could lose his leg, or his life / skin like green

barley, & curled / the claw we always joked

about, swept onto a railway platform or stored

as one of herzog's toes / another memorable

trimming session, black blood like pudding,

swelling / imagined pop! action & drumming / every

kind of photo or thought, unnoted touch / staring

up at lights / he hair & fingernails, the scar which

wept brown juice in '85. confluence of valleys

or hills / 'wish-fulfilling cow' & plumed birds / stained

notes or poisonous noose, water / the generous lower

lip & broken plastic teeth sat for days on the

divider (beside the hungry ghost of sea &

nina's leash / red leather, studs / &

bloody, thorny stakes as weapons). his body falls

apart in a creative range / some involvement of flames,

moxibustion / collection of air & cold, the bones of

small birds / elegy to porcelain west end night (paradise /

'fire island'). derived from india it occupies the tenth house

& corresponds / buried in a chorten she marked his skull &

dust / the lips, the howling / some kind of prayer & sundry

cloth / magic blue gas he never saw. easy ceiling of men, night /

the famous billabong scene near kalka (king brown in the

drainage pit) / in shorts & arms he monkey-gods;

all digging tools & ice-carts, folding paper bells & babies

hung from yellowed twine, mother as living corpse /

weird trace up north & calling, waiting, weaving through

trees (the white road) / & wet like dirty ice his face & mouth.

24 december 2002