And poor Gulliver says:

when I lay down
your voice        entered
made me                       shiver
with       fingers
that turn         kidney                         liver               and lung

I                   your cadaver                   pinned       alive
so        bloodless                  are you                        you need my body

for                   adventures you             traverse me
with         words
beneath                            surfaces ...
 
 

A dormant thing 
encased in memory
something literal
 

(from) a place where silence collects
(from) a place where words hover 
until pinned upon the page
(from) a place where words hover 
until pinned upon the mind
(from) where nothing is known
(from) where there is congruence.

 
a thought (so) silent
a thought (so) made of nothing
 

its print 
a tiny exotic on white sand 
translucent crab
 

its print
a track of claw
a trace
a sliver of weed
sucked in at ebb point
the stain of bark, 
its tea-coloured mark

the imprint of presence
as a sigh marks a loss 
as shape and air make sound 

The thing that is made 
is not the thing
that it is made of

Rise holding imaginary rock 

The Sacred Heart 
is pinned on the inside
of the heavy door
of our weatherboard
O radiating wound!

In schoolyard years
at biblical dusk
under thundery skies
there are other pictures 
handed-down 
in the fat pack of swap-cards 
epic battles 
gothic landscapes
tall ships on wild oceans
foreign places 
the Taj-ma-Hal
 
 

I piqued the sensory world 
with halos 
of lonely significance
and wretched 
adolescent thrashing

I understood Expressionism
The Scream 
the landscape 
draws the face 
(they are inseparable)

My mother took a deep breath ... ( in-breath)
tested by my  high-pitched intuition
accompanying me 
hand-held and nevertheless 
towards the theatre. (out-breath)

(in-breath) I was highly strung
who wouldn't be?
everyone has to grow up
embarrassed and advancing 
into the dramatic  future

My flower was a heart
made red by a thorn 
already birthing 
images of shock 
I thought deeply about nothing

I was nostalgic
nothing matched the initials 
of meaning inscribed
in that swaying vortex 
where I saw  myself see
heard myself hear
felt myself feel
the unforgettable 

It is night
they are hosing my father
through a window in the bedroom
on a threadbare floor
beneath an electric bulb 

For me the walls fall
for me it seems 
to rain inside

It is poetry.
disjointing and elemental
so eloquent 
it prints my shivering girlhood

I swallowed 
a house

Silent O ... falling  (the scream)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Voice over:

Oh ... Alice 
what fat tears you are leaking 
grown too big 
in your shrunken  mind
inspire air 
reach dark places   that sleep
endure      uncertain meaning
it floats in membrane inscribed exactly
dig at hunger
it is a dark age... 
grieve    Alice       grieve 
the ceiling  descends     below sea level 
each loss passed 
unmourned is lost unnoticed
and bit by bit   you become stupid
you          who occupy the venue
think about    thinking Alice
for meaning withers     without you

I swallowed a house
 

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