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Sunday 2 November 2008

texture

You're hard. I'm soft
I'm found
You're lost
This love what cost

I was hard before
But I saw much more
Opened up my door
You fell on my floor
This love what cost

It started out
Full of hopeful doubt
But the doubt won out
Now the hope has flown
And you're on my floor
Like you were before
And I close my door

Now I'm hard
Your loss. This love what cost
This love what cost

Wednesday 29 October 2008

feelings

It doesn’t touch my inner heart
It never did
It cannot hurt me
If I never open up
It will stay sealed
never healed

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Sex in the shower is over rated.

Showers are an adventure. I have some fond and not so fond memories of shower encounters. For instance my friend has a tiny, miniscule, claustrophobic box shower where there is no light and every movement causes a bump and a bruise. It has a curved pink enclosure over the top of a hip bath which threatened to overflow if I so much as dropped the soap. The designer must have decided on a luxury caravan model to fit the equally tiny bathroom. Then there was the bachelor shower which in desperation I braved. I kept my runners on and stood under the water without too much movement. My skin made desperate attempts to crawl out of the shower without me but I forced it to stay and together we became cleaner than the shower recess with its live green cultures and strange gelatinous masses. Or the: “Oh my god! Ew, that darn thing is cold and sticky!” The wet shower curtain hitting my warm skin keeps trying to grope me like a live thing, kind of shower. The piece de resistance though was a shower in an inner city Sydney motel. Vast expanses of glass and gleaming chrome took up more than half the generous bathroom. I imagined a whole family fitting in that shower. The door was twice the width of an ordinary room door and the shower head as round as a dinner plate. I could dance a waltz in that shower. I did dance a waltz in that shower.

Have you ever watched a good film and when it comes to the token sex scene the actors wend their way to the bathroom, which gets all steamy. Wet droplets ooze down the glass in a sensual way then the camera pans to more droplets trickling down firm tanned skin, tracing unbelievable curves and muscles. The lovers make all the right moaning and panting noises to convince the audience they should get into a hot shower with their partner. Movie companies should be sued for false advertising. It is all a celluloid hoax. Not cellulite, that’s what most of the rest of us have. Along with rolls and wrinkles and spots and a serious lack of smooth tanned rippling muscles. Oh wait that’s right the other person in the shower with me had the smooth unwrinkled tanned muscular parts. We danced a slow waltz each humming the same tune, harmonising in the bathroom acoustics. He put shampoo in my hair as we danced and he massaged my scalp. I rested my cheek against his shoulder and almost fell asleep standing up. Deep pleasurable sigh! Oh did I mention that tiles and glass can be cold and slippery when wet. The hot water eventually runs out and shampoo stings the eyes and without those fabulous chrome bars on the wall like my gran has, then there is nothing to hang onto to keep safe while attempting gymnastics in the shower. Beside all that I simply wanted to wash off the sweat and smudged makeup after six and a half hours of nightclub dancing.

Definitely overrated!

conversation without words

Conversation without words

She ran her fingertip slowly down the front of his grey micro fibre shirt. He watched its progress towards his belt then grabbed her hand, lifting it to his mouth. Softly kissing each fingertip in turn his eyes never leaving her face. She grinned, raised her eyebrows and turned away from him. Her hand dropped down behind her, palm up fingers curled invitingly. He covered her palm with his and she towed him toward the dance floor. Her arms encircled his neck, his slipped around her waist. They moved in sync .His hands traced her soft curves. Her hands felt the muscles across his shoulders and slid her fingertips down his back. She felt him tremble. He watched her breathing quicken. He tilted his head towards the exit door and raised an eyebrow. She nodded and smiled softly. He guided her through the crowd. They left.



Symbols

A light bulb flashed above my head

A symbol I cried, but instead

Realised the bulb had blown

And in the dark with a groan

I fumbled for the spare.

Once replaced I sat in light

Procrastinating with a sigh

Symbols symbols everywhere

Yet nothing passes by

My braincells are on strike

Might as well switch off the light

There’s nothing in there for me to write!



Genetics (to that pop diva’s song…)

If you wanna be my mother

You got to get with my dad

Genetics is forever

And that makes me quite sad…



Clock –tock-safe

Clock-tick-warm

Clock-tock-heartbeat

Clock-tick-home

generations

Generation Gap


I watch my daughter sprint ahead,

So far ahead I’m left behind.

