Deadly Pollen | Page 4

no car bomb.
*
One quadrant of sky turns,
face up, black as the ace of spades.

Much as a God can manage
muttering from the side of his mouth.

Star flecks, nova spittle. Rage of
emptiness pours through, for the hell


of it, endlessly. Looking back to
what beginning. The whole
shebang
advances toward, beyond our
best efforts. We live under a
Niagra
of star fall, huge optics dilate time,
blackness like velvet
slips over
chrome. Sounds of nothingness
strung between a singlet
of lights.
*
Barrel of the sun, gun-wad,
cloud packed, cools to Napoleonic

afterglow. The sun is soldier
and hero, after all; always on call
to
strike the last pose, profiling
its rays across the grateful landscape.

Ragged mountains lift up to meet
it, plains puff out chests, the sea
a
carnival of light, ice packs
bristle, glaciers growl. Time spins
on a
coin. Horizon shakes its
dirty mat over cityscape, over glass
and
concrete conspiracies -
roads burn fuses into nightways.
*
Rubbed off sky exposes an
undercoat of white that is really
fuzzed,
mid-day heat. Birds
change over shifts. Things settle.
Shadow drops
under eaves, tier
by tier. Melaleuca is a snowstorm
of bloom in a
backyard.
Planes arrive from here and there;
holiday makers, the
injured
and dead, today's interchangeable
destines. A night club
blows up
in a tropical paradise. In the
slipstream above the
stratosphere,
fear drifts about the globe
as deadly pollen.
*
The day combustible as a
nightclub. Destruction works
in big, blunt
gestures. An
explosion is no rediscovery, it's
return without guide to
the
deepest sink hole from whence

hell's laughter issues. A

sucking into nothingness; void
behind the twin masks of
light and
dark. Not repetition
but continuance. Pre-beginnings.
A precise

point of death
qua death, not infinity but
limitlessness, pain's
spectrum.
*
Compression of bees,
shrub-shaped, in proton loops,
on cushioned
air. Spring!
See the counter, its bright ticking
with fail-safe growth.
Who put
it there? this tubular, tight package,
green and red wires
running to
hidden terminals - watch the numerals
flick over, air fill
with warmth,
this thing ready to go off at a season's
notice, a
bursting forth, flash
of filmic green and bloom
too quick to catch as
we exit our
buildings in a rush to see it.
*
Scent makes the air visible,
seasonal; autumn lays its long

scaffolding of shadow under wood
smoke; winter smells of damp

brickwork; spring lifts the lid on
lighter smells - is something

between cleaning fluids or garden.
Only late at night true secrets

and scents are disclosed; summer
tightens. Scent is a map of an

ancient journey. The poem prints -
makes a seal of every season,
its
message delivered and read.
An Actual Encounter With The Sun On
My Balcony At France Street
( for Gloria Schwartz )
When the moon slipped its knot
and left a ring for the night to drop

through, and a baggage of stars
thudded on the loading bay
at the
other side of the world,
I heard,
"Ho! get up you slack-arse poet,
I want to have a word with
you."

It was the sun.
"This is a surprise," I yawned.
"Shouldn't be - you're the one whose
been whingeing about his own
personal light."
"I must admit," I conceded, "I
was worried there for a bit."
"Right," answered
the sun. He spat at the window turning
it molten.
"You must know by now Stephen,
I visit with a poet every thirty
years or so.
Last time it was Frank O'Hara,
and before that,
Mayakovsky. Can't say it's your turn
but I'll stop by
anyway.
You're not a poet for all time but
for your own time. Don't worry
about it.
And forget those supposed poets
the M=E=Z=Z=A=N=I=N=E=S as
you call them
caught between the floors: they ain't going
nowhere.
So get up and make a cup of tea!"
"Sure, care to join me?"
"Only for a minute," he said, "I've got more
important things to do
today, like glinting
off the Hauraki Gulf and the iron-clad poppy
of
Sydney Tower.
Oh, that reminds me,
then I'm off to San Francisco to wake up that

ex-girlfriend of yours you keep pissing
off with late night calls and
false promises."

By now I could
see the sun was pretty worked up.
"C'mon, forget that crap.
You write some good stuff but you've got to

hang in there, and like me it'll
come to light."
"Thanks sun."
"And knock off the guilt trips and stop
getting pissed (in your Sydney
dreams, pal!) you'll
burn yourself out - I recognise the signs."
"Yeah, seems I have been
a little preoccupied."
The sun jumped onto my balcony
outside the window.
"You don't see much of me down here at
POETS' PALACE - do you?
Move over,
this is the only time I get a look in."
I propped myself up
on one elbow.
"Remember, you're not
writing bus-timetables and calling it

'performance poetry' like a few I
could name. Stick with the
atmospherics,
the true essence of people.
That's your angle, as mine is now
to brow beat you.
And don't get into this doomsday kick
either, leave such things to the
(small minded).
Honestly,
it's straight forward focus."
By now my hangover had
evaporated.
"Hold on sun,
I've a few questions."
"Sorry," called the sun, receding.

"We've had our little talk. Give my regards
to Greece again, if you
ever get there."