Melbourne, July 2009
There’s a Nick Cave on every corner
in shock-black hair, hitching up his ill-fitting pants
on his skinny structure, leaning into doorways, smoking
There’s a buttoned-up New York coat and hat
on every block, black or checked, standing straight
There’s a thin face, shadowed chin, sideways look
It’s in all this brick and concrete and cloth
Words emerging like consciousness from the neural net of it,
blasting at my ears in the ice-eyed Nick Cave wind of it
This winter is nothing compared to
Yet it is
First published in Australian Reader