izzy

handing a person a pulpy mass and asking them to love it is an easy thing to do
spotting Australians at a music festival in Barcelona is an easy thing to do
RM Williams and a nasal twang and pockets filled with nangs

‘where ya from mayte?’ ‘Melbourne!’ ‘no wayyy!’
and the world contracts and the world contracts
and their pupils are still taking it all in

because they know they are crystal coated
they know they sparkle like raw diamonds
they know the fucked up gem inside you

is always brighter than it first looks
and we’re full of broken bones
but you know we are still beautiful

*

sarah

In the dark of the woods where I had long lost my way
I came upon a man lying felled across the path
Like a great white tree, his hair tangled with moss
And two old grey coins pressed into his eyes
I asked him the way home, but his mouth was full of fog
So he cleared a patch at his side, and bade me come lie there
And pressed against the cold wide bulk of his chest
I saw many a strange and wild thing –
The earth made anew, with fish gasping their life out
As the rivers streamed down the land into the sea
Trees staggering like men across wind-whipped wide fields
Their steps growing slower until their roots chained them down
The sun tearing out of its parabola path
And coming to inspect a bushfire’s spread
Women bubbling out of the mud and the clay
With their squalling new charges latched onto their breasts
How long I lay there I could not guess
When I opened my eyes, the man had long gone
The wind howled triumphantly over the mountains
I sat silent and still, in a world made unknown

*