The Geranium Hotel Poems

Im found turned up on the couch Next to you while you watch Bond I have the land of Oz under my tongue There is no where for this day to run Except out I can touch my own sense of daily pattern And I know this town like I know my own information I can hear the music I want to hear And I feel myself grow bigger In every way Sulky countries aren't too far away One tin plane and one dead month I can hear the moments and I don't know if you will get the postcard I know where the sun is I know where it will set There is every chance I will wish at least one wish tonight And with all those horses waiting for their riders It makes me wonder It makes me think of what is best And the drummer shouldn't worry Like the blue eyed that scan the page looking for the saved soul We can find it Planes fly a long way We walk along dirt paths And the crescent eyes are guided by words that are said to the hills I can think of the sun I can think of the speakers Spanish...

An education, it seems, is needed For me to learn that I am not a sunflower Greek Jew An education, it seems, is needed For me to know that I am not an infinite German of happiness An education is needed For me to know what the beauty of rent and geraniums are For me to be able to tell you what music is What art to like and what birds to watch flying across the morning sky An education is needed for me to know When to stop loving you To keep my discipline in shape To keep my suits sharp, and clean and neat An education, it would seem, is needed To tell the difference between Cohen, and Burroughs, and John Wayne's ghost To know when to plant orchards or cement To know when the stores are closed And when and why their windows will be smashed An education will be needed For me to know when to wait by the cemetery In the sun, in a woollen cap, grey eyes looking at the grass An education, it seems, is needed For me to discuss the voodoo media with my father For me...

I will keep this poem simple For all you poetic fools I was somewhere in Africa In a hotel without ghosts Death looked down From his balcony He was cool, blue eyes, and bald I stood beside a pool without water Looking at him on the seventh floor I had a hundred american dollars And a book of american poems He knew what I was looking for I did not understand what he saw Maybe he had a woman naked on his bed Sipping her tea or sucking pomegranate seed Behind me I knew was a continent Full of assumption and age About to be consumed by my own desire To see where history started (Yet I find myself becoming abstract) I turned my vision from death And turned it to the sky The weavers were silent The Stalks sat sighing on the roof An iron bar that held up a burnt light Was their perch They did not have a master Yet they knew that I was there They knew the blood that was in me Was tasty and full of spice They knew my heart was traditional And my ribcage made of go...

We swallowed the stars So we could spit tiny asteroids We burnt the geraniums So we could smell of history's fire We walked against the wind So we could hear the door of Olympus close We climbed the Kenyan hill So we could see what was abandoned with care We kicked at the pumice and ash So we could remember Pliny We swam naked in the ocean So to link the old and new countries We lit the candle of religion So we could see the hand to hold We packed bags and built a castle of clay So we could hide from the angels screaming We caught the birds and tied them to the mask So they pulled us to the shore We read the books on how to love So we could recognise the temperate changes We left Greece, for Spain and Spain for a dollar So we could walk to France We made love together, alone, in the dark So we could see if we would change We stole a small boat and could see new colours at night So the dark was all velvet, the water was green We hugged chest to chest for...

Things are changing, not just the light The static is growing louder and Russia is growing closer Here, down south, I sit and admire the sun that stains skin I wonder about the size of spears and I wonder when I will travel Where are the ships that will take me? Should I follow the path to the harbour to wait Or will someone come knocking when the time comes? My door it is covered by fast growing ivy My shoes are still brand new I know the birds that come to my garden And I spy on the neighbours as they do the same Things are changing, yes The horse paddocks are close, yet I no longer go there I wonder what sort of men go there now What sort of men would take me if I was eighteen once more What would we do... you can see so many stars at the horse paddocks Before these days arrived I would have analysed my thoughts I would have taken my favourite dreams and bred them with my fantasies I would rubbed in some oil paint, some spit and some family history And written ...

