a performer's prayer please today, let me play let us align let my throat soften and my tongue fall let my breath be easy and let me bring and let me sing please today, let me play

life began with a sound be and all became we decorate our lives with sound we try  to mark time  with scrapes and whispers and screams i would bleed and bruise for you i would stare into your face as you turn beetroot red and mark your time with ululation and vibration as the crane cries and lifts me, full of surprise and wide eyed shock i would step off the mountain and dance on the clouds that you make.  as you whisper instruction i would blindly acquiesce yes all this and so much more billow on your sound pray for so much more and be content with anything strike the string with flesh if you strike it right it grows the way a body hits the water or thunder rolls i am contained  but i can dance there is a rhythm that can't be swaddled and you find it, in your plastic, creaky, stained keys with ancient lights and unwelcome obtrusion  with your insensitivities and artless grace you create (but you don't; you enable and raise and explain) that pulse god, can i ever thank you enough for those minutes of immersion for that recollection with conception for that ruination of being; god, can I ever thank you enough you made me cry great clouds of sound billowing a throbbing that began in my sacrum and lit up my spine like an evergreen pine heavy with luminous breath you made me cry tears welled and I was embarrassed and had to turn away hold my fists to my eyes like a child and sniff and snort like a widow at a grave you made me cry because through your patient placement and childlike holding i saw something like heaven and I knew that the journey back would take years

"eating food just makes you hungry for more food." she sighed and played with  her  fork.  with her finger she drew circles and crosses  in the sauce  shallow in  her  bowl.  she was thinner than when we last met. in the cavernous shadow of the western  freeway. and that time I swore that I wouldn't let her go. but she texted that night from an airport lounge and sailed away like a breath. loved a man who worked in a  fishery on the banks  of a great lake. somewhere with mountains and  mirrors of forest and cloud. what called you back? i asked and held my breath and she sighed "i don't know." and she stopped swirling in her sauce.  stared.  "words.  i couldn't keep running from the words. you know? i need to make the words fit. you?" well, I was at a loose end.  and here is close to my mum.  she still has all my stuff.  all my life in pink plastic boxes piled in her attic  and her shed.  all my life  in  pink  plastic  boxes.  "that's a bit embarrassing.  i've rid myself of that baggage." and she looked like she had. translucent, almost transparent.  barely anchored and ready to fly  away again  on the next breath. and i knew.  i had  to leave.  i gotta go i said. standing, she stopped, briefly  "oh. that's a shame.  i had hoped we could, you know..." the words dangled.  her thin hands hung limp from  dark braceleted wrists.  nah.  i gotta go. i have a life to unpack and discard. and I gotta go.  "ok. well.  this was nice.  it's a shame." yeah.  k.  bye.  and the sun outside felt warm and glorious so  i  ran. a mountain  a marriage strong arms and quick words blood on blue  pointing and pierced  wholly engaged and red banded when the mountain sings and strings and the words torrent smile bursts like a huge glowing sun burn me i love you i love you i love you i love you

all of a sudden orange all of a sudden pain all of a sudden tears of rage and rain and rain and rain all of a sudden terrible all of a sudden tell all of a sudden nasty names and your own deep private hell but all of a sudden held quietly in check all of a sudden reserved all of a sudden all held all back so much much more than you deserve and all of a sudden i’ll forget your name and one morning wake all in light and all of a sudden unbiddened unburdened good night good night good night

and we kissed my god we kissed the smell of red wine and the taste of cigarettes  we willed the world towards birth and beginning and we struck the earth upon her hide and said turn! start turning!  there's stories to be made! adventure to be lived! exalt! new love! new love! and when I woke to news hysterical and tragic  two sons executed by firing squad and a families' last hours and no matter how heavy their tears and no matter how they tried to grip the hours fingers grasping wet sand as the tide sucked the crushing weight of hours becoming minutes becoming second becoming moments becoming BANG! as we kissed they wept, inconsolable for a brief second I felt an entangled world where birth springs from death from birth from death from birth where lovers will blossoms and gardens to grow and mothers scream and lean into the fury of time where cities burn and mountains shake and lives are saved and snuffed and remade in every moment second minute hour minute second moment second more a screaming white noise fury of sound and vision and lives oh to make gardens with you and watch the flowers bloom

