The Geranium Hotel Poems

I am the chief of the elements It's a small world I no longer know where I have been What flowers I have smelt along the way I have known love more intense Never a laziness in regard I will sit on this hotel bed Looking out into the universal space Trying hard to hear the birds as they fly by It is rare that I am so alone And I check my phone for messages Check my technology for god Seeing if I still really care If waking up to a room full of people Beats waking up alone The machines all strum together Leaving nothing for me to do I will give up this season, this hemisphere I will give up this faded love And track back to when I was diseased And whispering an intense love When I knew so much in ignorance Now forgotten with education and stagnation I want to swim out to the breakers Swim out to my questions That all got washed to sea I sit here on the hotel bed, thinking of the indigenous What was stolen, returned, given and taken again I think of the p...

This is the poem titled Japan Full of rage towards the city I will never know your streets The heartbreak of your command Naked men bathing with bamboo in the wind Cymbal on the wall Characters of gold and earth I want to find your ancient name Your coloured demand There is laughter with this meal No angry silence full of dreams unfulfilled The trout swim well The rocks do not suffer water And here in this Jungle of earth I look for time unspent Train whistles moving further away A moan in the sleep never mistaken for bliss I wish to bathe your sweet skin Smelling of promise and history I wish to walk further I don't know anything anymore I am colourless, bruised A storm cloud moving over the garden My hair gets longer, the children sing The days get shorter, the old people argue I have nothing to say about these new times Can I be your gun? Can I sit in your holster? Can I answer ask you questions As I lay fruit at your temple Sit below your alter I ...

I can't get over any sort of past So all I do is walk in the garden I no longer write any more words My shelves are already too heavy The city's paint is still wet And the urine is salty I assaulted the stars until the sun came up And I found myself covered in sand Brilliant ocean Your floor is covered in weeds I want to walk in your garden I write no more words Look at all those trees So large and happy to be in this heatwave I will give everything away The heat in my groin The lines on my palm The salt on my lips The light in my eyes I am the drifting club of haiku borders The motherless country of Japan I will walk through the garden I, like Rome, was once so loud Now there are no more words Just Bell-Flowers and forests Churches that mean nothing And walls that decay The past is the new horoscope And I listen for the plants as they try to break free

I think I've seen your lips before On an advertisement for some old testament You've the mouth of a lioness Yet you speak the language of a dove Fame and Fortune will come to your door But only after you have been buried It is written on a highway sign In a state where the Summer is peaking I have a funny feeling That you know too much about me And I know what you keep there in your pockets Between your cock and polished rosary You see your ancestors in your reflection The rotten fruit on a golden tree And you come away with great lights in your eyes When you dream of the fires in the hills Can I hold your hand while you shiver? Kiss your fingers while the boats are taken by the tide? I will listen to your fever's poem And travel with you through the perfection of illness I've never thought too much of marriage And you have never spoken highly of love But together, we are naked under one blanket We are the heroes of high-noon, the brightest pa...

When it gets too bright We will steal some dark sunglasses Put on our white collared shirts And you can quote Rimbaud "Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers, Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue : Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds. Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue." We can look at the sky and watch the birds Kick the red dirt on the road Our shadows will invoke the night The ocean will freeze with our whispers and conversation The clouds will curl and sour When they hear our songs, our poems Spoken from the reddest and plumpest of lips Thrown at each other's bosoms, thrown high, caught low Words that shall blanket us in grey Words that shall cover us in sweet love  Words that shall feed us and keep us running away, together Words that shall embed our age, with memory ever lasting Poems of deep emotion, lying in the sand Words of freedom, moving in our palms Thoughts ...

The cabinets are full of medicine The schools are full of books The ink is fresh upon the ribbon Safety should be on the lips of all the boys! I heard the church resound with prayer I tasted the tea sweet with sugar I saw the cloud break with light Safety should be in the dreams of all the boys! The streets are empty of dogs so vicious The alleys empty of thieves so cunning The copses empty of vagrants wandering Safety should be the chant for all the boys!             What is medicine when the disease is in the heart and cock? Your books teach nothing of love or the damp embrace of the curve  Ink shall always dry upon the ribbon, like water on the hot rock Safety is hell when love is vacant  We will pin the rosemary to our chests and burn your church to the level of the grave We will taste the sweetness in the kisses of one another in the morning of these new days The clouds can be dark, the clouds can be light, it ...

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...

