Month: October 2011

I couldn’t give a fuck

I couldn’t give a fuck
I couldn’t give a fuck
Yeah whatever, baby
I couldn’t give a fuck

I couldn’t give a fuck what you think about
as you lie alone at night
and I couldn’t give a fuck who you’re thinking of
when you sit alone and write
I couldn’t give a fuck if you’re sad and tired
and shivering in your bed
I couldn’t give a fuck what you dream about
when you rest that beautiful head
I couldn’t give a fuck
I couldn’t give a fuck
Yeah whatever, baby
I couldn’t give a fuck

He said ‘I’ll have another beer, another little pill,
another herbal smoke.
There are problems in this world, oh, and all of them are mine
but your anger’s just a joke.
You’re just another face and I’m facing away
from your stupid fists of text.
Now that you’ve had your fifteen minutes —
meh — whatever — next!
I couldn’t give a fuck
I couldn’t give a fuck
Yeah whatever, baby
I couldn’t give a fuck’

Oh but come back when you’re sober
and come back when you’re straight
When the paranoia’s over
it might not be too late
When you’ve had enough of girlies
who couldn’t give a fuck
You’d better call me nice and early
Cos I won’t be waiting up!
I couldn’t give a fuck
I couldn’t give a fuck
Yeah whatever, baby
I couldn’t give a fuck

of cut country

(Art Gallery of WA Admin Building)

This was built of cut country
by exiled boys dreaming.
The high windows present their mouths,
stone-jawed. On each upper lip, a scroll
is a waxed moustache.

The wrought-iron fence has abstract paws,
marking the land with the Lion’s toes.
Its stemtops are sketches of buttercups,
pistils fisting from their iron centres.

one, two, three, many

(First published in Cottonmouth)

despite and because

I cannot be
what you have lost
and you may not be
what I never had

but still I long
just to hold your hand
just to walk beside you
on the less-walked path

because walking beside you
I am in my place
because dancing beside you
I can truly dance

despite and because
of your depth and dark
despite and because
of your shameless voice
despite and because
of your heartbreak face:

when you are dreaming
you are just so beautiful
that I want to die
since I may not touch

First published in my chapbook q finger (PressPress, March 2011).

When you dance

When you dance it’s as if
you gather the music
into yourself,
into the softness
of your diaphragm and belly,
and smear it through your body,
along the long cords of you —
tendons, neurons, axons, veins
spine, lungs, bowels, hips —
and extrude it down the pipes of your lean limbs.

When you dance you keep your arms
straight by your sides, point and wag
and jerk your hands,
quiver your body like a zephyred leaf,
and stare at your feet, which you shuffle.

When you dance it’s as if your legs
and arms
and eyes
are pulled toward ground
by the music’s grand
unified force. In all my life

you’re the only one
I’ve ever met
who dances
like that.

First published in my chapbook q finger (PressPress, March 2011).