She runs so fast it makes my head spin.

I remember on my knee when she was small

Her foot, no longer than my thumb,

And I recall, with pride,

I taught her how to run.

Shatter your illusions of love

Shattered remnants

“Shatter your illusions of love, and is it over now do you know how to pick up the pieces and go home?” ‘Gold dust woman’ Fleetwood Mac Rumours album

I slide my foot along the slick high tensile wire beneath me, gripping the wire between my big and second toe, grimly holding on. On the periphery of my vision I can see shards of broken alcohol bottles, used syringes, an occasional condom crumpled in a gelatinous heap, jagged rocks and ominous crevasses, their depths hidden, the light barely penetrating the gloom of the rim. My feet are bleeding but the pain has dulled to numbness from long association. I juggle brittle spheres in my hands. I am not very good at juggling yet I am terrified of dropping the objects circling my head. Each orb contains a child, in foetal position, pain, terror, loss and loneliness etched on each young face. My heart aches as I yearn to touch and comfort them but cannot reach them through the brittle glass of their cages and they in turn cannot know the comfort of my love through the barrier. A wind picks up and the tightrope begins to sway. A bead of sweat slides down my ribs and my hands grow sticky. My heart races, blood pounds in my temples; I am compelled to juggle the young lives in my hands. A sphere leaves my right hand, lifting high above my head following the path of the ones before. Light catches it at the pinnacle sending rainbow sparkles in all directions, then slowly it begins its descent and with horror I realise it has gone too far and I won’t be able to catch it without falling from the tightrope. I watch the orb drop toward its doom, frantically juggling.

Gasping, dehydrated mouth and throat desperately needing saliva, I lay still in the quiet night waiting for the nightmare fear to subside. My heat rate returns to normal as I slide my feet into my old runners and I do the regular night rounds. Tugging a blanket over a small chilled shoulder, folding shut a fallen book and slipping glasses off the sleeping face in the next room, checking in on the night owl still glued to the chat room. I suggest some sleep but know he will still chat until the birds start to sing. It is his way of escaping and he can be anyone he wants online. The kettle boils and I pour water over a tea bag. A box sits on the bench filled with broken pieces of porcelain dolls. I can’t bring myself to throw them out yet. They are the shattered remnants of a collection, one of the few luxuries I had allowed myself to indulge in. I had kept them carefully hidden away, packed in bubble wrap and boxes away from little hands. Nothing is hidden from inquisitive children with no social conditioning to stop them from prying. I lift a broken head, the hair in tattered stings and find myself lost in memories. I sigh and put the broken face back in the box with the other parts. I can’t replace them. I don’t have that sort of money anymore, but I knew when I took on caring for children that it would be a long time before I could afford unnecessary luxuries again.

I had a statuette once. It was of an urchin with a wickedly cheeky little face. About 20cm in height and made by an Italian sculptor. It was a delightful piece of artistry but when I found out at 18 I was pregnant with my first child I gave it as a gift to a man who I knew would never have children and who would appreciate the artistry and skill of that tiny waif. I gave away all my beautiful things. My diamond cut ruby glassware, my wine decanter with matching glasses, my paintings, everything that wasn’t durable. I knew even then that all my resources would need to be child resistant. I guess it was sheer folly to have bought the dolls. The insurance company wouldn’t replace them because they were broken by people I had “knowingly allowed in the house’. The agency I was with then didn’t have insurance “for that sort of thing”. I finally solved the breakage problem with those particular children by buying a box of second hand tiles and letting them break as many as they wanted so long as they helped put the broken bits in the bin afterwards. I remember hearing about a psychologist who suggested his client buy old crockery from second hand shops and smash some whenever the client felt out of control. I adopted that particular idea since my own way of losing control seemed to involve depriving the household of matching crockery. Once upon a time when I was still married and my spouse and I were both working, he and I arrived home late one night and he made the foolish mistake of saying “You could at least get the dishes done regularly”. In one wide swipe I sent every dish on the bench crashing to the floor with a resoundingly satisfying cacophony. Then stomping through the shards in bare feet I exclaimed “There! They are done!” Plastic gradually took a stranglehold on my kitchen cabinets. Plastic is, above all things, durable in the face of uncontrolled tempers.