i remember waking early and tired, willing the hours to pass until i could call you and hear your tight voice repressed and frantic and sexy as fuck and how my heart would sprint as my phone rung like a bell struck oh fuck maybe it's you we can meet clandestine discreet because your friends couldn't know but public so you could flee when the great jelly mass became too hard to hold and the edged details couldn't be managed anymore and i would linger over the tiniest details of your latest misadventure naked new year dancing and gross propositions  throwing up in public toilets  and fuck the endless lies fuck the endless lies fuck the endless lies and now again we swim through cloudy summer air i'm stomping paced belligerent our long and sad affair from a first floor balcony we colluded and spun like alabaster tops, violent and brittle and i jumped  hands held knowing you couldn't remain alone and you couldn't and you didn't  you never dared you never tried fuck your endless lies fuck your endless lies fuck your endless lies and there's too much left unsaid as i caterwaul and twist through great unknown cluster mysteries of dank constellations and swirling gas galaxies screaming your angular trajectory gathers dull stones with blank and simple faces and you leech convinced of your fecundity denying your vampirism fuck your endless lies fuck your endless lies fuck your endless lying

she lives on artificial colours and doubts every word capable of ffffiiilth but demure like a confessional (as if a porcelain face wasn't enough) what she doesn't know she will unsure, stepping like a crane careful careful unrealised what will it take! how long! time lapsed and blooming dizzy, I spin stars make circles and a woman, centred, seated realised and whole administers like a gentle god tends head bowed demure but looming, patient  but quick  light, dark, golden, gray  so much and so much more motes as she settles ranges sing and dogs call she breathes and the air... sighs lost for words and lost for rhyme we writhe but sssshhhh her breath is the air and we settle; dense, dumb and silly content to wait and joyful in her shaded slumber

the sea? the sea can burn let the great fire consume it let the sun crash into it’s heart steaming, boiling and screaming a thousand souls crying quickly at once  and a million more whimpering in their beds let the sky know all my secrets even the ones that i reserve just for my love it will cover it’s face in shame and we will live under grey clouds and rain for all our days til we cough up our lungs and fold like cripples deprived of her affection let the moon be seen blood red and sense consuming huge beyond comprehension and mad froth inducing pregnant and urgent a mother to be, turgid ready to torrent a tide of plundering vitality leaving a barren wasteland where once we fought and cried like dogs

it's easy with a full belly to take a higher road pause and breathe and reflect suppress the howls of the inner insects and the stirrings of the great snake but where hunger screams, for spiritual satiety, for warmth, for love, for belonging, for home.  then how how can we judge the frenzied slayings, the frantic fucking, the drunken screams and the meth driven beatings when an animal is mortal wounded and soul starved and thrashed so the breathe of a breeze is  like ground glass on raw flesh then how? how can we judge it's  violent screams?

this anaemic senator stands surrounded by angels that are an invention and she mumbles and she mutters: a product of years of cultural inbreeding and political professionalism: a blight that blathers as the world burns while earnest, open faces lift their eyes like suns their potential boiling away and the world burns

