with the ring,
screen across screen: at.

When cats are let outside for the
first time, they sniff everything,
open-mouthed at the wonder of grass.
We take in the scent of the loved:
inhale til our lungs shudder,
we keep much of them in us.

Hours are always short, shorter:
dripped then bucketed out fast.
Always, we open our mouths
and breathe in our tremendous luck.
The biggest thing I know is that
we found the most unlikely joy.


- For Tracy Rudd (@ruddygood), and Mal McClenaghan (@skippy_2). My fellow Twitter romance couple. With love, and amazement at our luck. Rest lightly, Tracy.

In the mean time

"I think you might be better served

by a psychiatrist." 

There's grief

in being too honest.
A woman with eyes you'd have
liked to trust, in time.
But it's you - you're not for her
She can't with you
Once more with feeling:
too much
too much
too much.

Poems in the wild #42

Poem #42 (king of hearts) was released at the fossils cabinet near the Thomas Cherry building at Melbourne Uni. I walk past that cabinet every day on the way to the car park. There's a very amusing todger-shaped fossil that makes me snigger every time.

She was down in a boulevard store
a week before my father died
pricing black dresses.
He rattled and refolded the paper
at each turn of page
while her eyebrows grouped.
He was fond of bitter complaining
and coffee cups
dwarfed by his red hands.
She was down in a boulevard store
a week after my father died
ordering modern curtains.

Poems in the wild #41

Poem #41 (10 of diamonds) was released in the change slot in Wilson car park, Flinders Lane, after a day of donating books to the Little Library (if you want some YA novels, get there quick), followed by Schnitz. NOM.

Just a grey dim light,
and then it gets bigger, but slow.
Day comes out from under
the ether. She tastes the
bitter anaesthesia at the back
of her throat, drags up
dawn's worn pair of undies.
We're squinting each other
from the couch and the clouds
Out of somewhere the fucking
sun runs out like a three-year-old
full of knives, jumping and joy
high with burning demand.

Poems in the wild #40

Poem #40 (jack of clubs) was released in the (now covered) beer garden at The Clyde hotel on Elgin St, Calrton, where we were forced to stay for a second drink because of the torrential downpour. Life's tough.

Left it so we could never
go back to it again? I did not.
It was the line of her neck
that stopped me, that freeway
sweep of smooth collarbone
two hollows on either side
cool dark spaces just the
right size to nestle a mouse.
Left her at the landing like
that creature in Double Indemnity
a river of legs noir rippling
in grey down the stair runner.
Left it so my shadow bled
into her sun-backed limbs.