Story Dark

Moment when the tongue falls

word by word

is not a poem

a poem is not a child

my child plays 

with the animal figurines

standing the real

against the imaginary

the word

parts and folds 

talks the truth 

about the body

my child cries at bedtime

he asks are you real

I trace his name on his back

with my fingertips

the word

will be a mouth

the true body

at the skin’s edge

we read the one

about the children

who climb down the iron ladder

and hide under the ground

where the words stop

where the rocks open 

and go in the dark

it flows blood

we close the blinds

the dark is outside,

the mountain, the river, 

we bring darkness inside

blood, sky, sun, blood, blood

at the beginning of the story

your name

your own name

In Translation

You are not connected.

You think little

I am a subject (zero object)

It is impossible to hide the secrets, nothing

It's surprising that the stars live far away

We can also say

You are not currently logged in. You are not connected.

That's what you do

You have a composer (gate in my heart)

I go, continue, love and do everything

You can also enjoy the environment

You are not currently logged in

You are not logged in. You are not connected.

It is impossible to hunt the secret, anything

We can say

I am the subject (nothing zero)

That's what you do

I'm going, I'm going, I love and I'm doing everything

You mean a bit

You are not logged in

You are not connected.

You have a writer (my heart gate)

Strangely, the stars are far away

You can also enjoy the surroundings

You will not agree. There is no relationship.

The arrest is wrong

Here's what you are doing.

You are the author (I'm in my heart)

Remote checklist

There is no relationship.

I'm going, going, doing everything

On the topic (no one)

You are talking a little

You can also be satisfied with the environment.

We can talk

You're not connected.

---

Note: each stanza was fed through a line randomiser and then back and forth through Google translate. The poem began as lines taken from my favourite ee cummings poem 

Piéta

after Rilke

And we grow old

Now fill my bowl and the previous thought is

stop being a child.

I scratch like a rock

Naturalness

about the great pain.

It gets hard in your heart.

Now you push against my stomach 

so big.

I am stone. I just know

my heart now completely.

Now I can not go back with you.

The waitress weeps at the all you can eat buffet

Salad bar, cold meat, bread rolls,
hot meat, prawn cocktail,
curries in the bain marie.

Pavlova, trifle, peppermint mousse,
Hot pudding, custard,
bowls of whipped cream.

Dusk. Summer job.
Stationed at the tables

that look across the smoking deck
to the sprinklers on the rolling green
the tennis courts, the bridge over 

the artificial lake.

'Excuse me,' 

asks the woman with three kids. 

'Can you tell me where

the bathroom is?'

'Are you local?' 

the waitress replies.

What she wants to know is:

Is this really all that you can eat?

Ferry Crossing

Time comes upon us in waves
the surge of the dream
the sun is slow and hot
our thoughts are beneath us
we rest to the rhythm
of our own sea-pulse
the sky is blank with forgetting
what we've left behind
the day curves, never arrives,
always departing.

Is this the poem?

this is first thought of the poem

of the thought this is first poem

first the poem of this is thought

this first poem is of the thought 

is this the first thought poem of

is thought the first poem of this

of this poem is the thought first

this is the first poem of thought

Bird Embraced

vale Mirka Mora 

She, who was always a bird,

lived here as a member of our family. We held her,

human-sized,

gently around her neck, wanting her to sit with us

as we watched TV, read the Sunday papers, made pictures,

sewed, mixed a cake, dressed and undressed in the brown light. 

These were the main activities of our home.

On the kitchen windowsill there were lemons,

papery garlic, a cup full of paintbrushes. 

Mother looked out, over the sink, to the tops of trees.

The inside light was the colour of the river

seen from underneath.

Sometimes we squabbled, not wanting to take turns,

pulling her between us, begging her to sleep on our beds, 

eat from our bowls, swim in our baths, shadow our footsteps.

We fought over which one of us she loved the best.

She loved us all silently, the quick heat of her heart 

in her fluttering breast.

We never opened the windows. 

We never left a door ajar.

Nevertheless, the parting.

One morning: an early wind rushed in, 

we woke and knew she was gone.

She was in the tree outside, her eye was closed to dream.

All of them, my sisters and brothers,

were in the trees around the house, 

I ran from window to window, 

pressing myself against the glass.

We had lived together for a long time,

and so I thought of her all that day.

The birds called to each other

to love forever and ever.

I told myself I would learn 

to do everything by feel, walking

the inside walls of the house 

with my eyes closed, clicking my tongue like a bat,

trying to sense the edge of shadows,

the rippling of light,

in the dimness of the underneath.

Phases

(For Emmett, neé Una)

He tells me:

if it’s a phase

it’s one that will shape him

all his days.

What makes a girl?

How do you find 

the end

and the beginning:

The shoulder, the heel,

the crown of the head?

Thirteen years ago

I watched the mirror, 

as frontwards facing,

arms folded like bat wings,

he descended.
Born inside the caul.

it’s a girl, they told me

as if anyone could be certain

about such a thing

unpeeling 

the membrane, 

revealing the face

tipping him into my arms

my body rushing towards him

instinct and adrenaline

love swept me to the floor

in a tide of blood

they stitched me up

but wounds open and close

it’s a boy, he tells me

I ask him:

what makes a boy,

how do you find the end

and the beginning

the shoulder, the heel,

the crown of the head, 

hair cut away 

to reveal a face