rather buoyant to throw around a word like ‘paradise’

but I’d take bats ova beeps & bastards any day—

               & greens, flakey tans & periwinkle eeks
somewhere in another dimension, a silver commodore zips

past a window & a nuttelex-haired passenger w/ red glasses

throws the head back & laughs

                                                                 o 2 b Zooming through a saturday morning

                                                                 w/ such verve / or any morning really / or w/ any verve
my lungs are so full of muck & I cough

                                                     & I cough

                                                     & I did this

                                                                                   to myself / almost w/ purpose & w/ good reason
this place—one time (or still)—a colonial birth canal: water-rush-quote/unquote-“purity”
                              Semi-Divine Anxieties! o drown thy selves in washtubs

                                        filled w/ paper bark or faecal matter

                                                  & what matters may matter will matter will mattress
is opaqueness hidden meaning or

                              an attempt to not be found out so quick?
                                                                                \\ focus shatters
                                                                                                    whatever peace you found here

                                                                                                    is it here

                                                                                                    was it ever

                                                                                                    will it be

                                                                                                    enough to Void thy Self, who,

                                                                                                    like pollen in the wind will

                                                                                                    tumble dry on high speed,

                                                                                                    up & down wind shafts

                                                                                                    losing what amounts to

                                                                                                    a finger or a toenail, before evtl.,

                                                                                                    settling somewhere else.



 This poem was written for a site-specific event run by Osmosis. It was heard by listeners in Lachlan’s Swamp

in Centennial Park, Sydney, on Gadigal Land, July 2020. ↩