every morning starts this way on a different planet from yours the day lies ahead a gray rubbery ocean and somewhere beneath my thick skin blubbers a giant disappointment  - WHERE'S MY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?! darren shouts at the radio from the shed my other brother the stuck up cunt has his own car he goes to the movies whenever he wants he can afford to drink at the pub me and darren and dad sit in the fucking shed and the dogs bark and the neighbours scream and we turn up the radio and fuck them - FUCK YOU! can you see the waste from where you live? i hate going to the dole office i feel like a fucking dickhead i can make things i can drive but i can’t fucking type and i can’t fucking play niceandsmilelikeagrinningdickheadinabuttonedupshirtandiwon’tgetahaircutandthefuckingtattoosaren’tgoinganywhere so why do you keep asking it doesn’t make it betterbludgerwankerlazyfuckingmaggot some mornings i can’t breathe because it’s so tight it’s so tight around my chest and i want to swim up and i can’t and i can’t breathe and i cry quietly so they can’t hear me and they can’t give me any shit and – DON'T BE SUCH A FUCKING WHINGER dad says i’ll feel better after my first beer and better after my tenth and when everything around me is a blur and the fence is higher than it should be and the ground arcs away like a mountain andtheni’llfeelbetterand LOOK WHAT I DID TEN IN TWO HOURS i could do twenty before dinner and some bongs and it’ll be okandthenit’llbeokthenit’llbeok no fuck off i can’t today i have an interviewaninterview WHERE’S MY FUCKING SHIRT?! WHERE’SMYSHIRT?! IPUTITOUTLASTFUCKINGNIGHTWHERE’SMYFUCKINGSHIRT?!oksorryok interviews are rooms full of cunts look at themcuntsfuck i hate this i’m at the bottom of an ocean and i can’t swim up andit’ssotightaroundmychest yeah mate i can make things i can be thereanytimemateanytimemateicandoityeahok sit by the fucking phone like waiting for a girl to callfuck yeah mate well i could do it on a differentday like anytimematei icandoit yeah no worriesCUNTFUCKINGCUNTfuckfufuck they can’t hear my in my room but i can hear them - WHERE’S MY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?! - YOU GOING TO SHUT THOSE FUCKEN DOGS UP??! - GET FUCKED! MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS YOU STUPID OLD BITCH! FUCK YOU! but they can’t hear me and they can’t feel the weight there’s nothing wrong with me only dickheads work but they can’t feel the weight and we pool like silver and tin and we’re a mirror all arse about and you can’t see the waste from the planet that you live on and it’s so tight around my chest and i can’t swim up and it stretches away grey and they can’t hear me they can’t hear me they can’t hear metheycan'thearme i just wanna get out of here i just wanna job i just wanna get out of hereijustwannajob ijustwannajobijustwannajobijustwannajob

bind protect your wearing edges battalions of weathered worn ancients spines lifting and frayed dust deep and golden leaved fragile dead to all intentions and purposeless crushed corridors and cupboards vanilla stink mass graves and rescued cardboard coffins this is where it ends you have been fingered and eaten inhaled and adored if you were lucky perhaps you were only a prestigious decoration but be thankful that you weren't consumed then regurgitated twisted and false from an attorney generals office or some similar brainless backwater be pleased i hope that you give more pleasure to a time rich toddler making shaky steps and gifting life where her hand falls i hope that you are loved but i can't lie i don't think we need your armies the war is fought now on glowing pale quads through wire and telephonic exchange though even those weapons are creaking and old our armies are of light and they stink of angels you are fashioned of old dead wood too too mortal and i can't stand it anymore goodbye goodbye goodbye

in the hard blue light the soft red meat flashes by and he lets it fly, despairing he understands why his mother, like a melon swollen her trembling legs stepped out onto the thin long line that narrowed and vanished into a blue grey horizon why she crouched in the stinking fish hold, tried to hide herself as poles of light wrung the wet air kept her head down as paper was scratched and stuffed with chicken scratch blue and black scrawls and stern faces furrowed and unmarked hands pulled shoving sometimes tearing occasionally caring and why she waited for years behind the fence her tiny dark eyed boy always there she fled a country where tomorrow's meal was never guaranteed bent double in a field where a broken arm could mean where one failed season could mean where one missed payment or one raised voice or one foot wrong or just about anything it seemed could mean the end and how did he arrive lost inside the unrealised dreams of a swollen, sandalled woman? yesterday a man was dragged into the big machine they cleaned him out and within hours it seemed the machine roared again like a great steel mountain like a huge shaking wall of metal and pastel and blades and carnage and death last week a lady broke her arm when some railing collapsed she was sent home and she won’t be coming back how is it he's still here? his situation nearly as fragile as if he stood calf deep in the rice paddies of his mother’s village why does he stay and why every day negotiates the blood slick grated floor? for the sun which lies nestled under one huge blanket in the second room he stinks of offal and death the door squeaks on stained hinges and the floor complains as it bows for the warmth of her touch the huge brown eyes the - daddy? whispered sleepy as she hears him