Dear Donald Friend Where are you when your country needs you? The angels are bordering the neurotic legends and all of the rats are sinking through the water like hands into pockets We are the information givers The velvet men who feel With purposes not yet forgiven- for which we are alone in houses watching fires spill onto hearths We wonder why should we be forgiven? Why should the destruction of our lives be reason for art? Oh, Donald Friend, we are the honest ones- men who who don't know the real meaning of existence and probably never shall, yet we go on searching until right becomes left and life leaves us alone Donald Friend as I write I am sitting in the National Library of Australia I know what their drawers contain I know what treasure lies up those elevator shafts I burnt down the Art Gallery for you on your birthday It was a day that no birds flew and no words were written. The taxis were all still and I was half awake I burnt it down for you as they h...

I heard a voice come from the way What it said I could not say The words flowed clear and sang out strong Yet my mind felt confused- it felt strange- wrong. A whole year passed from when you left where did you go? What heavily lit trail did you take? A moment passed, a breath, a flicker of time And I grew old, no longer watched by the blossom on the branch I am a single man with eyes behind glass A soul who should know better than to glance behind to see his full spine bursting with memories to try and look at the vertebrae of years And to distinguish which ones hurt the most To slip them back into place amongst the dull and placated The skin on my hands it is cold The childhood wasn't bought nor sold A naked boy pissing as the storks take wing A cello leaning with its tendril, its broken string The darkness of the television sets The mere blackness from the night regrets I can't listen to the sound of embrace I won't feel the pulse of a year ...

A sailor hat and a trenchcoat farewell One side of the apartment dedicated to the shifting mood A star, a mirror a pause to stare If you owned the whole of Chelsea what would you change Ha! misplaced your birthday? Or just your mother? A camera in your pocket with the crumbs of a cigarette Sweet youth with sweet lips where kisses explode If you were the king of New York would you have a queen? If you were the prince of Coney Island would you have your own Ferry Or just sit on the shore and think of Demuth? And what of rock and roll? what of love? what would you hold on to? Crowns grow cold when not worn Film cut in half and hair shorn short Did you believe that when you walked into a room eyes moved? Did they? Were you their sweet young thing? How well read would you be if you didn't have that presence? Your baby, your plunging sweetness The girl who had the sweet tooth who nursed you While you had your teeth removed What did you have hidden in your room? A s...

Sing the industructable piano song towards my big fat head! I need it between my legs before I go to bed! Wave away my flies Wave away my flies Let your pale white digits do the walking in the cavity Let your mind run wild with its unlocked depravity I am lying here smelling cigarette smoke and old cologne Lying here thinking of where I’d like to poke my bone What a theatrical show! Beneath the snow! One of natural woe! From head to toe! Look at you boy, you are the son of death All scars and fur, the part of the beast Look at you boy, you’ve lust on your breath And baby, I wanna be your feast The lightening it hits the town, lighting the spire and angering the snarling angels Oh, a stranger, I don’t believe we’ve met! My name it is purity, but my middle name’s regret The pavers move up and down we better stomp quietly Better take off the bells from our sleeves Better not make a scene and put a stop to this revolution! Those angels will see us Those heavily armed angels, blushin’ snar...

Who’s afraid of Virgins and Wolves? The smudge became a portrait of Picasso And a glass elevator was lowered into the water An ancient king inside How was he to breathe? In portraits lungs aren’t the only organs How is he to win the accolades? In autumn pictures aren’t the only portraits Do not condescend, I am epileptic, I am sober Do not hold forth the barrier I have cascaded through sturdier doors Through great sheets of glass I have fallen Naked and shaking Braking the bones that mend Tearing skin on diamond glass Do not condescend And the police force, they appealed ‘We are men, why are we not allowed to kiss’ And the catholic schoolgirls appealed ‘The officers are men, let them kiss before us!’ And the pope looked out his frosted window He looked out his frosted window He grabbed his lowered crotch He clasped it in his bejeweled right hand He marveled at the world outside his frosted window He wondered what his brother The Count would do Poor Dracula, long buried with cape an...

A day of waking up leads to a day of breakfasts good breakfasts ones of nudity beneath dressing gowns birdnest hair and blurry eyes hot coffee and not too hot Earl grey Toast, eggs, bacon, tomato, mushroom pane tostato, uova, pancetta affumicata, pomodoro, fungi... a cigarette a smile some Brahms maybe some Vivaldi and then afterwards a simple day of reading and smiling and thinking of the day before