Tidy Clive

“The difference between dereliction and decay…” The shortwave radio hummed and crackled As I fiddled the fine tuning knob And you held the antenna Gripped it with care and strength With your other arm outstretched On a cold clear night You can reach around the world If the atmosphere is right

The blue-lit fountain sat dry and cracked Looking deeper empty than one ever does when full With ghosts of socialites huddled around Repurposed garden beds And you told me who they were While staring at me, in front of the window to the hall You can see straight through Me, and the house, and down the hill If the angle you’re on is right

Slice, my tome And hold on tight I’m bringing you home Exercise For your eyes And my taste fills the gap In between.

I want blood And I get it A wound to pack A point at the bottom of a hole Draws my scowl And your howl To begin.

There’s a sticky spot on my kitchen floor It’s been there for days I’ve learned to walk around it My wife has learned to walk around it Our friends have learned to walk around it Our cats have learned to walk around it (And trick the mice to walk right through it) Our dog hasn’t quite learned to walk around it (Give her time, she’ll get it) The inspector from the rental agency has learned to walk around it The workers from the telephone company have learned to walk around it Because it doesn’t feel nice to step in

There’s a sticky spot on my kitchen floor It’s been there for weeks I can’t tell if it has a smell I’m not that low to the ground I can’t tell if it has a taste I’m not opening my mouth I can’t tell if it makes a sound I’m bathed in white noise I can’t tell if it is visible It depends on how I catch the light But I can tell it has a touch I’m getting used to how it feels to step in

There’s a sticky spot on my kitchen floor It’s been there for months Below it there’s wood That our landlord laid in a lonely haze On a cold foundation Hardened in the post-war grey On the rich dark soil That used to grow fruit And a layer of ground water That flows through the land And much deeper, fire And the centre of the Earth

There’s a sticky spot on my kitchen floor It’s been there for years Above it there’s warm air And the smell of our lives Fogging up the skylight made of stained glass That seals off the attic Your piles of fabric and my boxes of cables A bit more air, a bit more of our lives, slightly cooler And a thin layer of insulation And a thinner tin roof Then the clear blue sky And infinite space

There's a place near the hills Where if you park your car just right It looks like you're rolling uphill We used to say it was magnetic In a way, that's true It keeps drawing my thoughts back to it Every now and then When my thoughts are metallic Ferrous and unpolished Polarised Sharp on the edge Always chasing shadows into the light

My father told me That a bunyip lived near there And I don’t think he knew That in a way he was telling the truth It runs in my family A careless thought That propagates through years It runs through my family Like nuts and bolts With an oxidised air In a tin that’s just a little too heavy To lift by myself

This is a dream in the city

Arrested at 4 am by a streetcar 

Tracing the route of the fault line

You only knew one of those lines when you bought the property

Advertised as there for your convenience

The map’s layers were too thick and you couldn’t see through

You couldn’t peel them back

Fixed, sticky

The messier part of being a city

The trickier part of knowing who to fault

The method is part of getting a result

/

This is your dream in the suburbs

Where I take two trains out to visit you

Grabbing the line and stretching the city out to find you

Where there are more gaps

Too much space, but I’m not sure what is supposed to fill it

Not quite on the ground and not quite in the air

Not quite part of the houses

But not quite in between them either

It just seems like there should be somewhere between me and the sun 

Where some of the light goes

But instead it all comes at me

As if someone draped the sky a little too low

Like the cloth of the ceiling sags in old cars

Maybe I went just a little too far

/

This is our dream in the state park

Mosquitos surveying their dining options along the beach

Vacuuming up the traces of the summer

Trimming the words that fell around the edges

Getting trapped in a revolving door

Mixed up a bit, flung around, sent back the other way

To where taxis don’t go

And you wouldn’t go either

The taste of the lake in the back of your throat

Drops down, leaps up, pushes out

An exhausting display

Of industrial exhaust

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/

This is my dream in the valley

Cradled and warm above the water line

It’s getting rather low

As it’s turned into more wine

And the rocking done by rocky arms

Passes a message through me

Hard and warm

From lines underground

Grabbing and stretching you out to find me

Rocking the water up the sides

Tremoring in my arms

Making tiny waves in my shallow pool

Making it all crash and fall

And send a shiver through me

This is the way that you will pursue me