TMLYMI v7
Character Shift
I agreed to preserve your double life That requires At family dinners I check with you Before responding Homo-speak is a medical mystery The fluent suffer insidious onset suffer without suffering Your grandma’s brain has dropped lobes and therefore volume …
the cosmic lament costs extra
watched the sky bleed pink last night would’ve made you crack a smile, man hope you still get to know beauty where you are at least enough to see the stars you loved so maybe you drink auroras in your …
Marana/First
ngalga birrung look at the stars / these stars have seen me and our yarabundis old, tired elders / whose gurugal ngubadi long ago love is unlike anything the whitefellas will ever know / ngalga birrung look at the stars …
Green Armour
The ivy of debauchery / is trimmed and stretched wound up to fight the rain / or seem thickened across the struts. I prefer ivy pied and unkempt / troughing water in pelvic cups. / The variety prestigious / normal, …
Consult to me
repetitious tones of consulting are weekly weakening. monotonous Acknowledgments of Country in email signatures. traditional custodians must be rich, been paid that many ‘respects’. Underwhelming paper-pushing white-guilt-projecting ‘Indigenous Stakeholder Engagement Frameworks’ bunch of white-fulla-jargon, with dot-art-for-margins. How numbingly quick they …
on drowning
hey, mister lifeguard watch me smooth little body slick haired seal face not lonely surrounded (slow in the water) i love you goodbye becomes goodbye i love you thinking of it thumbing the rabbit on my neck holding my breath …
Blue Is All
today when the sky wraps around us as blue as memory today when the world is so big and continues to spin today when the birds stutter before beginning their song today when the trees look too tall standing at …
mirrors in coffins
Worried what everyone else thinks Check your hair and makeup, Stare a little longer for a fault Search creases, frizz, and pigmentation Dress down to dress up Leave something to the imagination Tick-tock-tick-tock, You’re running out of time Eyes on …
unseasonable
the warm winds of crisis have never been so stiff or urgent. in a sense it has all already decayed — the droplets of glass on the bitumen crying their lurid song, dual parts warning and anticipation. we are all …
White Girl
When the white girl reads the black poem She is, Dangerous Reckless, Brave, progressive, Aggressive, Like a dog who has just discovered how to remove Her muzzle She’ll stand here, Behind microphone shields She yields, Her pen Armed with poetry, …
Vegemite
Your tongue strikes against my teeth I utter “O” Where you break in Fluxing Transfusing cartilages into my joints You give me acts And visceral satisfaction I breathe in an air of turbulent sweat You give me phrasal verbs You …
I’ve been losing myself at the pool lately
and each time the intercom warbles an unfamiliar name as I search the pool floor, follow lines that end in crosses and dive into holes between tiles, live my entire life in the other pool, ʎllɐuᴉɟ I lᴉʇun ‘ǝpᴉs ɹǝɥʇo …
