The Bee Hut Read online

  The tastes of Spring

  make my juices roar.

  Where will this

  sweet rotten season

  lead me?

  Will a golden snake’s kiss

  enslave

  or free me?

  The fruits of Spring

  are in the sinning

  The smells of Spring

  send my blood ringing

  The tastes of Spring

  make my juices

  soar.

  My heart

  a spitting passion

  fruit

  I waft

  in this luscious air

  The bright red apple

  hisses like a bright fire

  and sings to me:

  The fruits of Spring

  are in the sinning

  Where will the seeds

  of my lush paradise

  sprout?

  The smells of Spring

  send my blood spinning

  To what peach poison

  is my nose

  stringing me?

  The tastes of Spring

  make my juices roar

  I bite the apple

  I lick the fire

  I kiss the sweet sweet snake

  I die by the sweet Spring’s

  sword.

  CAT WOMAN

  Song of seduction by a woman

  dressed in a red latex cat-suit

  Purr and claws

  Purr and claws

  Like a smoking ghost

  I pass through walls

  Purr and claws

  Purr and claws

  My nine lives

  floating like gossamer

  through the caressing air

  Purr and claws

  I always land

  on your paws

  I am your silky

  black magic

  I am your gentle teasing

  death

  let the witch

  dribble my name

  through her tortured

  cries

  let the witch

  call for me

  call for a gentle

  teasing death

  through the agonising

  fire

  Purr and claws

  Purr and claws

  I am your

  silky black magic

  I am your gentle

  teasing death

  you’re lonely

  without me

  you long for my

  wild soft breath

  Purr and claws

  Purr and claws

  Be my willing slave

  I’ll be your burning

  chore

  I am your

  silky black magic

  I’m the gentle teasing

  death

  you want and adore.

  THE VEILED LADY

  A slow prayer sung by an enormously fat

  woman with a bag over her head

  Lord God

  I am my most nakedly

  yours

  when you can’t see my face.

  Lord God

  I am most open

  to the slice

  of your gaze

  when you can’t see

  my face.

  Lord God

  Lord God

  are you teaching me

  a shame

  that burns like grace?

  when you can’t see

  when you can’t see

  my face.

  Lord God

  I live like a worm

  in this dark.

  Lord God

  my foul and bloated

  flesh

  pleads for your sweet

  surgery

  are you teaching me

  to love

  a shame

  that burns like grace?

  when you can’t see

  when you can’t see

  my face.

  IMAGINATION

  Sung with hypnotising allure by a counter-tenor

  dressed in very dirty black silk pyjamas

  I’m your real world

  I’m your bottomless pool

  of sucking

  black mud

  trust me

  trust me

  I’m so soft and warm

  and dirty

  trust me

  trust me

  you can sink

  so sweet and safely

  right to the calling

  and calling

  bottomless

  of me

  I promise

  I’ll make the journey

  worth your while

  trust me

  trust me

  the dark and fabulous

  things

  you’ll learn and know

  from the dissolving roots

  of your hair

  to the soft slow burn

  of your lost lost

  toes

  the dark and fabulous

  things

  I’ll show

  will never leave you

  will never let

  you go

  I’m your real world

  your bottomless pool

  of black and sucking

  mud

  I’ll seep right

  through you

  I’ll change forever

  your bones, soul

  and blood

  I’m your real world

  trust me

  trust me

  I’m so soft and warm

  and dirty

  trust me

  trust me

  take my journey

  take the plunge

  you can sink

  you can sink

  so sweet and safely

  right to the calling

  and calling

  bottomless

  of me.

  THE BLUEBIRD OF DEATH

  A woman is dressed as a metallically glittering bluebird.

  Her breasts end in sharp points, each breast like a

  raptor’s beak. She sings with a relaxed, deadly irony.

  You live your life

  as if you and I

  share some sweet

  understanding

  You live your life

  as if there’s a secure cage

  for my clipped wings

  you’re planning

  You live your life

  as if some gullible god

  gave you the upper hand

  You live your life

  as if you can hold me down

  and suck me bland.

  (Threatening change of mood and tempo)

  Don’t fool yourself

  my love

  Don’t kid yourself

  my darling.

  Sniff the air

  Test the weather.

  Smell the storm

  of burning feathers.

  Smell the storm

  of our terrifying

  flight together.

  The day we go

  you won’t know

  The place we go

  you won’t know

  You’ll learn, my love,

  you’ll learn, my sweet,

  you’ll learn

  your bluebird

  is not your lover

  is not your mother

  You live your life

  as if you and I

  share some sweet

  understanding

  You live your life

  as if there’s a secure cage

  for my clipped wings

  you’re planning

  Sniff the air.