The boys drive the cars their mother's drove They have emasculated them, hardened them Sawdust settles on the lips of the men As their hair falls from their parts and gets blown back Tradition is a venture for the economically wise Everyone knows heaven comes at a price Fashion is an art that happens when no one is watching To judge our nature is to wish we were born in a future age Lost in a desiderata amongst words unfound The problem has solutions as we know and all medicines expire In my coma I saw the way to the long, long death- in waves The abandoned clothes were left for the cramping limbs As we watched the flames strangle the feeling, we pulled glances up from the ground And all the crowd gathered to take pictures of the black night No one could have stopped the recollections of the youth We realised nothing had changed in the tenses Nothing could have stopped those birds from roosting on the ledge The marshes are drying and the houses can now be built ...

Living on a crest, I guess it is nobody's fault The red line leading me to the choking gasps Every picket in every fence could be a new letter in the alphabet A look from you could be a cigarette freshly lit The music winds down and I can smell the soap on your skin You are losing weight but it's what you like to do I have been stacking crates of beer for money, but I can't seem to do it right Every time I cut my tongue on the words I swallow I spit the blood on your garden I can hear the motors rev, they sound like the cold voices in an old folk song I want to read your letters again, I want to see your tan I want to tell you about the trees that grow in a land you will never visit A moth flew into your drink but you still drank it You saved the insect with your finger, drunk with thinning blood A ghost tried to watch you piss but it was too fat to fit through the door You tried to steal my shirt but you had a change of heart It's what you like to do ...

The absurd brothers Oily hair leaving marks on the window You know what's chic, you know when to run The Indian can't grow a beard but he can drive the bus Fingers are cold and the bath is empty You wish your mother looked like the singer You wish the summer would start The glass was smashed and it looked like ice All the shards were frosty blue The comic ink stained the concrete A ferris wheel will make your blood thick Magic came out of the fox's hole And you heard a banjo, you thought you recognised the man in glasses Are you going to apply for the job Are you going to insist that you meet the dying poet? You know you are handsome when you are polite But I think you know you can be smug And let's not forget we all reflect too much On what we all practice on So the evening will come soon, but the summer is shy I have to go too but I will leave you my folk records And I know you can store pictures of me Behind the drawers or beneath the perfume...

Roses bobbing on sighing winds Love games upending gutter flowers Holding heads high but buried in song Seasons crouched, uncomfortable, lost in material New days mixed with black soil Missing children fading in rhyme Deep lines lingering below the pulling tide Chapters unread telling stories of what will happen How will the mood hit you in your wisdom? How will the realisation face you in your sleep? To grasp the warmth of day means your back is turned All the creatures drag their voices out onto the street We can hear the fingers tap against the pane Do you rejoice in the echo against the evening? The bones creak and we acknowledge the old books The roads are all newly tarred and they slowly melt in the sun The heat hits us as we touch this continents shadow Didn't we chose this madness in the store? This electric red that paints our cheeks Ruby rich and full of wisdom We once knew everything of the tide, of the water We once knew of the fish that swam eas...

Pulling at the rope at your feet The whole mountain will stay out of reach But the connection will be uncovered And the space between will grow shorter A song composed for years combined Will not impress the ears much younger And the secret servants will clap the flame higher You have to pull that rope Do you believe in the mice that chewed the strings? Do you believe in those judgements of bravery? There are too many holes and not enough blankets So there will be shaking tonight A dark unimpressed cloud over the school of thought Poison works fast but influence is faster Grown men look down with the curiosity of birds We had our chance to die, we could have seen the mountain fall Eternity may have burnt out its wick Yet we still force ourselves to walk alone Animation still burning our blood like ice falling against our necks We wake up growling like animals, scratching at one another's flesh The only lust we still maintain is to walk and run from rock to ro...

Sandwiched between regret and some kind of love Where the layered leaves of autumn fall The damp stars all glide over such a mouldy moon And our ships were christened by the naked man- called Salvation Our Wisdom was king and we heard the sirens string section Yet we did not know where we could go that day We just merely sat there with frozen limbs and fortune was plagued by Nemesis Who could we seek underneath that mouldy moon Who would paint us as we sacrificed that which we held excellent and new Between that which we chased and that which we could not believe in The arrows within our compasses all pointed upward against our pockets And the string section was played backwards as the soft skin changed colour in the heat and light But the rules had been written by Salvation and the granite had been carved The dreams had been lost to night and no one could remember The knives were as silent as the saints, the angels were loud as they fell to the water As they rolled i...