After each useless, ephemeral voyage I return

                                                                              to the house

and its quay; I circle the edge before skittling

                                                                            off to the suburbs.


Come to me, I cry, fat plastic and screaming sail,

                                                                                  shining, golden city

cramped and seeping music! Tonight

                                                               my heart’s emptier than a harbour.


I gulp down your murky cocktails

                                                          of diesel and suit.

I drink, drown and return

                                             sharp as a note, sharp


as a particular location in space

                                                      – one

of one million locations – one

                                                   of one trillion locations in space.


I watch the melody collapse

                                                 – looming, stretched, blasting –

it flattens me and I’m spat

                                              out the other side


into pure noise, pure scrunching and there’s Sydney,

                                                                                       the wet black face,

the burning beer intoxicated with its own

                                                                       bubbling tarmac.


Ragged music blows in from the desert,

                                                                   from the sea;

ragged sheet music catches

                                            on a barb. Sydney’s
a barb on a rusted wire;

                                        it pierces currents, leaks tetanus;

it’s the time of day towards which

                                                          we tumble inexorably,


away from which we surge, searching.