  Test the weather.

  Smell the storm

  of burning feathers

  Smell the storm

  of our last and final

  flight together.

  The day we go

  The place we go

  Only I will know

  Only I will know.

  LUCKY

 
TRAVEL

  Waiting on a reeking strange

  railway station –

  then the dead-quiet but crowded

  night ferry.

  What country

  did I travel from

  when I was born?

  What alluring bait

  made me leave?

  William Blake

  as he was dying

  craned forward

  towards a country

  he’d always wanted to see.

  His rapturous curiosity

  always

  an unsettling inspiration.

  The Venerable Bede

  embroidered his metaphor

  of the brevity of life

  after watching

  a sparrow fly

  from one darkness to another

  a living flash

  through a torch-bright hall.

  What lives

  keep leaping

  to and fro

  those pregnant black tunnels

  of being?

  On a bold day

  my own footloose

  soul

  can smell a good

  sailing wind –

  the dare

  in Blake’s shimmying-up-the-mast

  last breath –

  and then crawl

  snug and wide-eyed

  into the downy

  undercarriage

  of Bede’s plucky

  traveller bird.

  SISTER-IN-LAW

  For Jenny

  Until I met you

  I always believed

  I lived in an outlaw’s space

  where family remote or close

  could only be

  blood or ghetto

  and any gay,

  determined to make

  their own way,

  will tell you straight –

  blood is no reliable

  home

  nor fix

  against intolerance.

  Until I met you

  I was content

  to keep my Melbourne family

  simple.

  my lover. my cat.

  my books.

  Jenny, believe me

  my cosy grumpy cocoon

  had not planned

  for a sister-in-law

  as sweet, as insistently

  inclusive as you,

  to release me from my own

  lonely prejudice too.

  LUCKY

  For Andy

  There’s a damp melancholy

  in T’ang poetry

  that smudges

  the lovely jade

  precision.

  I love Walt Whitman’s

  spunky company

  but under his bardic

  whistling

  I can hear his lonely heart

  howling

  at the turned back

  of some deaf rough trade.

  So many poets

  starve

  in the cold faery spaces

  between their frost-bitten ears.

  How lucky I am

  to hear you, darling,

  coming up the stairs

  to smell the coffee

  floating ahead of you

  like my favourite incense.

  FOSSIL FERNS

  For Rachel and Sam on their wedding day

  When the shy garden

  of fossil ferns

  indelibly inked

  in my sandstone path

  was frond-green

  and under dinosaur foot

  it was a hotter different world.

  Things change –

  but some beautiful things

  even in their changing

  wondrously remain.

  Like the magical space

  that love creates

  where strange

  even fabulous

  plants can grow –

  not to mention

  a thundering hungry reptile

  or two.

  I won’t say

  best of all

  the humble fern –

  I like a pterodactyl

  in the hand

  as much as any girl –

  but how lovely

  to watch over a lifetime

  these exquisite fern amulets

  unfurl.

  LAST ARIA FROM THE ETERNITY MAN

  From a chamber opera composed by Jonathan Mills

  I always knew

  Eternity would smell

  Like a cold salt wind

  I always knew

  Eternity would be

  A wild a wild

  sea

  A wild sea

  That will climb

  The highest cliff

  A wild sea

  That will growl

  Through the rocks

  A wild sea

  That will hiss

  From the deep

  A wild sea

  That will come

  When I call

  A wild sea

  I will hear

  And smell

  Like a lover finally

  Climbing

  In the window

  I would never open

  A wild sea

  Coming wave after

  Blue-black wave

  For me.

  Oh my valley of briny vision

  Take me

  In your salty arms!

  Let my own soul’s tide

  Rise and Flood

  And rejoice.

  * * *

  How can I write

  On water?

  Do the fish

  Do the giant squid

  Read?

  How can I write

  On water?

  There is only

  One mortal place

  Left

  No angel is ever

  Unadorned

  To go before

  His maker.

  VIEW FROM 417

  The sky – twilight sky –

  is a wisping blue

  friendly and unearthly

  I’m not sure where I am

  The buildings my window

  lets in

  have an art deco look

  of white flat squares

  with art deco design

  flourishes

  exorbitantly flamboyant

  for a hospital room

  landscape

  Something in me

  despite everything

  can’t believe my luck

  26 November 2008

  , Mercy Private Hospital, Melbourne, Room 417